Your Creative Push

Andrew Huang is a Toronto-based music and video producer with a penchant for working within absurd, self-imposed limitations. He has released over 2,000 songs in a massive range of genres.

Andrew is best known for his Song Challenge video series, which invites viewers to dare him in feats of musicianship, and has garnered him over 40,000,000 views on his YouTube channel. He has penned a five-language rap, composed a song with 300,000 notes in it (in celebration of surpassing 300,000 subscribers), and covered numerous pop songs using only the sounds of items mentioned in the lyrics - for instance, "99 Red Balloons" played on red balloons.

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

-How he started making such creative music videos.

-The story of one of his first sponsored videos from a jeans company.

-His expectations for, and his eventual relationship with sponsors.

-The notion of trying as much as you can and seeing what "sticks to the wall."

-How it is sometimes impossible to determine what makes some songs or videos more popular than others.

-The pros and cons of becoming known for one particular element of a wide range of content that he puts out.

-The story behind his album, Comet.

-The way that excitement for a particular project during it's creation is almost always linked to the actual finished project itself.

-How he isn't afraid of being different, but of being too normal.

-The importance of finding the overall goal of what you want to create.

-How he sometimes has too many projects waiting to be created, and it is hard for him to narrow down which one to work on next.

-How sometimes the first step is the hardest, but you just have to sit yourself down and get started, because it all gets easier once you do.

"I can usually tell what's going to be possible even before I attempt it."

"I don't know if I would call it foresight, but there was definitely an understanding that this was a growing medium and this was a place where advertisers were going to be coming more and more."

"I thought I was going to be a producer-for-hire and an engineer-for-hire forever, but as I've worked more with YouTube and grown an audience there it seemed to be a more viable thing."

"I'm a pretty prolific person, so for me it's all about that approach of throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks."

"It's just about doing a lot of things and trying a lot of things and finding the things that work. Sometimes afterwards you don't even know why they worked, but they did."

"Do as much as you can."

"I'm a real advocate for the 'less is more' kind of approach."

"When I look back on the stuff that I'm the most proud of, it was the pieces that came out of being really excited about a particular concept or a particular bit of inspiration that I had."

"For me, I think it's the opposite. I think I have a fear of something being too normal."

"What's important is finding the vision and the overall goal of where you want to be going and aiming there and working towards that."

"Being unique is not necessarily a goal that everyone needs to have."

"I have thousands of projects sitting on my hard drives and it's hard to narrow down which one to work on next."

"I think there's a compounding effect that happens when you can work more in depth rather than in breadth."

"Once you get going, it's way easier than you think it will be."

"Being able to be creative and to have agency over the way that I'm spending my time is actually a health benefit."

Bach's "Air on the G String" - played with actual g-strings

300,000 Note Song

"Comet" by Andrew Huang

Website / YouTube / iTunes / Bandcamp / Soundcloud / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Tumblr

Lois van Baarle is a freelance illustrator and animator living in Utrecht (the Netherlands). She has lived all over the world, including the United States, Indonesia, France, and Belgium. She is widely known online as Loish, and has become a sensation in the digital art world. Her first published collection of her works is called "The Art of Loish" and was successfully funded on Kickstarter in 2 hours.

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

-What it was like to sell out her Kickstarter campaign in such a short period of time.

-What the positive feedback and the support of her fans means to her.

-One of her early memories of drawing in kindergarten, and an important lesson that she learned as a result.

-Manipulating your lucky mistakes in your favor.

-The notion of getting distance from your work and also sharing it out into the world.

-How some of the pieces that she thinks will do the best end up not receiving as much attention and vice versa.

-Her repetitive strain injury -- how it affected her life and how she deals with it moving forward.

-Her advice for people to avoid a repetitive strain injury.

-Her first year of animation college and how it was one of the darkest times of her life (and what she learned from it).

-The connections that you can make on the internet and how those connections can sometimes change your life.

