The Open Sketchbook Podcast

Episode 4: Leah Gardner

• Evan Kitson • Episode 4

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In this episode, I sit down with painter Leah Gardner, whose luminous still-life paintings capture the magic of light & form, and focus on composition. Leah shares how she pivoted from a career in marketing to becoming a full-time artist, the role that daily painting played in developing her skills, and how she navigates running an art business as a full time artist.

We also discuss the challenges of selling art online, the joys and struggles of social media, and why composition plays a bigger role in her work than the objects themselves. Plus, Leah shares insights into her process, from photographing references to making prints and engaging with her audience.

Whether you're an artist looking to refine your practice or someone curious about the life of a working painter, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration!

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HOST: Evan Kitson
https://evankitson.com
https://www.instagram.com/evan_kitson/

GUEST: Leah Gardner
https://leahgardner.art/
https://www.instagram.com/leahgardner.art/

BOOKS & ARTISTS MENTIONED:
Daily Painting: Paint Small and Often To Become a More Creative, Productive, and Successful Artist by Carol Marine
https://amzn.to/3DDD5HN *affiliate link

Zoey Frank
https://zoeyfrank.com/

Jeremy Miranda
https://www.instagram.com/jeremy_miranda_/

Christina Weaver
https://www.christinaweaver.com/

And Libby (free library app for audiobooks & ebooks)




0:00
welcome to the open sketchbook podcast I'm Evan kitson and today I'm thrilled to be joined by painter Leah Gardner
0:07
Leah's work is a vibrant exploration of color light and composition she turns
0:12
everyday objects into mesmerizing Still Life paintings I think you're going to really dig them if you don't already
0:18
know who she is we talk about the joys and challenges of daily painting the business of selling art online and the
0:24
creative puzzles that make Studio life so fulfilling I think you're going to really dig our conversation let's get
0:30
into it hi Leah how you doing good how are you good I first discovered your
0:36
work on Instagram I think it was kind of perfect because I was teaching a
0:41
painting one class and I was trying to get them to see color I feel like at every single easel I was walking through
0:48
I'm like do you see the pink do you see the blue do you see the light do you see and they're like I just see the color of
0:54
the thing that it is you know and so I was taking a breather and I'm scrolling through Instagram and and then I saw
1:00
some of your cut tomato paintings with light raking across them and they had
1:06
this incredible gorgeous glow and I was like she gets it like this is it yeah
1:11
and so I I projected it on uh the wall for the students and they're like
1:17
oh oh my gosh so yeah that was amazing that's so nice yeah it was it was like
1:24
serendipitous it was it was perfect oh my God and uh it's one of those times where social media just just gives you
1:30
what you're looking for yeah when the algorithm like gets it right yeah finally you know yeah so that was like I
1:37
had no idea who you were you just all of a sudden popped up and um I've seen your work a lot since then and obviously I
1:44
follow you and all of that fun stuff what's been your your journey into painting and how did I eventually find
1:51
your stuff on social media so okay at the beginning of Co I was working in
1:57
marketing for a hotel company and obviously got laid off so I was just like unemployed and a little bit
2:05
delusional maybe and I was like yeah I think I'm just going to like take up painting and become a painter which is
2:11
in hindsight like really ridiculous I I had painted like a little bit like never
2:16
seriously like in high school in the summer I'd like mess around with acrylics and paint just kind of ugly
2:22
stuff but I always like drawing so I would do like pencil portraits and stuff so I definitely had like some sort of
2:27
like foundational ability um but yeah and hindsight it was I don't
2:34
know what I was thinking I mean it worked out so I can't complain but like honestly I don't know what I was thinking but um yeah so I bought some
2:40
oil paints and I just started practicing I read the book by Carol maren I think it's called The Daily painter I started
2:47
painting like not like daily but like on a regular basis and just practicing and
2:53
so basically from March April I think is when I kind of started fiddling around until the following spring I wasn't
2:59
super super serious about it but like I was I'd made an Instagram and I was trying to practice on a regular basis
3:05
but then I think after about a year is when things really started to click and I made a website and that's just kind of
3:11
where it all started that's amazing so yeah the there's a lot there yeah I love
3:17
the the decision where it's like okay I'm home we're all home I got to figure
3:22
this out I'm a painter now I just I just love that your subject matter is kind of
3:28
in line with what I've seen lot from The Daily Painters I discovered them I think when the daily painting felt like a
3:34
movement which would have been I guess around 2008 to 10 I feel like it was
3:43
really in full swing where you would go to like daily painting.com and like all that stuff and people would have these
3:48
like amazing Alo Prima paintings that they would crank out in like a day okay
3:54
well I was like 13 then so I wasn't really uh in on The Daily
4:00
painting websites yeah I know I feel like you missed out though that sounds cool well I mean you're you definitely
4:06
didn't miss out it seems like you're you're carrying that sort of thing on so
4:11
did you do a painting just about every day while you were getting going yes um
4:16
I think in 2021 I probably did or at least
4:21
came pretty close and then I think you know I was trying to
4:28
paint bigger stuff but I I was still keeping this expectation on myself to eat something every day which was just
4:34
not reasonable yeah um and I kind of you know burnt out and fizzled out on that
4:42
but in hindsight like I'm very glad I did it because that's literally how I develop the skills to do this full-time
4:48
yeah that's that's a really good point so you are a full-time painter yes and your website is really fun and playful
4:56
thank you but also very to the point very professional it showcases your work beautifully but also the the business
5:04
side is very front and center too it seems like you're you're championing both and when I hear that you used to be
5:11
in marketing I'm like oh well that's maybe why because a lot of artists aren't very good at that kind of thing I
5:17
think it just comes down to I like making money so like trying really hard
5:24
to do that and you can't really do that without a good online presence if you're selling online yeah that's that's really
5:31
true it's it's the kind of thing where when you were saying you did a painting every day when you were developing your
5:37
whole thing the thought that I had was the material costs like that that
5:43
becomes a thing material costs storage yeah so what scale were you working
5:50
really small I would do like 4x4 in painting sometimes even 3x3 in so
5:56
anywhere between that and like 8 by 8 in like for like something I could finish in one day the absolute maximum would be
6:02
8 by 10 in that's really cool so I can't do that anymore though cuz now my like
6:09
my paintings of that size have gotten a lot more involved and they take me like 3 days right so when you were initially
6:16
starting what was the subject matter it was just like objects like like random
6:21
objects that I thought had kind of a good vibe basically that's great yeah I wasn't
6:27
really like setting up anything elabor the way I do now I was just like I don't
6:33
know like trying to find a thing that didn't feel too like daunting or overwhelming because I knew you know if
6:38
something was too challenging I'd just give up that's really cool cuz your the the stuff that I I was seeing for your
6:45
still lives like these are not simple paintings you're finding really
6:50
complicated lighting situations you're staging them in really fun ways where you break up all the space and they're
6:57
they're really beautiful but it also feels like stuff you probably just have
7:02
yeah um for the most part I definitely like have to go out and buy certain things like wine cuz I really don't
7:09
drink that often like especially not at home like I never just have like wine ready to go like I go to Target and I
7:15
buy like a $3 bottle of wine but like the books yeah for sure I mean just in terms of like what I've got going on
7:20
right now but yeah a lot of the times it's stuff I just do have around it's not really anything super out of the
7:26
ordinary still I think for me what's the most interesting is the composition and
7:33
how the light comes through it and creates shapes yeah your shapes are so well
7:40
considered and there's something really beautiful about how you compose them because it it
7:47
almost has this like it's very painterly but it also has like a vector art gradient kind of thing
