Your Creative Push

Catherine Moore is a San Francisco Bay Area based artist. Her work calls the viewer to that marriage of classical and haunting beauty, resembling in subtlety and natural colorings the feeling of another time, when illustration was part information, part poetry.

She has exhibited in galleries across the U.S. and in Germany, Portugal, and Australia, and her work is collected internationally. She is also a member of the Copycat Violence Art Collective, which holds several auctions and group exhibitions throughout the year.

Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/catherinemoore

-How she didn't go to art school until she was 28.

-Her switch from freelance work to showing in galleries and what that transition was like.

-How her original intention was to be a computer animator.

-Some of the more stressful situations she found herself in as a freelance illustrator.

-Her initial struggle with finding her own voice after creating things for other people for so long.

-Her advice to try to not care about what other people think about your art, your style, or your message, and just put it out there in the most unique way possible.

-What it was like to start her creative journey later than most people and her advice for people who might want to start later in life.

-How Vera Wang didn't make her first dress until she was in her forties.

-Being aware of the amount of doors that are shutting as you try to pursue a particular creative passion, and recognizing whether or not it is time to pivot and try a new path.

-The Copycat Violence Art Collective and what it does.

-What she means by illustration being part information and part poetry.

-How her art teacher told her that she was "never going to be an artist" when she was 14.

-Her advice for people who have had a teacher tell them that they aren't a good artist.

-Dealing with procrastination.

-How deadlines help to keep her focused on finishing work.

"I never thought that I could make money as an artist. I think that's a common myth that exists in our society."

"I'd get so burnt out from doing client work that I didn't allow myself time to create my own work at all."

"I got in my own way. I asked, what is it that the audience wants to see? What is it that these gallery patrons would want to see? Instead of making something that I wanted, I was still in that mode of making something that I thought people would want instead of using my own voice."

"The more you keep going, the more you improve and the better you get. Practice makes proficient."

"It's never too late."

"That opportunity is like an open door that maybe takes you on a path you didn't think you wanted, but it might lead to something amazing."

"If you're trying to go into the art world, you have to have thick skin. You're going to get criticized."

Copycat Violence Art Collective

Frazetta: Painting with Fire

Stephanie Law on Your Creative Push

Amanda Stalter on Your Creative Push

Kari-lise Alexander (Overlooked Details: An Artist's Journey)

Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter

Melissa Sue Stanley is a Chicago artist, working in a variety of media to create paintings and soft sculptures. Her work is collected internationally and has been exhibited in galleries across the US.

Max Bare is a Chicago artist and designer. He creates and self-publishes comic series Mystery Afoot, Sour Milk and the upcoming Scally-Ho!

Together Melissa and Max collaborate on fun projects such as handmade zines, murals, and live-painting. Their current project is a comic book series for local brewery, Revolution Brewing. They also manage and host the Chicago Drink & Draw Social Club.

Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/202

-How they choose which mediums to work in and how they balance them all at the same time.

-The value in your Patreon patron's opinions as well as your closest fans.

-Max's journey and what it took to get him to quit his job and become a full-time freelance artist.

-What led them to create comics for Revolution Brewery.

-Hosting their Drink & Draw group.

-Being on a panel at C2E2.

-Collaborations and the difference between working with other people and working with each other.

-Knowing each other's strengths and weaknesses.

-Their advice for getting out there and finding people to collaborate with.

-Taking matters into your own hands if there isn't a local meetup group in order to find people to collaborate with.

-Tackling the feeling of needing permission to do the things that you want to do.

-Being motivated by the fear of having to go back to your old job.

-The realization that you'll feel better mentally the more time you invest into your creative passion.

-Designing their home to be a work space in which they are always surrounded by their projects, and how that helps them to maintain a creative lifestyle.

-Melissa's plan to save up money to pursue her passion and the mantra she told herself, "There is no montage."

-Max's encouragement to just keep creating, even if what you are creating isn't good, just keep pushing through those bad drawings.

"It's been really great for me because I'm getting into a world that I've always wanted to experience and be a part of, and I have a really great helper getting me get into it."

"If you're living somewhere and you can't find that group of people, then you should really try to start it."

"The focus of our home is just all work space."

"There is no montage."

"I got wrapped up in a lot of these bright lights that were steering me off this path."

"It was also a really good relationship test, us butting our creative heads."

"If you want to do that thing, just do it anyway. Just keep doing it and if you're good enough at it, then eventually someone will pay you."

"This notion of just do it anyway was the propulsion for me for the past five years."

