Your Creative Push

Ben Lopez is an artist/illustrator/tattooer from Melbourne, Australia, who creates amazing, visionary work.

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

-How he tries not to define himself as an artist.

-How psychedelics have helped to inspire him and shape his art.

-How he tries to let his art do the talking for him, and how he tries to tap into all of his experiences and put it into the art.

-How he had already made the decision in high school to make art for the rest of his life.

-The importance of finding your own style so that someone can recognize a piece as yours, just by looking at it.

-How an injury changed his trajectory as an artist.

-How he wishes he had more time for his personal art.

-His plan to come to the United States to do some tattooing/traveling.

-What Instagram and social media in general has done for his art and for his career.

-How art and creativity has brought him out of a lot of dark places and it constantly brings him happiness and a sense of purpose.

"I tattoo pretty much full time but I don't really like to be labeled as tattoo artist."

"I just started doodling in all my books and pretty much failed school because I drew on everything and hated everything else."

"I look at it now definitely as a blessing in disguise."

"I do have a struggle and that is balancing what I want to do and what I have to do."

"When I'm really happy and the client is really happy, that is when I love tattooing."

"I want to be better all the time, and that is what's driving me."

"I don't know where I would be if it wasn't for social media."

Website / Facebook / Instagram

Tess Alley is the author of The Divinity Bureau and a Finance Manager for Vacasa Vacation Rentals. She spends most of her days writing and crunching numbers; but when she isn't, she can be found playing 'Resistance' and fulfilling the wanderlust that comes with working for a vacation rental company. Her debut book, The Divinity Bureau, is available now for pre-order.

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

-The difference between being a finance manager as a full-time job and a writer on the side.

-Her earliest memories of being creative, and how Harry Potter helped to inspire her creativity.

-How she got the inspiration to write The Divinity Bureau.

-The things that hold her back the most from being creative on a daily basis.

-How you have to sometimes do the "cha-cha" and take steps forwards and backwards to advance your position.

-The importance of scheduling programs like Google Calendar to keep you creative pursuits as a part of your daily schedule and at the top of your mind.

-All about her new book The Divinity Bureau.

-How some ideas can linger for a while before they are finally ready to be put out into the world.

-How the first step is always the most difficult, but you have to just take it and push through the vulnerability.

-The story behind the quotes on her Instagram page.

-How creativity and stories like the Harry Potter series are able to create a connection between people who love them.

"I was so focused on survival that I thought I had to give up on my lifelong dream."

"I think if you're a creative type, you actually have a physical need to create."

"In the end, the book ended up being a giant mesh of everything I've learned."

"I think I cried a little bit when I first saw it on Amazon."

"Even just writing a mediocre book is still a lot of work."

"I think the rewards definitely outweigh the fear."

"The Divinity Bureau" by Tess Alley

Facebook / Instagram

Stephen is a singer/songwriter who has just released his first album, "Sincerely." In his own words: "My album is a story of triumph, of letting go of all the uncertainty in my head and learning to walk the path of my own heart. "Sincerely" is about realizing how much better this world would be if we all loved ourselves, if we weren't afraid of being vulnerable and honest. It doesn't matter who's president or what technology we invent or what extremists we destroy, the only thing I know is this: There will never be peace if we do not all love ourselves."

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

-A bit about his background and how he came to find himself in Los Angeles.

-How he was the first student of the music school at the University of Miami who also played a Division 1 sport.

-The promise he made to himself at a young age that he would only pursue the things he was passionate about.

-How it's not like doing work, when you are spending time working on things that you love. It's like you get to play.

-The journey that his song "Bullet Train" took him on and the fact that he almost didn't release it.

-How he only started singing three years before the release of this, his first album.

-How you need to think with the heart more than the head, because the head will give you countless excuses why you shouldn't do something for the sake of self-preservation.

-A game he plays with his friend called "Fear Stretching."

-How we are so scared of offending people or not being accepted that we live in a shell, and the more we practice stretching out our fears, the more quickly we can advance to better versions of ourselves.

-The fact that rejection is often times empowering because you can just be yourself without having to worry about other people's approval.

-The tremendous role that his management team at Th3rd Brain has played on his career so far.

-The message of his album Sincerely -- a call to action to make a difference as well as the self-discovery that happened in his life.

-How we distract ourselves with things like The Kardashians because we are afraid of what we are going to find if we look in the mirror too long.

-His music videos for "Crossfire" and "Start a Fire."

-How he has many resistances, but the main one is self-doubt.

"Something that has really done a lot of good for me is a promise I made to myself when I was really young that I would really only try to do the things that I really wanted to do."

"Talent is just intense passion discovered at an early age."