7:55
going on where yeah it's it's like those two things are in harmony with each
8:00
other and that's something that I usually don't see very often and I think the effect is really beautiful and
8:07
everything just kind of works thank you how how did you work that out was that
8:13
like a slow build a determined thing or I think it's been like kind of a slow
8:19
build I think a lot of it is instinctual I definitely like when I'm painting I do
8:24
find it very satisfying to just like carve out shapes and like geometry
8:30
I also like you said I do like you know a little bit of a gradient I don't blend like a ton a ton on the surface but like
8:36
sometimes it just like hits just right when you get a really good gradient yeah I don't know I think it's just kind of
8:43
what I gravitate towards I mean I also do stage all my own stuff and I like wait for the right kind of light to come
8:49
and I think in the moment like I know oh this is going to be a good one like I like all these places where like the
8:55
light is intersecting and how the Shadows are casting on each other and yeah yeah I I think a lot of it does
9:01
come from setting it up just right before I even start painting that's really cool one of the things that was
9:08
transformative just for me as like a person was teaching painting to
9:14
undergrad students when I give a lecture on color and color theory and seeing the color of the uh light and then I walk
9:21
down the street I feel like I'm like tripping it's like this incredible overwhelming sensation of the most
9:27
beautiful purple Shadows I've ever seen in my life and all of these like great warm colors finding their ways in and
9:35
and I I think about so much of my life I just wasn't aware yeah like Shadows would
9:43
just be it's darker y like I totally know what you mean it's like and I'm not like this every day obviously because
9:50
I'm not always paying attention to my surroundings but sometimes you just like tune in and you're like oh yeah like
9:55
that spot right there like is really just tickling my brain and it's stuff I don't think I ever would have noticed
10:01
before kind of learning how to like look at what color things actually are if
10:06
that makes sense totally makes sense yeah so when you started to learn how to
10:13
paint were you following exercises in the book or were you just like I'm just going to grab this thing I kind of get
10:20
the gist let's just go for it I'm not patient about completing an exercise as
10:26
it's meant to be completed unfortunately like I wish I would was like that I'm just not like actually it's funny you
10:31
mentioned teaching undergrad in college I actually was signed up for a painting class and I think I went twice or maybe
10:38
three times and I was like I can't do this I dropped it I was like I can't what I can't paint stuff that I didn't
10:44
decide I want to paint it just isn't for me that's so interesting to hear because
10:51
I mean your your stuff feels very scene you know I I I guess that's the best
10:57
word for it and it makes me think you choose things that have a strong visual
11:03
impact for you yeah but I also have like a hard time being like those tomatoes
11:08
are like man those are your Tomatoes you know like so it seems like you really
11:15
walk the line of you put design first and almost object second not always but
11:21
it it kind of feels that way sometimes is is that a semi Fair statement I think that's fair it's not necessarily like a
11:28
conscious choice but I think above all I care about how
11:34
things look more than what they are or what they mean yeah really guess my
11:41
stuff isn't very like meaningful in that sense like I just like I'm like hm I
11:47
feel like these objects are cool but they could be much more does that make sense yeah I mean do
11:54
you ever struggle with that sometimes yeah I think a little bit
12:01
because it's like hard to make a decision about what I'm going to compose with because I don't really feel like a
12:07
strong pull towards these objects and their meaning it's more like I have to
12:12
just like pull these random things out of my brain that I think would make sense together visually but like I don't
12:20
know it is weird for me if I like paint a bunch of things together that I don't really think go together but I don't I
12:26
think that's more just me like making life differ difficult for myself like I tend to like have an idea and find ways
12:33
to shut it down instead of going for it so I think there's some of that there too that's really interesting yeah so
12:39
speaking of the idea of like objects and meaning I I I feel at home with your work because when I'm
12:46
drawing I feel like I am recording the connection of my vision with my subjects
12:52
you know and I could sit there and draw a garbage can and make it look super
12:57
beautiful and interesting because I can find it super beautiful and interesting
13:03
yeah but I'm not always making like a grand statement about trash yeah I know exactly what you mean like if the light
13:09
is hitting the trash can just right like I feel like I could find a way to make it like a colorful glowing trash can or
13:18
like I don't know I I would like to be able to do that like that's kind of the goal for me yeah and so when I first saw
13:26
your work that's how I felt I was like okay this is someone that is reveling in
13:31
the beauty of just looking and seeing something as beautiful and then enjoying
13:37
painting yeah and I feel like that component it's it's just what makes work
13:45
joyful to look at you know like there's a lot of Art in the world where you look at it and you're like I wonder if they
13:50
had fun making that you know or like where are they coming from but with your
13:55
work it it really looks fun it looks like visual puzzles that you're enjoying solving that thank you so much um that
14:05
first of all that is like kind of how it does feel like it does kind of feel like
14:10
solving a puzzle it's like a combo of solving a puzzle and trying not to like have my hand wobble
14:17
basically yeah cuz so much of your brush work really and it is cool to hear that you don't do a lot of mixing on on the
14:23
surface because it it does feel very direct like right brush stroke right
14:29
placement right color note like all of that yeah and I hesitate to always call
14:34
it right but I think a big part of my technique is just like committing like
14:41
once something is there I'm not changing it I'm just rolling with it and hoping that it all comes together that's really
14:47
cool I'm mentoring a student right now who's working in ballpoint okay and so
14:53
much of our conversation is about that like when you put down the ink it's
14:59
there you know so how are we going to work with it and and that's kind of part of the uh Joy yeah does that extend into
15:08
your drawings I don't know if I've seen any drawings from you I haven't drawn
15:13
like with pencil in years at this point because I just would so much rather paint like
15:19
once I discovered color I just like couldn't get as excited about working in
15:25
pencil anymore but I don't think I don't know I could be wrong about I don't think you would probably like look at my
15:31
stuff that I would do in pencil and connect it to my current work I actually just did a lot of like portraits like I definitely had like the drawing the hot
15:37
girl syndrome you know what I mean yeah but yeah I honestly don't really think they look maybe like they were done by
15:44
the same person granted it's been a really long time since I drew anything so who knows but yeah so when you begin
15:52
your paintings how do you sort of like take up the territory like do you lay
15:57
things out do you what's the what's what's the tactic what really changes is whether or not I'm
16:03
doing a still life or just like something else that I like have a photo of that like I already like Snapped by
16:10
chance and like kept in a folder or something for still life obviously I have to like set up the composition
16:16
first and I work from photos so I set up compositions and take a bunch of pictures and then I like pick out my
16:22
favorites and like crop them and all that you know but once that's done it's pretty much all the same I have like my
16:28
big stack of panels that that are pre gessoed so I don't have to really do anything they're all ready to go I I
16:35
leave them white like I don't do like an underpainting or anything like that I just draw um a sketch in pencil of what
16:43
I'm painting and it's almost like I Almost Do It Like I'm doing a coloring book only with a paint brush and paint
16:50
instead of markers or pencils like the drawing is pretty detailed in that like
16:56
all the PLS of colors are like clearly deline ated and I'm pretty much just covering it in so in that sense it's
17:02
pretty meditative because like the only decisions I really need to make are like
17:08
the color and the value um which I guess is still kind of a lot but you know it's easier to just get into the Zone because
17:14
I'm not like nervous about like getting the layout all wrong or like having things that are like not the right size
17:20