"If there's a certain passion that you want to follow or an idea that you want to put out there, just try to get it out there as soon as you can."

"You have to live through all of this to get to where you're going, so you might as well live it."

Revolution Brewery

C2E2

Your Creative Push Facebook Group

Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Patreon

Website / Instagram / Tumblr / Twitter

Catherine Moore : Website / Instagram / Facebook

Ann Rea is a San Francisco-based artist and the founder of Artists Who THRIVE. Her artistic talent is praised by her mentor, Wayne Thiebaud, an American art icon.

She has been featured in Fortune, The Wine Enthusiast, and Art Business News magazines, in The San Francisco Chronicle, in the book Career Renegade by Jonathan Fields, and on HGTV, ABC, and The Good Life Project.

She is also a favorite instructor on Creative Live's "Money and Life" channel, broadcasting to over one million students worldwide.

Ann is the creator of "The MAKING Art Making MONEY Semester ®," eight foundational online business and marketing courses. Her students study with fellow artists from around the globe via live video calls within a welcoming and supportive community.

Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/annrea

-How she became the "artist mentor" accidentally.

-How the press she received brought artists to her, seeking help, and that is what set her on the path to helping them sell their art without feeling like a sell-out.

-Stereotypes like "starving artist" and how they negatively affect the opinion and motivation of artists.

-All of the positive changes that occurred in her art and in herself once she started getting paid for it.

-Knowing exactly how much money you want to make, and by when.

-The importance of writing down your goals and your plan.

-What do you want, precisely? How are you going to get it? And who can help you?

-What an artist's plan to make money should be comprised of.

-Dr. E's sagely words that every entrepreneur is an artist and every artist is an entrepreneur.

-How she would rather be pulled toward something than to push herself toward it.

-Knowing the difference between your goal and your overall mission.

-A synchronistic event that she considers to be a "magical intervention" that got her to paint again.

-Her words of encouragement for people who might be suffering from things such as depression, anxiety, or insomnia as a result of not pursuing their creative passions.

-The power of exercise and a healthier diet.

-How if you don't schedule your creative passion, then there is a significant chance that you won't get to it.

"The press is what really brought other artists to me. They were looking for help on how to sell their art without feeling like a sell-out."

"There are cultural messages about making art and making money. Those messages were distorting the thinking and the confidence of artists unnecessarily. I really wanted to set the record straight."

"We could probably sit here for a good hour and list all of the negative stereotypes that are thrust upon artists. Unfortunately a lot of artists swallow these stereotypes and then they spread them amongst themselves."

"A plan to sell art without a plan is a plan to sell no art."

"Your plan is kind of like a compass more than it is a roadmap. You just want to make sure that you're pointed in the right direction."

"Instead of focusing on what's holding me back or what's bogging me down, I spend a considerate amount of effort remembering my mission."

"This is not a dress rehearsal. If you're not happy, you need to start to bust a move, and move in the right direction."

Making Art Making Money

Artists who THRIVE

Website / Facebook / Twitter

Melissa Sue Stanley [Website] & Max Bare [Website]

Are you scared to create some of the ideas that pop in your head?

Are they too big? Too small? Already been done? Never been done? Don't know how to do it? What will people think of you if you created this scary idea?

In today's episode, Youngman takes a look at the reasons why you never seem to get ideas, why you might be too scared to bring the ideas that you do get into existence, and the five EASY steps to change that pattern.

Get the courage and creative inspiration to finally start creating those scary ideas!

Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/scaryideas

"Ideas are fleeting. They're like dreams -- if you don't have a habit of writing them down, you will totally forget them."

"Ideas come with excitement. You get that idea and sometimes your heart can skip a beat. That excitement can really spur an idea on, kind of like hitting a ball up in the air with a paddle. That idea has a life and a movement to it. So keep hitting that ball and keep it moving before that excitement disappears."

"Let the idea take you for a ride."

"That transition from a thought in your mind to a thought written down on paper is harmless. It is not going to kill you if you write down a stupid idea."

"You never know where those ideas are going to take you. You've just gotta let them take you somewhere."

YCP Episode 187 with Tom Harold

YCP Episode 40 with Julie Zantopoulos

YCP Episode 188 with Kelly Killagain

YCP Episode 186 with Andrew T. Kearns

YCP Episode 139 with Lisa Congdon

YCP Episode 152 with Speo

Ann Rea : Website / Making Art Making Money

Agnieszka Pilat is an award-winning, Polish-born artist who studied painting and illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA. Her works can be found in public and private collections in United States, Poland, Canada and China. She currently lives and maintains a full time studio in San Francisco and is represented by numerous galleries throughout United States.

Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/pilat

-How The Hills Have Eyes graphic novel played a role in inspiring her to become an artist.

-One of her earliest creative moments in which she drew all over her childhood walls.

-How she doesn't believe in the words "inspiration" and "talent."

-Laziness and the difficulty she sometimes has to just start.

-How athletes put their sneakers next to their bed so that they can get right into the flow, and how creative people should do the same.

-The importance of habits and rituals.

-Her fascination with time and how it plays a role in her art.

-The differences between her series Disrupt and Time, Deconstructed.

-How she has committed to painting her cousin as she ages for the rest of her life.

-The metaphor of your day being like a human life – when you wake up you are a baby and when you go to bed you are elderly.

-The importance of finding small amounts of time throughout your busy day and how all of that time adds up to something substantial.

-What Agnieszka's cousin thinks about being the subject of her long-term paintings.

-Her "number signature" and what it represents.

-A stumbling block that she has encountered when she works for too long on a particular piece, without walking away from it to "heal."

-The five stages of creativity.

-One of her worst creative moments.

-Her best moment, selling her first big painting.

-Her advice for selling your first piece of art.

-Her formula for balancing her time as an artist.

"I'm a very big believer in habits and rituals, so I very consciously designed habits and rituals that will push me towards things that will make me productive during the day."

"When I start painting, I come very, very prepared, so there is no waste of time."

"That's something I need to work on – to be able to walk away and give myself time to heal from this and to be able to look at it with a fresh eye."

"Those small steps, those small, unordinary things will bring you to a good place."

"You have to get very comfortable learning how to tell people 'No.' -- 'No, I don't have time. I'm working. No, I can't go out.'

The Hills Have Eyes Graphic Novel

Rocky

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Website / Facebook / Instagram / Gold Gallery

Clark Huggins is a visual artist who combines imagery from his 13 years of experience as a theater actor with his lifelong love of fantasy, science fiction, and comics. In addition to his personal work, he has worked on several tabletop gaming properties, including ANDROID:NETRUNNER, CALL OF CTHULHU, and STAR WARS. His work has appeared in SPECTRUM, IMAGINE FX magazine, and INFECTED BY ART. Clark also works as a professional storyboard artist for film and television production, and has worked on them television series TRUE BLOOD, DAMAGES, and AMERICAN HORROR STORY. Clark is the creator of RECKLESS DECK, an idea generating card deck for artists looking to jumpstart their creativity.

Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/clarkhuggins

-His journey as an illustrator, storyboard artist, actor, and waiter.

-Striking a balance between working for money and working towards personal projects and goals.

-His advice for people who have a job that is not only non-creative, but it also takes up most of their time.

-Seeing your creative passion as the thing that makes you a superhero.

-Some of the Resistances that used to hold him back in his creative process.

-His apprehension to the solitude of visual art and the comparison of that with acting.

-Attacking the canvas in a romantic way, and how he conquered this ineffective process.

-The importance of learning technique, especially when it comes to starting a new piece.

-How he came up with the idea for Reckless Deck.

-The permissiveness that Reckless Deck can give to someone who might be timid or unconvinced to create something "unconventional."

-Some of the lessons he learned from the first failed Kickstarter attempt.

-His advice for someone who wants to start a Kickstarter fund.

-How he balances his time with all of the different projects he has going on as well as having a 20-month old son.

"Use your time well. When you have downtime, make sure that you're productive."

"When you're trying to build a career from some kind of art form, it's almost like you're a superhero. You have a secret identity that's your day job and then at night you put on your costume and do your thing."

"Be willing to make a mess. Be willing to put things together that don't belong together. Enjoy the experience of making something, rather than worrying about whether it's right or good enough or whether you should be doing it or not."

"The deck is meant to inspire leaping before you look."

"It doesn't need to say something about you every time you pick up a pencil and open up your sketchbook."

Reckless Deck Campaign

Website / Reckless Deck / Instagram

Agnieszka Pilat : Website / Instagram / Gold Gallery

Gwenn Seemel is a full-time artist, portraitist, and free-culture advocate. Her beautiful, unique portraits as well as all of her other work is intentionally free from copyright.

Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/gwennagain

-How her personal, creative, and professional life merge all into one.

-The pros and cons of separating your personal and creative life.

-Her battle with endometriosis and the story behind "Crime Against Nature."

-How things like homosexuality within nature are much more prevalent than is reported scientifically, and how things like dressing flamboyantly, not having offspring, and having multiple sexual partners can be connected to animals.