"When you put a lot of time into something that you really love, it's not work. It's like you're having fun. You're playing with it."

"I think it was a massive amount of insecurity. I never imagined myself being a singer. I never even sang in the shower."

"If I would ever sing along to a song, I would put on a joking singing voice, because I was scared that people would laugh at my singing voice, like my true expression."

"You've just gotta put yourself out there. It's less a confidence and moreso a carelessness."

"The worst that can happen is not nearly as bad as you think."

"It's the "no's" that help us grow because we realize that the consequence of being rejected is nothing. In fact, the consequence of being rejected a lot of the times is empowerment because you feel more free. You feel like you don't need other people's approval to be yourself."

"The things that we're supposed to do that are going to help us the most are the things that we resist doing the most.

"Sincerely" on iTunes / Soundcloud

"Crossfire" by Stephen Official Music Video

"Bullet Train" by Stephen

Website / Spotify / Soundcloud / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter

Cinzia Angelini is a veteran story artist, animator and director with more than 20 years working in the animation industry. She has worked both in 2D as well as CG and is currently a story artist for Illumination Pictures. She has worked on films such as The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, Meet the Robinsons, Bolt, and Spider-Man 2.

Her latest project is titled, Mila.

-A bit about her professional background and how she got to the point she now finds herself in her career.

-The inspiration behind Mila.

-How she attributes the team of 250 people from 25 countries wanting to work on Mila because of its powerful theme.

-How animation artists typically work on happier projects intended to make children laugh, but the chance to work on such a strongly themed project made many of them want to jump on it.

-Some of the challenges that come from working with a large team from all over the world in a virtual environment.

-How she is happy that she was somewhat ignorant of how tough such a large project would be.

-How if you think too much about the potential consequence of trying something, you will lose the momentum and not even try.

-The power that comes from a visual representation of what you are trying to accomplish.

-The advantages of being able to multitask.

-How she gets through the daily struggles of being tired and worn out.

-How people can support the creation of Mila through the Indiegogo campaign.

-Her recommendation for anyone thinking about it, to direct even a short production because of how much you learn.

-The importance of surrounding yourself with people who have the skills that you don't have.

"If it wasn't for the theme, I wouldn't have had this reaction from the artists."

"My father usually tells me I am like a warrior, so I have a little bit of that attitude of, 'Let's just do it and we will figure it out as we go.'"

"I would do it a gazillion times over, even if it is so much work."

Mila's Indiegogo Campaign!

Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / YouTube / Tumblr

Stef Azevedo is a nature-trippin' self-taught artist from Seattle, Washington, who has been gracing the internet with her beautiful art for the past thirteen years.

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

-The role that nature plays in her life and how it helps her to recharge and find inspiration.

-How she used to draw all over her homework, and how a teacher suggested to her parents that they get her more involved in art.

-Her realization that she could create and share art at the age of 14, when she found a site where people shared Sailor Moon fan art.

-How there was a period of time in her twenties when she explored other avenues and didn't draw for three or four years, but she ultimately came back when she realized that there was nothing else she wanted to do more.

-How she handled the transition of quitting her full-time job and not having as much money.

-How her break from art led to sadness, but going out on hikes and exploring reinvigorated her creativity.

-Her upcoming solo show on June 10, 2016 at Crimson Graphics Studio in Tacoma, Washington.

-Why she chooses to mostly draw women figures.

-How she balances her time with the many things going on in her artistic life.

-What she does on days when the creative juices are not flowing.

-How fun it is to see the way other people interpret her art.

"I would always draw all over my homework and I'd get in trouble for it."

"I did go through a period in my twenties where I did not draw at all for three or four years."

"I weened off of working full time to work full-time on my art."

"I always try to make my women look really strong and confident in my work. They've got it. They're good. They're holding it down."

"Everything takes time. And if you put that time in, you will reap those benefits."

Store / Facebook / Instagram / Tumblr / Society6

Sergio Lopez aka The Main Loop is a North Bay Area based fine artist who specializes in oil landscapes, contemporary nude figures, plein air paintings, and charcoal drawings.

He has won multiple awards and has been featured in Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose, Spectrum, Bluecanvas, as well as many online publications. He is also the co-founder of the North Bay Plein Air Painters group and has been helping organize monthly paint-outs since 2009.

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

-How he got into the plein air scene and the differences between painting outdoors and painting in the studio.

-How he tries to only paint something that he is seeing with his own eyes or has seen before, as he doesn't trust photos to accurately portray the subject matter.

-How his goal is to keep as little distance as possible from himself and his paintings so as to get the most accurate representation of what he sees and feels.

-How and why he started the North Bay Plein Air Painters group.

-His advice for anyone interested in trying out plein air painting.