or shape or whatever but yeah my Approach is just coloring book style pretty much that's cool so it sounds
17:27
like a lot of your composing come comes from the photography then yes like a
17:32
huge part and that's kind of one of my favorite Parts like I really love coming
17:37
up with a good composition and like getting excited about it you know um cuz
17:43
sometimes it's not that fun to paint something when you're not really excited about it yet and you have to like hype yourself up as you go but like for me
17:50
when I get that perfect composition and the light is just right I'm like oh my God I cannot wait to paint this yeah so
17:57
when it comes to transl ating the subject from the composed photograph
18:03
into the constructed painting how is discovering your take on that you know
18:09
because some people it's really based on the photo and others the photo is just like a starting point or maybe they'll
18:15
go back to it after a while so like for you what was finding that right balance
18:22
so okay the whole time I'm working I do have the photo pulled up in front of me on an iPad so it's definitely very
18:27
important I would say like the composition is totally literal
18:32
I mean unless there's like something weird and ugly in the background of my photo that I like couldn't get out of the way and then I just exclude that mhm
18:39
but like the important parts are going to be just like laid out and shaped pretty much exactly like the photo the
18:46
color and the value are definitely where I start deviating and like sometimes I'll deviate like kind of a lot like
18:52
paint a totally different cover on a book or something or like totally change colors and like
18:59
you wouldn't really know it was coming from the same reference photo but especially when I'm painting like like
19:05
liquids I could not do it without a reference it's way too complicated yeah especially when they're
19:12
transparent and when you get the light refraction and all of that stuff yeah
19:17
it's just so there's not a chance I could do that without the photo in front of me yeah I don't think many people could yeah you have to have like
19:24
photographic memory or something you have to really understand the physics of how like finds it way through liquids
19:31
you know like exactly where the light is coming from like that would just be like you'd have to be like a Sant or
19:36
something yeah that's amazing um yeah that's that's really cool so when we
19:42
first started chatting here you had mentioned that you started an Instagram how early was that in your process it
19:49
was pretty early like early enough to where I would never scroll back to look at it because I would just be so
19:55
embarrassed I think it's still there like if you wanted to scroll all the way back I mean it would take forever to
20:00
load but it's there that that brings up a really good point because sometimes the advice that I think of for
20:07
undergraduate students looking to get into this is don't put your stuff out there too soon you know like take your
20:13
time develop your voice and then really curate it and put it out there but I'm
20:19
wondering for you since it was like sort of Tandem with your development of your own painting practice did the Instagram
20:26
help you keep it up like like working every day and posting I'm not really
20:32
sure that it did because it was actually like a little like close friends and family account that I originally made so
20:39
it's not like I was really impressing anyone except for like my closest friends and family and I don't know I
20:44
don't really feel all that accountable to them as bad as that sounds like they don't care what I'm doing so why should
20:50
I you know I think there is something to be said for like every now and then
20:56
something would like perform a little better than usual and like random people would like it and I'd be like my God
21:02
like I'm famous and I had like you know 55 followers or something and that would
21:07
it would kind of like make me feel good and make me feel motivated but I don't I
21:12
don't think it was a necessity um so I yeah I don't think it really
21:18
matters one way or the other at least for me it wouldn't have yeah that's really cool finding your voice on the
21:26
internet and with marketing and and seeing like the format for your work and how to best display that it's such a
21:34
challenge now because either the people that are teaching it are like here's our
21:39
system pay us so you learn it and then there's other people that are like I just do whatever I think both of those
21:47
can't quite work you know yeah and so it's it's such a challenge for people
21:52
coming up but yeah the way that your website is set up really well and your
21:59
Instagram practices and everything like how you use social medias really it feels very present in what you're doing
22:07
like you you have sort of a disciplined engagement with it I don't know is is that true yeah I think it is I I'm
22:15
smiling cuz it like it's not the most fun like yeah it's work yeah it's it's
22:21
really hard work honestly so if it looks easy it's not like I feel like I'm constantly on one app or the other like
22:28
well I'm trying to paint I'm like checking on something I'm on Instagram Pinterest x/ Twitter still um Blue Sky
22:38
did I say Tumblr already uh no and and I just started Tik Tok too so it's just
22:43
like and like granted you can multi-purpose content across all of those platforms but that doesn't mean
22:50
you don't have to like go on and post and like engage with comments cuz like I feel really bad if someone leaves a
22:56
comment and all I do is hard it but like a lot of the time that's like all I have time to do at this point but yeah no
23:02
it's like a huge grind to be consistent on social media it really is it's not
23:10
the best it's not but you don't have a gallery do you no so it's like that's
23:16
how I sell my work I mean my website is but like people come to my website from all those social medias yeah and do you have help with
23:24
marketing or the business side so last sum sum I started working with a
23:31
marketing company it's it's a very small company it's just two people nice but they helped me like make over my website
23:37
and they help me with email marketing which I was not doing before and that's been like a huge game changer they're really good and make my easier yeah so
23:45
for your email marketing do you have like a like a newsletter you send out or like what could people look to if they
23:52
sign up for it what I'm trying to do this year is once a month I'll send out like a newsletter with like updates what
23:59
I'm working on like what I want to be working on just general you know
24:05
thoughts and then I'll try to like have one marketing email also so from month
24:12
to month it depends like maybe I'll have a sale and that's what I'll use my marketing email for just to like remind
24:17
people that I've listed some new original paintings on my site if I don't have a sale going on you know just like
24:23
random whatever is going on at the time if I need to Market something that's just like what I use that email for
24:29
that's really cool yeah yeah it kind of sounds like here's what I have going on
24:35
behind the scenes thing it's kind of like what a lot of people use for patreon yeah but you're you're kind of
24:40
skipping that and just being like I'll just send you an email with it yeah kind of I don't know I just don't feel
24:46
like I've thought about doing a patreon and I just can't help but feel like I would be disappointing the people who
24:53
are paying for Content um it it just wouldn't feel
24:59
right I don't think I can like meet my goal of painting as much as possible and
25:05
doing all this social media and all this other stuff while also making like specific content just for patreon for me
25:11
it just doesn't really feel like the right vibe to put contact with me behind a pay wall does that make sense yeah
25:18
yeah it does and I I totally get why people do it because like like I said it is really hard like if you have a larger
25:25
social media account or just like a bunch of social media accounts like it is hard to keep up with engaging with people and like yeah showing them that
25:32
you are happy that they're taking the time to like look at your stuff and all that because like you know I'm sure you
25:37
can relate to this like every comment like makes me feel good I mean if it's a nice comment right I was going to say
25:44
everyone yeah not all of them actually I take that back um but like when people take the time to say nice things and I
25:50
don't have time to respond I'm like I'm the worst person ever like it feels bad
25:56
so yeah yeah I I remember specifically giving myself the challenge for a while
26:02
where I I said I'm GNA respond to everything and it's going to be fully written out and I'm going to demonstrate
26:09
the reciprocal interaction and it added like an hour to my day yeah and I was
26:17
thinking like I don't mind that but I also need to do other things yeah like
26:23
you're a painter you're an artist like yeah and so now I'm not cleaning up my student
26:28
now I'm not doing this like this is not sustainable no it's so hard um but what
26:34