-The value of making attainable goals and not putting too much pressure on yourself for amazing end results.

-How and why she started her mini-tutorials.

-Her formula for balancing her time.

-How you need to have a good read on yourself and how much time you are spending on a particular project or portion of a project and have the wherewithal to call it quits and save the rest for tomorrow if you aren't putting in your best work.

-The freedom that her art and creativity has brought to her life.

-Some of her varied inspirations, including Alphonse Mucha, Grimes, and The Wire.

"If you like to draw rough and you like to sketch, you get a lot of lucky mistakes."

"It's not just skill. It's also how you present your work and talk about your work that adds to your creativity."

"Taking it away from my computer and putting it into the world always helps me contextualize what I do and to see what it means to others and understand how that work is received outside of my own little bubble."

"I've actually learned to turn off that part of my brain to not think too much about how something will be received because you never really know."

"What I would tell myself if I could go back in time is to just not draw for really really long periods of time in a stressed-out manner."

"Sometimes it's better to just not meet that deadline if it means your mental or physical health."

"Drawing is just like everything I do -- I didn't even realize how important it was to me until I had to stop doing it."

"I really felt like I had nothing to say artistically, because I just didn't fit what the teachers wanted. I felt like my ideas were useless."

"If you have attainable goals then you can really start enjoying what you do. Just enjoying the feeling of being in a creative flow."

"If you say 'I'm going to sketch for an hour,' that's attainable. You're not saying what you're going to sketch. You're not saying how good your sketches have to be. You're just saying that it's going to be for an hour."

"When you're just practicing, you don't know where it's going to lead and you shouldn't think too much about where it's going to lead. You should just be in the moment."

"My work has become a way for me to express myself and I feel so lucky to be able to do that as my job."

"There was a certain level of self-acceptance needed for me to understand what was right for me."

"Everybody's got their own way. And I think if you search for your own way and you eventually find it, you get so much fulfillment out of it."

Lois's book

Alphonse Mucha

Grimes

The Wire

Website / Facebook / DeviantArt / Instagram / Twitter

Roxanne Charles is a mixed media artist of Strait Salish and European descent. She is an active and proud member of Semiahmoo First Nation in Surrey, British Columbia where she promotes art, language, and culture. Roxanne is a contemporary story teller whose goal is to touch, move, and inspire others through her work.

She works with a wide range of media. Her work often explores a variety of themes such as spirituality, identity, hybridity, the environment, urbanization and various forms of structural violence.

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

-Her artistic history and how she got to the point she was at today.

-The moment that she realized that she could get back into art as a potential career.

-How she uses art as a tool to engage in conversations with people.

-Some of the issues that she tries to use her art to start the conversation, such as colonization and the displacement of women.

-How creating an art community allows the art to be seen and touched by so many more people, so that it can evoke more conversation and communication.

-How she is often very hard on herself and that makes her to not want to share it (and how to get over that fear).

-The power that comes in just starting a project.

-How her worst moment and her best moment went hand in hand at her graduation project.

-Her 10 foot tall transformation figure.

-The weaving group that she created and the benefits that come from being in a group like that.

-How it is therapeutic to work on art with other people.

-Her advice for anyone who wants to get involved with artistic groups or communities.

-How most of her inspiration comes from nature and the outdoors.

"I have always liked art and enjoyed creating things, however it wasn't a path that I believed I could pursue."

"Conceptual art is a way that you can engage the public in a lot of the things that you care about. So for me it has become more about advocacy than the actual process of art. I find that I use it as a tool to interact and inspire others and engage in conversations that people might not typically have."

"I don't think the answers lie within myself, but they lie within someone who doesn't know they exist."

"I try not to preach or protest, but provoke questions that would engage people in offering up their own ideas, rather than asserting my own."

"I tend to be really hard on myself so nothing is ever good enough. Sometimes that prevents me from wanting to share it."