-Some of his earliest memories of being creative.

-How he often gets bored of what he has been spending a lot of time doing, and that is usually when he switches up his medium to keep things fresh.

-Some of the struggles that come from being a full-time fine artist.

-How he knows that he works better at night, so he shifts his schedule to work with that.

-The power of turning off the Wi-Fi.

"All the lessons that you learn from intensely observing something, you can do that from any subject you want to work from."

"Even now when I paint from photos, I almost never paint from something that I haven't painted yet before."

"For me, the goal is to have something that feels like I was there or I am still standing there and getting that feeling that I remember."

"If you're a person who paints in the studio and never has gone out, I'd say you're missing out on a lot."

"When I got to school I quickly realized that I was in the wrong department."

"It took a while to get to a certain sort of rhythm."

"Find out why you want to do art. As soon as you figure out why, it's a lot easier to focus your energy and resources on how to do it because you'll have a goal to strive for. Without that road map, it is more of a wish than a goal."

-Contemporary Figuration Exhibit at Abend Gallery

-North Bay Plein Air Painters group

-Harvey Dunn: Illustrator and Painter of the Pioneer West by Walt Reed and Roger Reed

Website / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / Twitter

Hailing from New Zealand, Li Chen is the creator of Extra Ordinary Comics (or Exocomics) which is a weekly slice-of-life webcomic based on her life with her partner Jordan, and her cat Shoelace. With her fun and quirky comics, she has gained a steady following of fans and supporters and has published three collections of her work.

Listen to Part 1 here

Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/li2

-All of the advantages that formats like Patreon and Kickstarter offer to artists and creative people as opposed to the "old way" where he power was in the hands of the few.

-How she sometimes goes through periods of creative burnout where she hates everything that she does.

-How she handles the stress and agony that comes from bouts of creative burnout.

-Her most triumphant creative moment, and even that had its stressful moments.

-Her favorite comic thus far, "Fast and Curious."

-How art and creativity allow her to communicate with the world in a way that she wouldn't be able to otherwise.

-One of her drawings of Comic Li being chased by a goose that really united her fans in a hatred for geese.

-How she enjoys capturing little moments, especially ones that can be universally understood.

"Every now and then I get creative burnout, where I go through this period where I just hate all of my work and I feel like my best work is behind me."

"Creative burnout is not something you can just lie in bed, drink lots of fluids, and just get over."

"Every time I finish something, there's a bit of creative triumph."

"I really like capturing little moments."

-Li's Patreon page

-The Patreon Podcast

-Yotsubato! Vol. 1 (Amazon)

Website / Store / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Patreon

Hailing from New Zealand, Li Chen is the creator of Extra Ordinary Comics (or Exocomics) which is a weekly slice-of-life webcomic based on her life with her partner Jordan, and her cat Shoelace. With her fun and quirky comics, she has gained a steady following of fans and supporters and has published three collections of her work.

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

-How many children love to draw but eventually lose their passion, but she just kept going.

-How and why she started Extra Ordinary Comics.

-Patreon and Kickstarter and how they helped her to release her collections.

-The notion of authority figures that we envision as the gatekeepers that hold us back from doing what we want to do.

-How she still sometimes feels like an imposter who just found herself in this situation.

-How her style has changed over the years and how looking back at the older comics sometimes makes her cringe.

-How she is grateful that, when she was starting out, she was somewhat ignorant to the amount of improvement that she would undergo in the next few years.

-Her process of creating a comic and how long it takes her.

-How she likes to go to a local park in order to get ideas, and how she sometimes has to trick her brain into thinking it is not there to do work.

-The inspiration and knowledge that we can learn from children.

-What it's like to have Jordan in her corner.

-Her initial hesitancy to start a Patreon campaign and what it has been like for her since starting it.

"I always thought that I'd have to wait until someone with authority would contact me about it."

"It was a really amazing and challenging year of my life, going from never doing anything like that before to having published two books and then actually going to a library and seeing them."

"The idea of just quitting my day job without knowing what's coming next was very scary."

"I think the thing that has always held me back is my mindset about the so-called "authority figures" or people that can tell me that I can do the thing that I want to do."

"When I look at my old comics it makes me cringe."

"If I knew then how bad I think it would be now, I don't think that I would have continued. I definitely had a very nice force-field of stupid protecting me."

"For my whole career, I definitely want to look back at my work and cringe, because it can only mean that I am progressing."