I've seen work really well on patreon is like art instruction or giving out like
26:40
references like something where it's very clear that they would be paying for that somewhere else anyway and it sounds
26:47
like that's not really what you're doing you're continuing the conversation through email yeah kind of yeah yeah and
26:55
the other thing is like I have seen the artists who Prov provide reference photos and I think that's really helpful for a lot of people but again like it
27:02
takes it takes time to like provide reference photos like that's that's a lot of work I mean for me personally
27:09
like staging a composition and photographing it and all that stuff like I'll spend several hours and get like
27:15
two good photos out of it to paint from yeah I I have a still life Club on my
27:21
website where I give out photo references and I decided to make it free
27:26
because you know just put out some some cool stuff show show people what we have going on but every month that photo
27:34
shoot takes me hours yeah I bet it does like that is very generous because it's
27:40
so hard it's it's fun but it is hard and it's it's photographing it where I'm
27:45
like what would I have fun with and then I'm thinking what would they have fun with too yeah because it's not really my
27:53
work like it's an extension you know totally yeah and it's really different yeah no I've been literally like
27:59
dripping sweat at the end of a staging session like in front of the light and like crouching down like picking things
28:06
up putting them back moving them around like it's it's literally hard work or like God forbid I have to Stage outside
28:12
cuz it's like dark out like carrying everything down three flights of stairs into the backyard being out in the sun
28:19
just like it's yeah it's definitely not just like work that does itself you know
28:25
and I think it looks easy so people don't really see how not easy it is yeah
28:30
that's that's really true there's that thing of like the proliferation of all the photographs on the internet you know
28:37
where at any time you're like I want to paint a fruit still life let me go on any of the royaltyfree image sites and
28:44
type in fruits to life yeah and you're seeing people's like real labor and it's
28:51
just there and it's just free but half of that stuff is like stolen I've figured I know I know which is even
28:57
worse it's yeah it's yeah it hurts yeah hurts it's bad um yeah and you know when
29:04
I started I actually did work from a lot of those free photos like unsplash you
29:09
know and whatever I forget all the names of them um but I just think it's so much
29:15
better to just take your own because then you're just in control of the whole
29:20
situation and you can get it to look exactly the way you want it and make it something that you like really want to paint and know you'll have fun painting
29:27
which is at the end of the day kind of the point like if it's not enjoyable why are you doing it I mean obviously to
29:33
learn but also like it should just be fun also because you can learn while still having fun that's my opinion
29:39
anyways yeah one of the best bits of advice I got from one of my teachers uh nerdrum was the moment it's not fun just
29:46
stop yeah cuz you're not going to make good decisions yeah just ju just stop
29:52
and I think that's also especially true when you are literally like self-employed
29:58
making art because there's so many aspects of it that like aren't fun like
30:03
I would never trade it for anything but like it's so much work so it's like why make it harder for yourself like if you
30:11
want to work a job that you're not having fun with just go work for a company again yeah get get health
30:18
benefits yeah exactly do something else yeah one of the things on your website
30:23
that's really well done is your print section thank you so how long have you
30:29
been offering prints oh my gosh not long after I started my website oh that's
30:34
great yeah cuz I had like when I first started painting and I had like a few paintings that were like winners like
30:40
they performed well on social media I was like okay I better make prints of these like it's just like the logical thing to do and yeah there's definitely
30:46
been like trial and error with like print providers and how I wanted to do things but I'm at a really good place
30:52
right now I love my printers and yeah I I feel like I'm finally in the groove with offering good prins I got really
30:59
lucky and I have someone very close to me that works with people who make
31:06
amazing prints and so I'm about to start dipping my toe into prints yay which is
31:12
really exciting yeah yes um your life will be changed I got to tell you like
31:17
it's been a it's been a journey where I'm just I I don't really trust a lot of
31:22
print places because it's just cranking them out high volume like they don't
31:28
know you you know like it's so you don't have to tell us who you get your prce
31:34
from but I I'd be really interested in sort of your journey of like getting good reproductions of your work made and
31:41
like what tips do you have for people that are like thinking it could be a good Avenue for them first of all I will
31:48
not keep my printers a secret cuz I love them and they deserve lots of business it's called pigeon print house which I
31:54
felt like they emailed me and I was like okay like I paint so many pigeons I have to at least give them a try they're
32:00
amazing they're so responsive they're so helpful like I literally just am obsessed with them I think they might
32:05
have a program where when you sign up if you like tell them who referred you I
32:10
might get a bonus I actually don't know for a fact um okay cool well if if that does work send me a link and I'll put it
32:17
in the uh show notes okay yeah and like anyone listening if you sign up yeah that I I directed you to Pigeon print
32:24
house um they're like literally the best okay when I first started I was using MX it's just like a photography printing
32:31
website and honestly like I was happy with the quality but they're not very transparent about the type of paper they
32:36
use which is kind of like something that's important to me like I want to know everything about like the type of ink and paper and all that and like
32:43
currently I print on sustainable bamboo paper it's like super heavy duty and like it's archival and every you know I
32:50
trust it like I trust that it's archival products which cuz that's important to me not going to name names but there is
32:56
there is a print company out there that I do not recommend and I worked with them for too long ended up pretty much
33:04
getting like kind of screwed over that like they were going to go from like free shipping to $25 shipping to the US
33:12
and I didn't find that out until like two days before it went into effect so that was rough I basically had to just
33:18
like stop all operations and like figure something out like in 24 hours so that
33:24
led me into doing my own prints like so I was ordering inventory from finer
33:30
Works which good quality prints like I liked them and then shipping them all out myself which oh my God it took so
33:38
much time and not to mention people who work at the post office in Chicago are some of the grumpiest employees I have
33:45
ever interacted with like I've seen people cry in there I've come very close to crying in there they've accuse me of
33:52
stealing I've seen them accuse other people of stealing like it istic
33:57
go in there sometimes yeah so like that was like a huge part of why I wanted to stop doing that cuz I was like I can't
34:03
like my blood pressure would like Spike on the days I knew I was going to the post office and I'd be like I can't do
34:09
this anymore yeah your print company now handles the
34:15
shipping and so is it kind of like a Drop Shipping situation or I guess so I
34:21
don't totally know how Drop Shipping works but what happens is they're based in California they're integrated with my
34:26
website so every print goes through goes straight to them they print it out and
34:31
they pack it up and they mail it from their printing Studio that's Drop Shipping yeah perfect Drop Shipping then
34:37
that's great yeah and it's I think they still are just like a husband and wife Duo oh wow yeah it's it's pretty small I
34:45
mean I at this point maybe they've hired other people um cuz I'm sure they've
34:50
been growing I mean they're amazing so I can't see how they wouldn't be well that sounds like a really great solution for
34:57
for people to look into if they're interested in getting prints made yeah and I've been like so thrilled with the
35:02
quality and like when I do art fairs there who I order my prints from they send them all like with backing in them already for me and they just like look
35:09
so good in person if you're enjoying the podcast and you want maybe a little bit
35:15
more please check out my online community the virtual Studio you can find all of our podcast episodes
35:22
including behind the scenes and virtual member exclusive episodes the one I just
35:27
recorded was about building a still life specifically for the still life Club image reference set that I just released