"Every opportunity that I have to start something, I start it, and then try to take the time to continue it. It's not a race. It's about enjoying the process of creating and trying not to be too hard on myself."

"When I'm able to start creating it, I'm ten steps ahead of where I would have been if I just contemplated not doing it or not having enough time."

"I think failures are the best. It's the best way to learn, to have things stick with you, and to discover new things that you wouldn't have considered possible before."

"I constantly challenge myself to do things I'm not comfortable with."

"I find that personal and human interaction is a good way to engage the public. There's things that you can't say through a sculpture or a painting or a vase."

"I don't believe that art should be just visual. It should be more experiential."

"Your ideas are valid. There are people that want to know what you have to say and want to see what you have to create."

Facebook

Zoë Williams creates otherworldly creatures that serve as spirit guides. Her needle felt sculptures are inspired by dreams, visions, and the collective unconscious.

Born in 1983 in New Orleans, LA, Zoë Williams holds a BA in Fine Art from the University of New Orleans and a Certificate in Fiber Art from the University of Washington. Her work in needle felted wool has been exhibited in galleries around the world. She currently lives and works in New York City.

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

-Her artistic history and what inspired her to want to start needle felting.

-The first sculpture she made of a rabbit based on a dream that she had.

-The concept of the collective unconscious and how it affects her artwork and her life.

-How she has always been fearless for the type of materials she uses in her sculptures.

-Her advice for anyone who wants to do something completely unique or different.

-The value of trial and error.

-How a part-time job might actually allow more stability than one might assume, and it can also provide a nice buffer for the "feast or famine" nature of selling art.

-Some of the pitfalls that she tries not to get held back by with her art.

-The joy that she gets from connecting with people who connect with her art.

"I had only ever seen it in the context of really cutesy little toys and Christmas ornaments and things like that. I really thought it had potential to make sculpture."

"Through the artwork, I was able to work through the dream. And ever since then, my dreams have been a major source of inspiration for the artwork itself."

"It's almost like the piece of art reminds them of their own experiences and their own point of view. And the intersection of those two is what makes it a successful piece of art."

"I've always just done what I wanted when it came to materials."

"At the end of the day it's still sculpture, even if it's soft and not stone or clay."

"There's really nothing like just picking it up and giving it a try. No video will show you everything that you will experience when you try a new technique."

"That's what I thought people did: you grow up, you get a job, you stop making art."

"It's very difficult not to at least consider what kind of work might sell well. I feel like that is a pitfall that I continue to, if not fall into, then tip-toe around the side of."

"The best moment for me is when I meet someone who likes my work and I get to talk to that person."

Werifesteria (July 8- August 5, 2016) My Plastic Heart, New York, NY

Femme to Femme Fatale, curated by Beautiful Bizarre, Modern Eden Gallery, San Francisco, CA

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Jane Radstrom is a figurative painter from San Francisco, CA. She is known for her unique pastel portraits of people depicted with multiple poses layered over one another, so that they appear to be moving. Her work is shown in galleries across America, and has won awards from The Portrait Society, The Pastel Society of the West Coast and Pastel Journal Magazine.

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

-Her upcoming move to Berlin.

-A look into what she does as a painter and how she got to her current situation as an artist.

-How she goes about making the double exposure portraits with models.

-The role that her photography plays in the creation of one of her portraits, and how she has to sometimes make an effort to not employ all of her creativity during the shooting so she can still make decisions during the actual painting.

-How the double exposure portraits came to be, almost accidentally.

-How she tries to use an introverted moment and an extroverted moment in her double exposure paintings.

-How one of her concerns is that she wants her work to be important and express something necessary to society and art history and how she has had to let go of that pressure.

-How she wants her art to respond to the time in which she lives.

-The formula that she gives her students to combine elements of other genres and medias that they love into what they are creating to give it an original spin.

-How she sometimes tries to work everything out in her head and refine it instead of just starting and figuring it out as she goes.

