Natalie Vilter is, by her own admission, a child at heart. It’s a trait that serves her perfectly in her dual life as a Wausau-based artist. Whether she is simplifying the complexities of the human nervous system into playful, engaging book illustrations for a young audience, or teaching a room full of energetic kids at the Center for the Visual Arts, Vilter’s mission remains exactly the same: making art accessible, educational and undeniably fun.
For Vilter, creating art has never been just about the final product; it is about the environment that nurtures it. After earning her illustration degree at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2023, she purposefully returned to Central Wisconsin — the very place she took her first CVA ceramics class at age six.
“As a kid I really enjoyed doing artwork and then obviously in school having art classes really helped harness that,” Vilter said. “I’ve also always had a really supportive family and friends, so it was always something that I knew people supported for me.”
After graduating from Wausau West High School, Vilter originally sought a career in animation.
“You get to draw a lot and I think the hustle of it was really intriguing to me since you have to work so many hours for it,” she said.
Soon enough, Vilter discovered that she could still tackle the same type of work, but with less artistic constraints, by pursuing a career in illustrating children’s books.
“I felt like I had more control of my style, whereas in animation I had to really work on a certain style for a company,” Vilter said.
When it comes to illustrating, or drawing, many still picture an old-timey Disney illustrator, sleeves rolled up, working pen-in-hand at a drafting table. While the creative work, and in many cases the finished product, remains the same, the environment surrounding the industry has changed a lot over the years.
Vilter creates her illustrations, like most professionals in the industry today, in Photoshop using a Wacom drawing tablet. While she’s not leaving a single visible mark on the tablet, the sensors between Vilter’s electronic pen and the tablet transmit her strokes onto a computer screen. Instead of pen and paper, it’s now pen and pixel.
“My tablet basically is just this square plate. There’s no screen or anything and it hooks up to my computer,” she said. “So with my pen I’ll draw on it like I’m drawing on a piece of paper. And then whatever I’m drawing on there transfers onto the laptop but the thing is since there’s no screen on my tablet I have to really work with my motor skills. So I’ll be looking at the screen but I’ll be drawing on my lap ... there’s no AI involved or anything.”
This approach gives artists like Vilter more freedom to clean up mistakes or make another attempt at a particular detail without damaging the project.
“You’re able to really easily erase mistakes,” Vilter said. “If you need to erase a mistake [on paper] sometimes the graphite never really leaves the paper so over time you might see indents in the paper or the graphite might smear. Another thing is you can easily adjust the positioning of different objects just like grabbing an object and moving it into a different location. You can really work with size in different ways, too, so if you had to make a really large illustration you wouldn’t have to have that large sheet of paper. In that way it can save space and money.”
Another benefit is selecting and altering colors after drawing. Vilter also explained that the computer element allows artists to keep colors consistent, too. But Vilter often uses classic methods for bringing her images to life with color.
“If I have more time I will sometimes draw something in Photoshop and then I’ll print out my drawing and then transfer it onto a watercolor piece of paper and then I’ll use gouache and watercolors to make a traditional piece of artwork,” she said.
By the time Vilter graduated college, she was no longer interested in an animation career, but she still wanted to incorporate that element of vibrant storytelling into her artwork, so she forged her own path into the world of children’s book illustration. The first step was creating a website and uploading her portfolio, giving potential employers an idea of her unique art style. Then, she had to put herself out there.
“I did a lot of networking,” Vilter said. “A lot of the time as an illustrator you have to send a lot of cold emails to places and say your name, your contact information and what type of work you do and then send a link to your website or your portfolio for them to see if they’re interested in your work ... I find that I have to spend a lot of time researching online about different publishing companies and who to contact.”
By combing through an artist’s portfolio, book publishers are usually able to identify an artist’s signature style and approach those best suited for the book they have in mind, rather than forcing uncomfortable stylistic constraints on an artist. Vilter said her fun character design and spacial choices are what identify her as a unique artist.
“I always like to have a bit of fluidity with my character design, really emphasizing really unique shapes,” she said, “I also really enjoy using wonky perspectives and kind of using those perspectives to really fill up the space in order to have the viewer easily flow through a page.”
Vilter attributes her unique perspective and signature style to her central Wisconsin upbringing.
“The location that I am in really emphasizes the work that I do. I always try to implement some rural motifs into my work, like using the wetlands with the frogs,” she said. “I also live next to a forest so I always enjoy drawing large pine trees. I’ve also really gotten accustomed to drawing a lot of cows. I think my wonky perspective is really inspired by the rolling hills of the area.”
Over the past couple of years, Vilter has worked for several different companies, fulfilling different illustration needs. First, she did some illustration work for a company that distributes children’s books directly to schools. Then she worked on character design for a Minneapolis company and created fun superheroes based on some theater programs the company develops. For the better part of the past year, Vilter worked with one company to create two different series of educational children’s books, illustrating a total of 12 books last year.
“For all my illustration work I have deadlines,” Vilter said. “When I did my first series of children’s books last year I think I was working on them from the beginning of February to the beginning of June ... There’s a ton of research. There’s quite a few days of just trying to research different things on the market to see what I can do to make my books original and set them apart from things that are already out there, and figure out what kids would really be invested in and drawn to.”
Today, Vilter balances tight publishing deadlines with her work managing community arts programs and youth art camps at the Center for Visual Design. In her role at CVA, she frequently works with children in art classes and tries to give kids room for self expression — an important gift that help set her on the path she walks today. Vilter doesn’t just help instruct children on how to create art, she learns a great deal from the kids and grows as an artist, too.
“I’m going to be honest, children are much more imaginative and creative and artistic than I could ever be, so they’re very inspiring,” Vilter said. “Also, their interests and what they’re excited about really helps me understand what I want to include in my books. I find it really difficult to figure out — if I’m drawing a child — what their outfit should be. It’s always really great seeing children out in the world to see what their outfits are because that really helps me understand what their interest would be and what they would be wearing realistically instead of just like a t-shirt and jeans.”
Vilter’s career is a perfect loop of inspiration. The Wausau community that nurtured her early creative ambitions now relies on her to help foster Wausau’s next generation of artists at the CVA. In return, those very children provide the spark and authenticity she needs to bring her illustrations to life. By giving back to the hometown that shaped her, Vilter isn’t just teaching kids how to paint or draw — she’s ensuring that her own inner child never runs out of stories to tell.
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