35:33
for March it's a lot of fun a lot of times artists don't really get taught how to build a still life or what goes
35:40
into our thinking when it comes to making a still life it was a lot of fun to break that down so if you want to
35:46
keep the conversation going if you want to become a part of the conversation ask our guests questions give me suggestions
35:52
of what you want to listen to please show up join the virtual Studio online
35:57
Community there will be a link in the show notes that's amazing and you're of course like getting really great
36:04
photography of your stuff do you shoot your own paintings yes um yeah I take
36:10
pies on my camera I'm not like a photography person so I don't totally know what I'm talking about but it's a
36:15
Fujifilm x100v I've had it for a long time it was a Christmas gift like years
36:21
ago um that's what I use that's great how do you all right like how do you set
36:28
the lighting up to take photos of your paintings because that's one of the things that drives a lot of people crazy
36:36
um and it used to drive me crazy too it still kind of does drive me crazy but I have basically figured out like the
36:43
optimum lighting conditions for my own artwork just based on like the texture it consistently has so I definitely
36:49
think this also will vary for like whatever medium you use whatever like
36:54
surface you're working on like how reflective your artwork is you know so like for me mine is pretty shiny cuz
37:00
it's like thick oil paint um so I pretty much have to take my photos in front of
37:08
a window in like soft ambient lighting between the hours of like 10:00 a.m. and
37:14
2:00 p.m. and if it's like too sunny or too cloudy I just have to wait for a
37:20
different day basically that's incredible no like artificial lighting has ever worked for
37:26
me personally yeah well your your your photos look great thank you it's yeah I'm like if
37:34
you could see me taking the pictures I'm like holding them like at weird angles and like bending over sideways holding
37:40
my camera in very strange ways like just to try and not get like the reflections but also not to have the painting be
37:47
like in the dark it's it's challenging it's never easy well it's it's definitely working
37:53
for you thank you I think that idea of like going a window getting that really
37:59
specific ambient light that you know works for the type of image that you're going for when it comes to the
38:04
translation of your paintings yes and that you've really worked that out that's really cool I mean unfortunately
38:11
like and I get this question a lot like how do you take good pictures of your artwork I really do kind of feel like
38:16
the only answer is trial and error and then practice
38:23
like you have to know what works and then get good at holding it the right way way before you develop like the
38:28
Instinct like it sounds silly to have to practice that specifically but like I had to anyways yeah and I think it's
38:35
important to also recognize that you're working in a scale that will allow you to do that like you're not painting
38:41
wall-sized oh yeah for sure and like I've started scaling up my work like in
38:47
the past year or so and bigger paintings are definitely harder um I think as I
38:53
get bigger and bigger I'm probably going to have to like bring in a professional yeah So when you say bigger and bigger
38:59
what does that mean CU you were talking about like 4x4 10 by 10 and to a lot of
39:05
people this won't sound big but I just finished a painting that was like I think 20 by 24 in and then like a few
39:11
months ago I did one that I think was like maybe 24 by 30 inol so by some artist standards it
39:19
really isn't big but for me it's big I mean it takes forever cuz everything is so detailed you know like it's not like
39:24
the way I've been sizing up I haven't really been like like enlarging the
39:30
objects in my painting so much as I've been adding more of them to a painting
39:35
does that Mak sense it does and looking at your your recent still lives you can tell you're like that's a lot more books
39:42
that's a lot of stuff there's a lot of bounc scale is the same there's just way more happening so it's like the
39:49
equivalent of like 20 small paintings that obviously has had an impact on the
39:56
daily painting practice yes so you said when you first started out that you were painting essentially a
40:02
painting a day yeah pretty much when did that change and what facilitated that
40:08
trying to think I feel like it maybe changed like almost 3 years ago trying to think wow I've been doing this for
40:14
almost 5 years now I guess like actually full-time almost four years but that's crazy so yeah I would say like maybe
40:21
about 3 years ago like I was sort of like starting to do larger work I was taking on more commissions and you know
40:27
anyone who's done commissions knows that they just they do take so much longer just between all the communication
40:33
required and like staging everything to order basically and all that stuff so
40:38
you know my work was just it was becoming more labor intensive for one finished piece and I was just like I
40:45
feel like I was working longer and longer hours I mean I was working like a lot on weekends and like kind of late
40:51
into the night on weekdays and it was just like way too much like it wasn't healthy and it was like not fun anymore
40:59
so yeah and there's there's that pressure of I'm a fulltime artist this
41:06
is what I signed up for this is what I identify as this is my thing yeah and
41:12
that's why I don't get to sleep tonight yeah and then I think there's also like
41:17
you know you kind of feel like I mean maybe this is just me but I know that like being a full-time
41:24
artist is a dream for a lot of people or even just being self-employed and like comfortably self-employed it's just like
41:30
a dream for so many people and I feel like if I don't squeeze like the
41:35
absolute most out of it then I'm an [ __ ] right which is like so illogical
41:42
um but yeah that's just how I feel I guess it's a it's a really tricky weird
41:49
guilt thing for sure it definitely has baked in anxiety to it that you
41:56
definitely don't anticipate before it happens yeah for sure and so yeah when
42:01
you made that switch was it like I have to change this and here's the new rules
42:07
or was it like a slow transition a little bit of both I'm like remembering when I basically was like I
42:15
can't do this anymore I was doing a commission and someone had sent back
42:20
like a really long list of feedback which is fair like you're paying a lot of money to have something like totally
42:27
bespoke like I totally get it but in the moment I was like I can't even look at
42:33
this like I was just like pissed which again not fair for me to be mad about
42:39
that but I was just it was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back you know and I was like I can't do it so
42:45
I literally just like took a week off and didn't paint anything and I think I had done that on like vacations when I
42:52
was out of town like maybe once or twice in that year and a half or so
42:57
but I had never really just like let myself be at home and like doing work stuff but not
43:04
painting and I was like oh I feel happy again like it was making
43:09
me not like painting basically like I think you know it was too much of a good thing yeah that's one of the bits of
43:15
advice you hear all the time is to not do the thing you love for your job yeah
43:22
and that's fair I mean it takes a lot of like conscious effort to not ruin it for
43:29
yourself yeah and it's it's a hard balance to strike and I feel like you always have to be on top of it because
43:35
the bad habits come creeping back yes especially yeah I
43:40
mean that's such a human thing right once you get comfortable bad
43:46
habits creep in and then yeah when when you get those little bits of friction
43:52
you're just like can I just push pause on this and then you don't get back to
43:57
it and all of a sudden you have an angry client or yeah a print order doesn't get
44:03
fulfilled in in some weird way although now you have printers where that doesn't happen so that's yeah but you know
44:10
there's always going to be like customer service requests or like something got lost in the mail or something yeah yeah
44:17
and yeah you know when you do run a business like you're going to have
44:23
ongoing obligations to people who gave you money in exchange for something that you need to fulfill and that is a lot of
44:30
pressure especially because like some people are not nice to you yeah the the moment that it's a
44:38
business interaction the moment that someone goes from being someone who loves and appreciates your work to a
44:45
customer yeah it's a very different relationship and most of the time like
44:52
99% of the time it's amazing mhm yeah but there's people are
44:57
evitably yeah just going to be that 1% where through no one's fault circumstance creates a a bit of friction
45:05
yeah or sometimes you just have a customer who is just like not very well
45:10
adjusted I guess mhm but again like I feel like 99.9% of people are like super
45:17