-Her advice to avoid paralysis by analysis.

-The value of authenticity, and how people are able to easily recognize when you care about what it is you are making.

-One of her most triumphant creative moments, when she just decided to e-mail her favorite gallery to try to get her work hanging there.

-Her formula for balancing her time.

-How incredibly difficult it is to be a professional artist.

"I really like to try to work fast because if I slow down too much then I'll chase unnecessary details. Working quickly helps me try to go for feeling or mood instead of pure accuracy. The faster I can do something, the better the final result is."

"For me, the difficulty that I've always had is that I want my work to be important."

"Instead of waiting for genius or waiting for this perfect, fully-formed idea, I've found that it's more important for me to just do work. Develop the idea as I produce work and then hopefully bring it towards something which at least is important to me personally."

"I don't know how to get inspiration from the outside world. The longer I wait, the less inspired I am to paint. Momentum goes in the wrong direction. Whereas the more I paint, the more inspired I am and the more ideas I have."

"It started to turn around when I decided that if I wasn't selling any paintings anyway, I might as well just paint whatever I wanted."

New Masters Academy on YouTube

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Xin Li is a twenty-one-year-old photographer living in Bergen, Norway who likes to chase light. She has been interested in photography all of her life and believes that photography is not just important to document the beauty that she sees around her, but to also tell stories with her work.

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

-How she got her initial interest in photography and the journey that she took to get to the place that she is now.

-How she gets very emotionally attached to her photographs because they often come from her own feelings.

-How photography (and all forms of art) can be used as a way to get your emotions out, and in that way it can be a form of therapy.

-What it was like when she first started sharing her photos on social media.

-How she sometimes struggles with comparing herself to other photographers, and how important it is to admire instead of compare.

-A time when she was in a creative limbo, not taking pictures (and how she got out of it).

-That it is perfectly okay to take a break from your art, and that breaks, whether long or short, don't signify that you're not an artist anymore.

-How some of her best moments are when she receives admiration for her work.

-One of her favorite photographs.

-How the internet and social media helped to give her confidence, as nobody in her town was out taking photographs the way she was.

-How she has scheduled days in her calendar that are strictly made for photography.

"Throughout the years, I used a lot of disposable cameras."

"For me, photography has always been a creative and emotional outlet."

"I like to document my life and things that I see, sure. But I also want to tell stories with my work."

"I feel very emotionally attached to most of the photos that I take, because the inspiration of it often comes from my own feelings."

"I started taking photos every time I was feeling down, and it worked like therapy for me."

"I felt really exposed, but it felt good because people saw me for my work and not the other things."

"Don't compare yourself to other people. Look up to them instead. Admire their work and maybe it will inspire you and push you to create something yourself."

"If you feel like you need a break from your art, whether it's a day or a month to think and to feel, that's okay. You don't stop being an artist just because of that."

"Always remember that you are doing this for yourself, not to compete with others."

"Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer

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Michele Chiaramonte is a former New York City school-teacher turned stay-at-home mom, turned woodworker. She designs and hand-makes children's imaginative play toys for her company, Little Miss Workbench, an ecofriendly workshop out of Bellport Village, New York.

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

-The story of how Little Miss Workbench came to be.

-How her daughter, Mali, was always trying to play with her DSLR camera, which gave her the idea to make her a wooden one of her own.

-How the camera evolved as it was being created and as more people got their hands on it.

-The support of friends and family who were interested in having the toys for themselves or someone they knew.

-How she always wanted Little Miss Workbench to be a home-grown company that stayed in the United States.

-The skills that she learned growing up from her father, who was a master craftsman.

-The importance of being able to surround yourself with people and resources that can help support, teach, and encourage you.

-How she would have to split up her time thinking and working on her projects in the limited time that she had as a mother.

-How she tries to look at "work" as "play" and what a shame it is when people concentrate on the success of what they do is based on money rather than what makes them happy.