-The origins of her decision to free all of her work from copyright.

-How creativity and copyright go hand in hand.

-How she got over the question of "am I special enough and why do I think I am allowed to do this?" and how focusing on portraiture helped her to put that specialness onto them.

-The importance of showing your work and connecting with other people, because it adds responsibility and accountability.

-Art can be self-expression or communication, and the differences between the two types of people, and how she tries to move between those two things.

-How marketing can be a creative outlet.

-One of her first creative moments and how a compliment from her brother (during intergalactic travels) really inspired her.

-How sometimes all it takes is just that ONE compliment from someone who gets it to keep you going.

-What it is like to make a portrait for someone and then give it to them.

-How she deals with what she calls "the stupids," when everything you do seems to be bad.

-How some of her best moments come when she completes a project, whatever it may be.

-Art and creativity bring her the desire and ability to be in this world.

-How she is inspired by everyone around her, especially the people who she makes portraits for.

-To reframe the way you think about mistakes and actually embrace them.

-If you are viewing something as a mistake, it means that you are evolving and not remaining stagnant.

"The work is what's valuable to the world and it should be done in the best way possible."

"I am the only one who can do it anyway, so I might as well completely release it into the world and have it be used."

"Creativity is about taking elements from the world around you and from inside of you and mixing that all up and making something of it."

"Any time you take risks, you're going to have this crippling self-doubt sometimes."

"Crime Against Nature"

Creative Commons

Zoobiquity: The Astonishing Connection Between Human and Animal Health by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz & Kathryn Bowers

What It Is by Lynda Barry

Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity by Lawrence Lessig

"Rip, A Remix Manifesto" (movie)

All About Love by Bell Hooks

Give And Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success by Adam Grant

The Myth of Choice: Personal Responsibility in a World of Limits by Kent Greenfield

Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights by Kenji Yoshino

Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Uncopyright / Patreon

Clark Huggins : Website / Reckless Deck

Seth and Andrew McMurry (Nukazooka) have been producing high-quality action shorts since 2011. Their polished films, riddled with special effects bring to life both current and nostalgic characters and worlds, like Super Mario Brothers, Pokemon, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Darth Vader, Buzz Lightyear, Minecraft, and Legos, just to name a few. To date, they have well over a million subscribers and over 350 million views on Youtube.

Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/nukazooka

-Their creative history and what made them to making the Nukazooka channel.

-The idea of making shorter videos, knowing that their audience on YouTube tends to prefer shorter content.

-The advantages of keeping a small, family-like crew.

-How all of Nukazooka's videos started out as a question of "what if?"

-Where the "dark" aspects of their videos come from and their intentional contrast to the happy-go-lucky type of worlds that they use as the setting.

-The idea of competition and how it doesn't need to be perceived as competition, rather, shared growth.

-The importance of staying grounded and being inspired by the fans that are inspired enough to create something because of them.

-Looking back at the following that you have gained and making sure to be appreciative of how far you have come.

-The importance of consistent, quality content.

-Staying familiar, but adding a twist.

-Not wanting to stay stagnant as creative people and as filmmakers and wanting to think bigger.

-The actual process of creating one of Nukazooka's videos.

-Andrew's process of editing after everything is filmed.

-Nukazooka's doubts after filming "Mario Underworld."

-The strategy of working on the beginning and the end first and then working the middle afterwards.

-Spending so much time on a particular project that you don't know if it is good or bad because you are too close to it for too long.

-Dealing with haters.

-Treating their characters lovingly.

"I never wanted visual effects to be a thing that identifies us."

"We pride ourselves in the quality we put out and I feel like that's what our fans expect, which is what we like. We start with the story first and then enhance them with the effects."

"We try to do a lot with very little. Simplicity is super-underrated."

"I want people to be successful. Because that's what I would have wanted when I was starting out."

"It was always important to us to make sure that we loved the videos, first and foremost. That we made videos that we would want to watch."

"Every single upload we try to learn something new."

"Editing is very important. Editing can really make something great."

RocketJump

Corridor Digital

Youtube / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter

Nicolás Uribe is a painter born in Madison, WI, currently based in Bogotá, Colombia. He graduated with Honors as an Illustration Major from School of Visual Arts in NY. Nicolás has had numerous solo exhibitions both in the US and South America, and has exhibited his work in Mexico, Spain, and Egypt, among other countries. He splits his time between preparing works for upcoming projects and teaching Life Drawing and Painting at the Fine Arts Faculty of the Pontifical Xavierian University in Bogotá. Nicolás is also part of the team at Blank Atelier in Bogotá, where he teaches workshops privately.

Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/nicolas

-Some of his earliest artistic influences.

-The realization that he wasn't good at creating comic books and the shift that he made as a result.

-The influence that his teachers have had on him, especially Steven Assael.

-How the fundamentals of painting are the same, no matter who is teaching them.

-The idea that art is taught within art and the problems that sometimes arise because of it.

-How to escape the influences of your teachers in order to develop your own style.

-The way that art is based on the things that YOU care about, and much less on the technical skills of making a piece of art.

-His advice for discovering your own true voice or style.

-Being able to be appreciative of other artists' work instead of being envious.

-Taking inspiration from another artist's journey, rather than their individual works.

-How your art doesn't have to be larger than you think it has to be – it doesn't have to make the world better or change the universe.

-His opinion on the "next Rembrandt" and trying to copy art.

-How human experience is what drives a great painting.

-The fear that comes from taking the first step in many of the things we do.

-His Kickstarter project and the vulnerability involved with it.

-How the projects that we do don't have to be about making money, but about sharing, giving back, and creating something memorable.

"My one doubt, always, is to know if I have the same effect as my teachers had on me."

"The effect my students have on me is probably far larger than the one I hope to have on them."

"You can go to twenty workshops of twenty different artists and honestly, you're going to hear the same exact thing."

"That thing you're feeling, that little thing in the pit of your stomach where you know that you're suffering while you're learning? We've all been through it."

"Art is amazing because it's about so much more – so many other things that are not really even dependent on those skills."

"Let's try to figure out why you like something, and in trying to figure out why you like something, you're going to learn something about yourself that is far more useful than knowing how to paint an apple."

"You have to get to a point where you face yourself and you're vulnerable."

"When you're moved by something, don't walk away from it."

"That first step, that's what exceptional people do. They take that huge first step."

"This is measurable. I'm going to do this and if nobody cares, it's like the world telling me that nobody cares about my work. That is horrifying."

"I could care less what people will tell me about my painting. I would still go back and paint."

Nicolás's Kickstarter

Website / Facebook / Instagram

Nukazooka: YouTube / Facebook

Matt Kohr is a concept artist in the game industry and has worked at Motiga Games, Vicious Cycle Software, and Hi-Rez Studios. He is also the creator of the digital painting resource CtrlPaint.com.

Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/mattkohr

-How his path was much less linear than it might seem on paper, and more of jumping in and getting in over his head and figuring it out as he went.

-The idea of setting a major goal and working towards it every day, and then being okay if the goal changes over time.

-The difficulty that he sometimes has identifying as a teacher.

-The value of communication.

-How learning to digitally paint for beginners can be difficult even though there is a lot of free information and tutorials out there. It's a matter of where to start and in what order to consume things.

-Using your frustration for something that isn't working as permission for you to do it yourself.

-How sometimes ignorance is bliss, and how sometimes it is better to not know how long and difficult a pursuit really will be.

-The approach that he takes with Ctrl+Paint to make the scary goal of learning to paint much more manageable for beginners.

-How beginner painters are in much more danger than intermediate painters.

-The idea of being working for someone else towards a goal that isn't yours and that you don't have complete control over.

-Maintaining focus on a central thesis that you set out for yourself and working towards it on a daily basis.

-Pewdiepie as an example of a rare case of personality overcoming an original thesis.

-His advice for people with no followers or few followers.

-The power in having a small, loyal following.

-The danger in using the amount of likes you get as a test for whether or not something was a terrible idea.

-His hesitancy to post his latest personal work online and why he chose to do it.

-Some of the day-to-day struggles of running Ctrl+Paint.

-How hard it is to start something and to get that momentum rolling.

"It was really a series of me being overconfident and jumping into something, getting in over my head and then scrambling to make it work over and over and over."

"Have one really strong goal and work towards it, but don't expect to actually hit that precise thing. Art is so unpredictable and things are changing. It's okay if that goal changes, because whatever it changes to could also be really exciting."

"I'm not by any means the best painter, but I have been the most annoyed audience member."

"That sense that something is wrong in the world and you could do it better is a really good feeling to act on. Because you've got the taste. Follow that hunch."

"I think the beginner is in the most danger."

"If you have a small audience that is dedicated to whatever you're putting out into the world, you can totally make it work financially."

"I think there really is something to having a vision and sticking to it and not overly relying on the popular feedback immediately."

Ctrl+Paint

Pewdiepie

Website / LinkedIn / Twitter / ArtStation

Nicolás Uribe: Website / Instagram