nice and like the amount of nice kind messages I get is so nice so it's like
45:22
why does that one really bizarre mean message hit so hard it stays with you
45:27
too like I'll I'll get critiques online where someone will say something and I'm
45:32
like that is such a meaningless comment you know it's a nothing thing but yeah
45:40
when when you make what you love your job mhm that stays with you yeah and
45:48
like you are like you're literally putting everything out there like I mean you're putting your artwork out there
45:54
but you're also like putting your name out there and like standing behind not only your work but like a product and
46:00
like a service and like a customer experience like it all comes back to you you're not like you can't hide behind
46:07
like a faceless customer service agent I mean at least I can't I'm answering all my own emails so like when someone
46:15
emails me like to whom it may concern I'm like it's literally just me it
46:20
concerns me concern me only and you I guess but yeah that's awesome yeah so
46:28
how do you decide what pieces become prints or what
46:34
you want to focus on sharing and and putting stuff out there because that's
46:39
not always the easiest choice cuz I don't know is it always the thing that you love the the most right now or is it
46:47
what plays better how do you determine that like what is that look like so okay that's an interesting question I feel
46:54
like usually like painting that I really like also tend to be like crowd Pleasers
47:01
but I'm like okay do I like them because I know they're going to be crowd Pleasers or do I just like like the
47:08
painting or how it turned out but so like I feel like nine out of 10 times I can tell how a painting is going to
47:14
perform on social media like whether it's going to sell quickly all that stuff so I usually have like a pretty good feeling that I'm going to have to
47:20
make prints of it because like there's going to be demand for it like people are going to be leaving comments being
47:25
like prince prince prince so it's usually not like a tough decision like from a business perspective it's usually
47:30
a pretty obvious decision cuz I'm like okay there are people who want to buy this yeah but every now and then like I
47:35
do have a painting that I personally really like and I'm like oh this is like a banger
47:41
I'm going to make I'm going to get Prince ready cuz like I feel like people are going to really like this one and then no one likes it at all and I'm like
47:47
that's embarrassing that's so fascinating um yeah cuz I've I've I've
47:52
done that you know I'll be in the studio I'm drawing something and I'm thinking
47:57
this is it yeah like people are going to see what I see in this work and I'm
48:04
going to be able to connect with them on it and it's going to be really cool MH and then it goes out to like aggressive
48:12
crickets you know yeah you're like what yeah and I was like and you're like was
48:17
it just like really fun to make like is that why I like it so much cuz it was just like Smooth Sailing the whole time
48:24
or like is every else wrong and then there's there's a really tricky
48:29
thing I think that a lot of artists navigate which is it made me happy and I'm the author
48:37
so that's all that should matter yeah and then on one hand I I can support
48:44
that because we all feel that creative impulse and we all know what that feels like yeah for sure on the other hand we
48:50
all have to pay rent and if this is going to be your job what you put in the
48:55
world needs to be connected to yeah and so you know we don't have the gallery
49:01
telling us like no that's probably not going to play well or that series is undercooked right now or yeah like I
49:10
feel like with social media the the supportive business critical feedback of
49:16
the work that voice is kind of gone and replaced with I guess the algorithm I
49:22
hate the word the algorithm because it's sort of a catchall for like magic
49:27
you know but yeah and and to feel upset about something not taking off just
49:33
feels so silly in hindsight but it's a real feeling that we all whether we
49:38
admit it or not we all have yeah I think I think everyone probably feels that way
49:44
yeah um yeah no I don't know I feel that way like on a pretty regular basis but I
49:49
think at the end of the day like as a person I am very practical and
49:54
business-minded so I try not to get too like caught up in my like artist feelings um um and
50:03
then I also do think though that like you know if you are able to run things
50:08
the right way from a business perspective and put out enough prints to where you can kind of have like ongoing
50:13
income it does free you up to experiment with things that like you're pretty sure people aren't really going to care about
50:20
except for you but they person fulfilling so I think that you can strike a balance you just have to be
50:27
conscious of like the amount of risk and how you can support yourself while you
50:32
experiment does that make sense it definitely makes sense yeah so when you
50:37
started out cuz there's there's probably going to be a lot of people starting out
50:42
who have these questions and this stuff might get covered in a professional
50:48
practices course but not from people that are doing it so when it came to the
50:53
business side of things I know a lot of artists are sort of like well we used to just give it to the gallery and then
50:59
they do it I don't know what to do how do I Market how do I decide what number
51:06
is good enough you know when it came to pricing your work cuz I saw I I was able
51:13
to check out your website and look at your commission pricing which I feel is really really affordable which is
51:19
awesome how did you end up arriving at the cost of your work like what are some
51:24
of the factors that you think about so okay for commissions specifically which like they actually are closed for 2025
51:32
um and that's great that might just be a forever thing um when I was first
51:37
setting my prices for just regular Originals um I had them priced like
51:43
pretty inexpensive I think it was like $150 for like no maybe like $100 for
51:50
like a 6x6 in piece and granted I was really new and like didn't totally know what I was doing so like given my skill
51:56
set it was maybe more on the expensive side but you know for like the market in general it was on the cheap side and
52:02
there's an artist named Chris long he does like a lot of like really colorful landscapes and stuff and he was like
52:09
double your prices and I was like no like no one will buy it and but I was
52:14
like you know what I'll double them for a week and see what happens I doubled them and that day I sold two paintings for double the price so that was kind of
52:21
that sort of ended up being my starting point for pricing and then just through the years I've increased it I couldn't
52:28
tell you actually like what my price for square in is but it just it's become
52:33
like instinctive at this point like and like sometimes if I feel like a painting
52:39
within a certain size range was like harder than others I make it a little more expensive and I feel like that
52:46
happens gradually enough through the years that I gradually increase my prices but it's kind of a natural
52:52
process that was kind of long-winded explanation I hope it no it's fantastic
52:57
yeah it's really really good cuz it's coming from a place of experience and and what has worked for you so I think
53:03
that's fantastic there's a lot of people that use the price per square inch I think that works really well for what
53:09
you're doing because you work in very standard sizes yes yeah and I definitely recommend doing that and you know people
53:15
do like email me or message me a lot asking how to price their artwork and I'm like I can't make that decision for
53:23
you yeah well it's if if there's any one person that's going to pretend to be the
53:29
voice of the market you know you probably shouldn't trust them exactly yeah but yeah I never I never really
53:36
know like how to tell people to price their works I feel like it has to kind
53:41
of come from like your own intuition and like what do you think you're worth
53:46
which might be thought-provoking for some people it definitely is for me there's always that thing like I I had
53:52
sold a drawing recently to a collector and it's from a series that doesn't get
54:00
a lot of love from me in the studio so it's a pretty rare subject and the scale
54:05
is different than I usually go and it's the medium and the the method you know
54:10
so there's there's a lot of things that take it out of the typical right and so
54:16
I factor all that in when I do pricing like what's the eventual scarcity of
54:21
this type of work you know yeah and it ended up being like a a pretty good
54:27
price and I said you know here's what it is there's there's some breathing room you're a collector I really really
54:33
appreciate that you're into this and I would love it to be with you instead of just like in a flat file somewhere you
54:39
know and when they when they bought it I thought to myself you know that's just
54:45
dirt on some paper yeah like you know for something a little cheaper I'll