-Her attempt to get kids (and adults) to be imaginative and to look at the world around them with wonder.

-Her "figure-it-out-as-we-go" mentality.

-How big opportunities can often be as terrifying as they are joyful.

"For my first Mother's Day, I asked my husband if he would get me a table saw."

"It's always important to think about what things are already out there. Is it really feasible for you to make it with creating your own business, creating something that people aren't doing already."

"She was ecstatic when we first gave it to her. She knew exactly what to do. It was incredible."

"It evolved as it was being created."

"The whole idea was to be hand-making these things and providing something that has a story behind it. Not just this manufactured good that gets put on the shelf for people to buy."

"It's just how you define what "stay-at-home mom" means. You can still be a rocket and be a mom 100% and also continue to fulfill your dreams."

"When you think about what kids play with today, there's not a whole lot of imagination that's going on."

"At the end of the day, you just have to have courage. You figure out how you're going to make it work, and if you feel that you're not capable of making it work, you have to ask for help."

"People often feel like they are failures because they weren't able to accomplish something on their own, but you really do need others to accomplish things that you set out to do."

"You become inspired to do something, but if you don't act upon it, no one else is going to do it for you."

"It's never going to happen unless you make it happen."

Website / Instagram

Brandyn Burnette is a progressive soul producer/singer-songwriter from St. Louis, Missouri currently living in Los Angeles. This self taught, 3rd generation musician has crafted his own sound and style that has begun to takeover the pop underground world from the inside out. He released his first EP "Made of Dreams" in 2015, and his latest EP "State I'm In" comes out (TODAY) on June 24th, 2016.

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

-The difference between State I'm In and Made of Dreams, his first EP.

-How the titles of his records are self-explanatory and their significance.

-The story behind his song, "State I'm In" and the serendipitous discovery of something that he wrote when he was fifteen.

-How each of the songs in State I'm In were lyrically created in different ways and how he learned to stay open to different ways of writing songs.

-The role that destiny plays in his life, as well as the new record.

-The freedom that he felt after leaving his first label, when he was the only person listening to his songs and he could do it for himself.

-The power in listening to your heart over your head, and especially over what other people tell you.

-How important it is for him to take both the positive and negative aspects of his life and put them into his music, and how all artists should be attempting to do the same.

-How we are constantly putting the best version of ourselves online and creating a persona that is in contrast to who we actually are.

-The story of his American Idol audition, and why he decided to leave the competition.

-The story behind his song "Karma."

"I wanted to reign in the sound with this one because I felt like I figured out what I wanted to say as an artist."

"This project really made me feel like an artist moreso than the last one."

"It was really an exciting time to go back and find some lyrics from the past that were wiser than what I could have written now."

"We go through these things as people, and we're always trying to figure out where we're at and who we are. But if you have faith that you're going to get there, it reveals itself."

"Continuing to write and to not need any validation but myself -- those completely saved my artistry."

"When I was at Warner, I learned who I wasn't. I learned who other people wanted to be."

"Stay authentic to what's in your heart. At the end of the day, that leads you better than your head and your gut."

"I used to write as if I had no problems. I used to try to cover up every bit of my sadness in my music."

"Take whatever is in your life, whether it is positive or negative, and heal from it through the music."

Website / iTunes / Spotify / YouTube / Soundcloud / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter

Picolo is a traditional and digital freelance illustrator based in Brazil. He took the internet by storm with his 365 Days of Doodles project, in which he blessed the internet with a new complex and detailed drawing every day for a year. He used that success to build an incredible following on DeviantArt, Instagram, & Facebook, where he continues to generously open up his sketchbook as well as his words of advice for defeating procrastination.

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

-His self-taught artistic past and how comics, anime, and manga.

-What inspired him to start his 365 Days of Doodles project in 2014.

-How being able to draw every day comes down to having the right mindset.

-How the first month of a long-term goal can often be the hardest one, but once you get past that initial period, it becomes much easier to do it every day.