-Li's Patreon page

-The Patreon Podcast

-Yotsubato! Vol. 1 (Amazon)

Website / Store / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Patreon

Karan Bajaj is a #1 bestselling Indiannovelist with more than 200,000 copies of his novels in print, bothoptioned into major films. Karan'sfirst worldwide novel, The Yoga of Max's Discontent, will be bepublished by Random House on May3rd' 2016. The book was inspired by Karan's one year sabbatical traveling from Europe toIndia by road and learning yoga and meditation in theHimalayas. Karan hasalso worked in senior executive roles at companies like Procter& Gamble and the Boston Consulting Group and was named among AdAge's "Top 40 Under 40 executives" in the US.

Fullshownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/karan

-The "4, 1, 4" rule and how it helped him to thrive, not only inhis career, but in his life.

-His "conscious goal-lessness" during his time off, especiallywhen he is so driven during his working years.

-His advice for someone who struggles to get to the point ofrealizing that they are already equipped for life and don't need toconcentrate so hard on improvement.

-The idea of taking mind- or self-dissolving vacations, whereyou actually try to change and better yourself as a person asopposed to simply going to a new location.

-How he kick-started my meditation practice with a 10 day silentvipassana retreat and how a vipassana retreat is actually quiteaccessible for anyone who is interested in trying it (it'sfree!)

-How his 10-day silent retreat helped him to see that he hadbeen in a constant mode of wanting, or feeling as if hewas lacking something instead of living in the moment.

-His one year sabbatical and how he spent the time.

-How living extremely simply for a long period of time helps youto realize that you really don't need much in your everyday life tosurvive and it helps to make you stronger when facing toughsituations.

-The benefits that his retreat gave to his creativity.

-His suggestion to always start with concentration-basedmeditation approaches.

-What to do when other thoughts begin to creep into yourconsciousness while you are meditating.

-The joy and inspiration that comes from seeing yourself on ahero's journey. Even if you don't reach the goal, the act oftrying is a success.

-How art fixes the world for him.

"What I have learned through this period is that my sabbaticalyear has to be almost the complete antithesis of my workingyears."

"I'm always shunning this idea that I have to constantly bebetter than who I am."

"I just try to operate with this idea that I am complete and Ihave enough depth to tap into, versus wanting to be more than Iam."

"You can't help but to be different after those ten days."

"It's not like some instant moment of enlightenment. Youstart understanding the endlessness of our thought waves."

"I almost feel that every artist is creating out of a sense thatthis world is incomplete and they need to create a more completeand idealized version. Art fixes the world for me."

TheYoga of Max's Discontent by Karan Bajaj

"My 4,1,4 rule, or why you shouldn't feel thepressure to become an entrepreneur" (From Karan's blog)

Your Creative Push Ep. 2: Approach the first brushstroke with ENERGY (w/ Karl Mårtens)

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Emily is a humble illustrator currently wandering Brooklyn. She was featured in CMYK Magazine as an up and coming illustrator once, and she thinks that was pretty cool. But these days she has been hiding in small venues and drawing the musicians playing there, in attempt to grow roots in the artists community. She posts the drawings on Instagram under the name Narkolator, which is a meaningless made-up word that she should probably change soon.

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

-How she got started drawing musicians during their live performances.

-How putting the drawings on Instagram led to many unexpected connections.

-How other bars liked her images on Instagram, which led to more venues for her to check out.

-Her advice for people who might like to keep their drawings to themselves instead of sharing them on Instagram or trying to sell them on Etsy.

-How her drawings of musicians is sustainable for her, and she doesn't need to have a gimmicky thing like drawing Queequeg for 31 straight days.

-The fact that the things that you post on Instagram don't have to be fully armed with hashtags. They can just be things that you want to selectively share.

-How people quickly notice when you are creating art for other people instead of a self-serving agenda.

-How drawing at the Jalopy is like a form of weekly therapy for her.

-The "trades" that she has gotten for her art, even if the trade is as simple as a communication with her favorite artists.

-How easy it is to tell when someone is starting something in an attempt to make money.

-The value in "planting seeds."

-What art and creativity brings to her life.

-The importance of being a person of value to other people.

"You just have to find that one specific thing that's very sustainable."

"It's very sustainable for me to do this thing. It's just had a lot of impact on my life, but it's something that I would do naturally."

"There have been times where I draw something and then I post it on Instagram but maybe it's not for everybody in the world to find."

"It's almost like therapy to me. I don't have to think about anything in the world right now. I don't have to think about my job where I actually punch in. I can just sit here and just draw what I see."

"My more successful drawings have been because everything has been coming from just the truth that happened in that instance."

"The payoff for me is that I can say 'Hello' to my favorite musicians every week."

"When I decided to start living for other people, that's where my artistic voice started coming from."

"I realized I'm going to make art anyway. It's just a natural tendency. But if I work on my relationships, maybe it's not so artistic, but art seems to come from it anyway.

Website / Facebook / Instagram / Tumblr