54:51
teach you how to do it and right and it hit me that the same reason when you
54:57
look at something through your camera and you're just like this is it this composition is what I was after it's
55:04
singing like this is everything right now let's go home and and and paint this
55:09
that's what they're seeing with our work you know no and like I know like
55:14
obviously like for someone to buy my work for like the amount they're paying for they obviously like really see
55:21
something in it but I think it's kind of like you know when you see your own handwriting and you're like that looks
55:27
really rough but then you see your handwriting like upside down or maybe you don't I don't know like maybe you
55:33
don't have really neat handwriting but like sometimes I'll see my handwriting upside down and be like wow that's really nice handwriting oh that's mine
55:40
um I feel like when you see something that you made through like the lens of
55:46
being you and like knowing all the things that are wrong with you um you're
55:52
like why would someone want this like I yeah I don't know I just knowing that I
55:58
am very much not a perfect person I'm like you don't want to buy something
56:03
from me like I'm sure there are much better like more legit artists out there that you could spend that kind of money
56:08
on you know does that make sense I mean it's syndrome that impostor syndrome
56:14
totally and it it quiets I don't think it ever leaves because I've I've been
56:20
selling work gosh 15 years and it's great every s
56:26
I'm floored I'm so thrilled you know yeah I know it's so exciting and then I
56:31
I definitely still oscillate between you just got one of the greatest drawings ever made to yeah you know it's dirt
56:40
right exactly and like every time an order comes through it's like a combo of
56:45
like yes like a sale like I hope they love it and I also am like oh my God like what if the photo is just like so
56:53
like what if it looks the same to me but to them like they get the painting they're like oh this does not look like how it looked on my screen on my device
57:00
I hate it which has never happened but like right I'm still waiting for the day and I still am like convinced every time
57:07
I don't hear from a customer about an original when they receive it I'm like oh they hate it well that's such an
57:12
amazing argument for great photography you know like yeah if you haven't
57:18
figured out how to get a great photographic translation you know that is an absolute necessity for the artist
57:25
to kit if you're going to share work online especially if it's for sale yeah and it can be really hard like
57:32
especially when you've got a painting that has like a lot of like neutrals or Grays which I feel like are like
57:37
disproportionately impacted by the lighting that you're in like time of day
57:43
makes a huge difference in their look and like granted it makes a huge difference in their look in person too
57:48
but I don't know I think things with like really clear like that's red like
57:53
there's no question that that that is red like it's going to look to your brain more similar no matter what
58:00
lighting it's in yeah and then there's that problem of on my screen it looks
58:07
this way but on your differently calibrated screen yeah on your on your night mode it does look pretty yellow
58:14
yeah like that might look pink or warm orange and you're just like oh that's
58:20
not please don't fall in love with one color note you know cuz it might not be there that's definitely one of the
58:26
scariest parts for me is just like hoping that the customer is not opening
58:31
their painting and being like this is a catfish painting well like I said your photos
58:38
are so good I don't think you have to worry worry about that but it is something like I've done that going to
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museums I've looked at the art forever in art history classes or you know on on
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the internet and then I get to the museum and I'm like finally then I look at it I'm like what
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the color so different everything's different and so there's an interesting
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experience where it's like you get to meet a friend in a new way so like sometimes it can be like a really
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pleasurable thing yeah for sure I mean like more vibrant and more like Dynamic
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but yeah I've definitely noticed the same thing and been like oh uh this is like not what I was expecting not in a
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bad way but like that just not I was expecting so what are you working on
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right now cuz I I've seen a lot of really cool paintings of book Stacks are are you like really into the book Stacks
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right now I am like addicted to the book Stacks like I literally I can't stop and
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I feel bad cuz I'm like getting a little repetitive here but they just I don't
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know I think throughout a lot of the time that I've been doing still life work I've kind of painted and compos
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scenes that I personally don't really feel like in involved in like I always
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feel like almost like an it's a very Outsider perspective like I used to
1:00:02
paint like a lot of cards and like fresh cut flowers and wine and like actually I
1:00:07
literally can't play games like I cannot remember the rules of a single card game I don't play cards ever like I don't even touch cards except for to paint
1:00:14
them I barely ever drink wine and I definitely never have flowers around um
1:00:19
so it's all very much like an imaginary thing that like I can't relate to I think the reason I'm just like really
1:00:26
resonating with these books is because in reality literally the only thing I do when I'm not painting is read books so
1:00:32
it feels just like I'm at a place where I can kind of like celebrate painting something that I actually do feel like
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like I care about it like it does mean something to me just like gives me like a feeling I guess and not like a feeling
1:00:45
of being an outsider um I love that so I guess my next question then is my
1:00:51
impulse if I were in that position would be to stack books in a way where they
1:00:58
correlate with each other where I'm like yeah this one definitely is friends with this one like that kind of stuff do you
1:01:05
ever think about that or is this just like this is my book deack um I actually do put a lot of thought and how I stack
1:01:12
them but it's not really about like the books or their content it's like how I think the best shadows will be cast nice
1:01:22
the best way to get some like visual variation so it's not just like identical books stacked on top of each
1:01:27
other I like to squeeze in like a small one the Shadows over the top of it or like a dark colored spine or like a
1:01:34
really old book that has like really Brown pages so yeah I'm definitely like stacking them for the aesthetic not for
1:01:41
so always going back to the formal composition yeah that's great that's great yeah that's awesome I've noticed
1:01:48
on some of the books that you do edit how you paint their details yeah is that
1:01:53
just like a save your sanity kind of or yeah no like 100% I I did a
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commission for one of my parents' friends and she had me paint so it was
1:02:06
one of their couple friends and the wife wanted me to paint all his favorite books so basically I just like stacked
1:02:13
my own books but I had to change all the covers and smes and write down the titles and it ended up looking really
1:02:19
cool like it was honestly worth it but after that one I was like you know what I think just little little
1:02:27
symbols will get the point across that it's a book and actually so okay my mom
1:02:33
is from France um and so she has like a ton of French books and they're really cute they just have like a totally
1:02:39
different feeling to them than American books they have very like clean minimal spines and like the covers are always
1:02:45
like classic art granted they are like French Classics so that's probably why but um I posted one and I like on Tumblr
1:02:53
or something and I had just painted like like little tiny symbols that some of
1:02:59
them had like I removed the titles and someone commented what is your association with France and I was like
1:03:05
oh my gosh you could literally tell that they were French books by like the little blue square that's like a brand
1:03:10
of books in France it's I I actually know exactly what you're talking about really yeah cuz I I got a couple when I
1:03:17
was in France yeah yeah so someone was able to tell which I feel like mission accomplished cuz that was like kind of