-The first step is hardest for him is breaking the ice and sitting down to put them on paper.

-How you can start out with "doodles" and then get more complex as you continue to grow as an artist and challenge yourself.

-The power that comes from setting a longer-term goal with your art.

-How carrying a sketchbook can change your mindset, but also give you an opportunity to get all of your ideas down.

-How ideas might not make sense when you first put them in your sketchbook, but it is still important to get them down and flesh them out at a later time.

-What it's like to have such a large following on Instagram.

-Why it's important for him to continue create challenges and projects for himself and his fans.

-How he is always amazed by the amount of people that join his challenges.

-How he has defeated procrastination, but he still struggles with putting things down on paper and getting started.

-How he starts out by working on the things that are boring and mundane for him (like backgrounds), and then moving on to the fun things.

-His favorite drawings, "What I Think, What I Say," and one of the first drawings of Icarus and the Sun.

"I used to draw one drawing every month or so."

"One of my new years resolutions was to draw every day of the year."

"I think it's about mindset. I was always waiting for some inspiration to come. For me, it was okay to draw only when I felt inspired. And that's not okay. You can wait for a month. You have to make it a part of your life. That's why I started drawing every day."

"I felt strange if I didn't draw something on a particular day. It felt like it was a lost day."

"What really helped me was committing to a long-term project. It doesn't have to be a year-long project. A month is totally fine."

"Sometimes it's just a silly concept. Just write it down and leave it there for a month or two, and then it comes back like a big masterpiece."

"It's important for me to learn, improve, and create something new in the process."

"It's so much fun to watch these kinds of challenges develop. It always blows out of proportion. I never expect the amount of people that join."

"I try to tackle the most challenging stuff, the most boring stuff first when I'm at the peak of my energy. Then, I move to stuff that I naturally love to do, and it's easier that way."

"Whenever I get this connection using my drawings, then I just won the day."

"It doesn't have to take long. It doesn't have to be complicated. You just have to draw something. Create something."

"Don't wait for some magic source of inspiration to come. You have to chase after your own source of inspiration. Art is all about self-knowledge, so it's your job to find what inspires you and what triggers your own creativity."

Discworld by Terry Pratchett

Neil Gaiman 2012 Commencement Speech "Make Good Art" (YouTube)

Amanda Palmer Commencement Speech "The Fraud Police" (YouTube)

DeviantArt / Patreon / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter

Eyoälha Baker is a Canadian photographer who is spreading joy one jump at a time. With her Jump for Joy Photography project, she travels the world taking photos of people from all walks of life in mid-air as they jump for joy in an attempt to showcase the beauty of the human spirit.

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

-How she first got into photography.

-The story behind the Jump for Joy Photography project.

-How she was frustrated with the way that media seems to only capture negative images.

-Her fascination with the idea of "groupthink" and her desire to make it work for positive emotions and outcomes as well.

-The various opportunities that have come from starting the Jump for Joy Photo Project.

-Her decision to make a mural and the synchronistic way that things seemed to come together for her (with the help of others).

-How approaching the bad neighborhood that her mural was in from a place of joy made her see it in a new light, and helped the people she interacted with to reciprocate that joy.

-How once she made the decision to do the mural, it was almost like alchemy how help came in so many different forms.

-How she handled seeing her mural being taken down and what she did afterwards.

-Where she intends to go with the Jump for Joy photo project.

"All the sudden, photography was magical to me."

"The way images are presented in the media has always irked me."

"I started focusing on creating images that really captured positive energy."

"The news was intended for informing people of things. But who decides that death is more newsworthy than life?"

"My life has really really changed since I started this project."

"Being creative is such a vulnerable thing."

"Seriously magic happened. It was so synchronistic the way things fell in place. It almost seemed like it was alchemy."

"As the project grows, my vision for it is growing and falling into place."

Eyoälha's TEDx Talk

"Interesting Vancouver" Talk

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