1:03:23
the point like there were just these cool French books and I I did want to get that across yeah yeah that's really
1:03:29
cool that was like so such a side tangent but no no it's perfect so yeah
1:03:35
so right now you're working on bookstacks and you're working in you you said like slightly larger scale for you
1:03:42
yeah that's really cool and like I mean I haven't done that many like significantly larger paintings but just
1:03:50
my average painting has gotten sign significantly larger like I feel like before my average size was like 6X 6 in
1:03:57
and now I feel like it's probably more like maybe like 10x 10 11x 14 is like
1:04:03
becoming a standard so yeah that's such a great scale most of my studio drawings
1:04:10
tend to be 9 by 12 or 12 x 16 something like I said I I feel a kinship with your
1:04:15
work because I feel like it has a lot to do with just visual composition and like
1:04:21
the joy of making marks and building something yeah and I definitely see that in your work I love like all like I feel
1:04:29
like you're very good at like creating Dimension that pops up off of the page
1:04:34
and just like really satisfying like round shapes that have a lot of like I don't know the form is just very like
1:04:40
you could reach out and touch it oh thanks and I feel like to me when I look at your stuff I'm like I bet that was
1:04:47
really satisfying and fun like cuz you know when you just nail that perfect shape that just like pops like that's
1:04:53
kind of the same way that I feel when I look at ear were like you can tell it just kind of scratches that itch when
1:04:59
you look at it yeah I I love the idea of working with your perception and and
1:05:05
seeing what comes out that's sort of like authorial this is my view my take
1:05:10
on the color my take on the hatchmark my you know all that fun stuff right yeah well that's really great uh let's see I
1:05:16
have two questions that I like to ask at the end of a conversation I hope that's okay yep so you had a different
1:05:23
educational path than a lot of the folks I talked to which is really exciting but
1:05:29
I'm still really interested in this what was the hardest thing for you to unlearn so do you mean like in terms of like
1:05:37
skill set or just like a natural human tendency that I'm trying to not have I
1:05:43
am good with any answer that comes to mind okay well my top answer that comes to mind
1:05:49
is I guess perfectionism I'm not like a perfectionism in the sense that like
1:05:56
everything has to be like perfect and clean or whatever but I am in the sense that like I feel like I have a very hard
1:06:02
time like trusting the process and if I feel like something isn't fully fleshed out in my head like then why even bother
1:06:08
trying I don't know just kind of like a very like black and white mindset of like even attempting things so I think
1:06:15
I've gotten a lot better at just like diving into things without just like having to make them
1:06:22
perfect to feel like it was worth my time because I like really I mean for me it really held me back and I think I do
1:06:29
see that a lot you know when people are like oh I like want to start but I don't know where to start like that to me it's
1:06:35
kind of just like perfectionism cuz it's like you're only going to start when you have that perfect feeling that like you
1:06:40
found the thing that is going to be worth painting or drawing or whatever it is you do yeah sorry I'm kind of
1:06:45
rambling but I feel like that like perfectionist All or Nothing mindset is something that I've been unlearning and
1:06:51
it's been very helpful that's a fantastic answer and I'm sure everyone
1:06:56
can relate to that on some level right yeah Fant you can't wait for inspiration
1:07:02
to come every single time like sometimes it comes and it hits and it's like the best feeling but like it's not always
1:07:08
going to come you just have to like make a split-second decision and not overthink it and just get to work
1:07:15
yes uh fantastic uh the next question is what are two wholehearted
1:07:21
recommendations that you can share so this could be like books artists films tools your stuff anything that you
1:07:29
really really recommend that people check out so okay this for some people might be a no-brainer but I did just
1:07:36
find out that my best friend didn't know that libraries had free books so my recommendation she was like you don't
1:07:42
have to like pay for them and I was like what do you think the library is like
1:07:49
um well um I'm glad your friend had you yeah I know um no but so my recommend
1:07:55
ation is not just the library but specifically Libby or like your your local like e Library I listen to audio
1:08:02
books while I paint and I literally like couldn't paint without listening to an audio book at this point it's just what
1:08:08
I do so that's one of my big recommendations I mean they also have regular books which I use you know I use
1:08:15
it for both things so yeah and then my current so it's hard to narrow down I have like three current art obsessions
1:08:22
can I just say all yeah please yeah please so okay Zoe Frank is one of my favorite artists of all time yeah um and
1:08:29
I did her like online Workshop which like posted like after the fact I guess it like wasn't in person and then she
1:08:36
posts online fantastic I did it last year and that was like my first ever real like instruction I guess you could
1:08:44
say that wasn't just like scrolling on wet canvas and yeah just like it's incredible and then my other current
1:08:51
artist obsession is Jeremy Miranda his stuff is just like crazy he's amazing
1:08:56
like it's literally like I just like I literally like go on his page just stare at stuff um and then my third is
1:09:04
Christina Weaver I'm actually doing her Workshop in person in like a week and a
1:09:09
half which I've never done before that's exciting I am so excited I'm like actually really nervous too cuz like
1:09:16
like I mentioned I'm not very good at like being told what I have to pay um in
1:09:21
like sitting through that but I I think I can handle it I'm just her work is
1:09:26
just nuts so yeah she's amazing it's yeah I mean I can't even describe it I
1:09:33
just think it's so cool yeah I mean well you have fantastic taste in artists yeah that's really cool
1:09:41
I just like want to be all of them all at once so yes yeah I was talking about Jeremy's work last night on my virtual
1:09:48
Studio hangout really yeah because he had just made a post where he was
1:09:55
talking about that he feels like he has so many different types of work yeah and
1:10:01
and I was like really cuz like I I didn't really get that vibe from it but yeah I don't either it all just looks so
1:10:07
recognizably his yeah but when I was going through I was like okay it's the subject matter and so like okay there's
1:10:14
the trees there's the decorations there's the kitchen still lives and the staging I was like that makes more sense
1:10:21
yeah I guess you look at it like that but it's all just like Perfection I yeah
1:10:27
and I I I feel like it's the kind of thing that we think about when we're so deep in it that the smallest change
1:10:33
feels like a revelation to anyone on the outside we like it's all great you know
1:10:40
exactly yeah I know and I feel like that sometimes about certain things like actually kind of same thing like when I
1:10:45
do like a landscape which is kind of rare instead of um you know still life
1:10:51
I'm like oh my gosh I just feel like to me this looks like it's painted by a different person which to anyone else
1:10:56
probably not but it does just feel totally different to me so I get it yeah
1:11:03
that's part of what makes it fun and Lively right MH yeah well uh thank you
1:11:09
so much for your time this was amazing yeah thank you it's nice to be able to talk to someone about art I feel like we
1:11:14
just like well I know you teach but for me I just like sit at home alone all day and you know no one really gets it I
1:11:23
guess like what the day-to-day looks like the the dayto day is yeah if if you're not talking to someone who is a studio
1:11:30
artist the the day in and day out real work that's involved I think is lost on
1:11:37
so many people yeah and like it is a lot of work it's a lot of work and then on
1:11:43
top of that there's the business and on top of that there's being a person yes
1:11:48
you know so definitely it's it's a lot of stuff but yeah thank you so much this has been phenomenal thank you you cool
1:11:56
all right that was awesome thank you so much Leah for your time and your your generosity if you want to see more of
1:12:03
Leah's beautiful paintings check out her website at leag gardner. Art and follow her on Instagram also at leag gardner.
1:12:11
Art she really has all that figured out if you enjoyed this episode please don't forget to subscribe like leave a review
1:12:19
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1:12:24
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1:12:30
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1:12:38
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1:12:45
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