Justin Hopkins is a talented artist, originally from Mukilteo, Washington.
Yoshino is a photographer, director, and the creator and host of the Artist Decoded podcast.
Together, they created NOH / WAVE, a multidisciplinary creative group located in Los Angeles, Ca.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreatvepush.com/nohwave
-How Yoshino got into photography and what inspired him to start Artist Decoded.
-How Justin and Yoshino met and how they were able to see how they both had similar creative mindsets.
-The importance of recognizing individuals and opportunities that come up for you that are in line with your own philosophies.
-Finding a tribe (or building your own).
-What NOH/WAVE means and what they are attempting to do with it.
-How they are balancing their own personal work while attempting to run this large project.
-Learning that everyone goes through insecurities and other creative blocks at all points in their career.
-Trying to find a way to maintain creative honesty.
-Being adaptable and not becoming a caricature of yourself by doing the same thing over and over again.
“We just realized it’s better together rather than competing against each other.”
“There’s something that happens when you push towards something that you feel you are meant to be doing with as much energy and passion as you can. Things will just start happening.”
“By understanding other people’s creativity, I can understand myself even further.”
“Be honest with yourself and be able to adapt and evolve with the process.”
Justin Hopkins on Your Creative Push
Justin's Website / Justin's Instagram / Yoshino's Website / Yoshino's Instagram
Megan Carty : Website / Instagram
Carrie Waller is a watercolor artist working in a realistic, detailed style. With a background in Interior Design and her studies in Graphic design as well as her time spent living in Europe and Asia have influenced her as an artist. Her unique works are bold, vibrant and dramatic.
She is a signature member of the American Watercolor Society, Louisiana Watercolor Society and the Mid-Southern Watercolorists. She teaches workshops and private classes.
Carrie is also a co-host and contributor for the Artists Helping Artists #1 blog radio art podcast.
-How she maintained a creative life with a husband in the Air Force.
-How the movie Julie & Juliet gave her the inspiration to start a blog in which she would do a painting a week.
-Listening to the Artists Helping Artists Podcast and how she eventually became involved as a cohost.
-Taking a watercolor workshop with Paul Jackson.
-The importance of having accountability partners or groups and her own personal group, WAM.
-How traveling has influenced her art.
-How she balances her time with being a wife, a mother, and an artist.
-Dealing with self-doubt.
-What Artists Helping Artists is all about and what people can get from it.
-Being brave and reaching out to other creatives that you want to connect with.
“It’s this friendship and this professional group that has made all the difference in my life. They keep me focused.”
“I move so often that I have to reinvent this community for myself.”
“I have a clear goal and a clear idea of where I want to be so that keeps me motivated and moving.”
Carol Carter on Your Creative Push
Justin Hopkins on Your Creative Push
Website / Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest
NOH / WAVE : Justin Hopkins / Artist Decoded by Yoshino
She also writes non-fiction for authors and is the creator of The Creative Penn, which offers information and inspiration on writing, self-publishing, book marketing and how to make a living with your writing through articles, podcast episodes, videos, books and courses.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/joannapenn
-How she felt spiritually empty and creatively dead from her job, yet stuck in the “golden handcuffs” of a job that pays the bills.
-The importance of taking action after you have determined what you want out of life.
-Determining the things that you are going to give up in order to achieve your dreams.
-The experience of writing her first book.
-How she used to think that the only thing worth writing was something that would win an award.
-Doing NaNoWriMo for the first time and how it changed her life.
-Her take on getting ideas.
-Her advice for anyone who is considering doing NaNoWriMo.
-How something good can come out of a writing challenge, even if you fall short of your initial goal.
-Being able to meet other people who are doing NaNoWriMo.
-Some of the struggles she initially had with dictation and her advice for writers who want to try it.
-How your first draft is like producing a block of marble, and the later drafts allow you to chisel away at it to make a sculpture.
-Self-censorship and fear of judgment.
“If you set your mind to it and then take action, you can live the life of your dreams.”
“There are lots of ways to get information and ideas. You just have to tune into the things that are most interesting to you.”
“The temptation for creative people is to do those practical things. It’s much easier to maintain your website or blog or do social media than it is to sit down and do something new.”
“Take that creative push and go create! Make the time and do it because you can absolutely change your life.”
On Writing My First Novel -- The Creative Penn
Website / The Creative Penn / Books / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
Carrie Waller : Website / Instagram
Amarilys Henderson is a watercolor illustrator who graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design. After mostly working in illustration and painting commissions, she started to paint for the sake of her own sanity. By letting go of the finished product, she began creating "Watercolor Devos" -- a way for her to combine her watercolors with her Christian Devotions.
Amarilys is also a successful and popular instructor on Skillshare.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/amarilys
-Getting back to her art after having her first child and having no expectations from anyone as to what that art should be.
-How she combined her time with watercolor with her time with her Christian devotion to create Watercolor Devos.
-How she initially told herself that she wouldn’t show her new creations to anyone.
-Starting her Etsy shop and her blog.
-Getting started on Skillshare and winning the teacher challenge.
-Her advice for anyone wanting to start their own courses on Skillshare.
-Her advice for anyone wanting to take Skillshare classes to be strategic with what classes they want to take and to also share their projects.
-Some of the resistances that hold her back, such as putting her face to her art/teaching.
-How she balances her time by noticing the rhythm of her week and having lunch with herself on Fridays to recap how things went.
“It makes sense to take what you’re really passionate about and simmer in it with whatever your creative with.”
“I just start painting where I’m at, and then I’m able to think deeper and receive anything else that is going to take me further.”
“You don’t know what you’re good at until you try it.”
“The greatest question you can ask yourself is what makes my heart jump up and what is connecting me to what I really am and what I was made for?”
Website / Skillshare / Instagram / Facebook / LinkedIn
Joanna Penn : Website / Facebook / Twitter
Even Mehl Amundsen is an illustrator and artist out of Copenhagen. He is originally from Norway, where he was able to specialize in visual art before living and working in England, Prague, and California, where he worked for such companies as Blizzard Entertainment, Games Workshop, and Volta.
Even is currently a full-time freelancer and is soon releasing his TEGN Book 1, the first of three in the series.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/even
-Going to school in Norway and being able to specialize in visual art.
-Traveling and working in England, Prague, California, and Copenhagen.
-His advice to be aware that your mindset might be incorrect.
-Working a little bit, always.
-How he eased into a drawing-a-day challenge and what it did for his art and his creative production.
-How he purposely sacrificed some of his social life during that year-long challenge in order to find the time each day.
-Why it is important to sometimes be self-centered when it comes to your creative life.
-Letting ideas percolate until they are ready to be put onto paper.
-Allowing ideas to come to you from your life experiences.
-Getting offered a job at Blizzard Entertainment, working there, and what made him want to leave.
-Dealing with the pressures of other people wanting you to do something that you know isn’t the right fit for you.
-His upcoming TEGN Book 1.
-How he lacks a ruthlessness when it comes to working with clients.
-His advice for young artists.
“I never sit down with the express intent of Alright, it’s drawing time, let’s come up with something to do.”
“The drawing process doesn’t start when the pencil meets paper. It starts when I have an idea that I want to put down on paper.”
“Whenever you see something that appeals to you aesthetically, make a note of it, try to figure out why you like it, try to figure out what aspect of it pleases you, and then figure out how you can use that for the creation of your own ideas.”
“The quickest way to get quicker is to slow down. To make choices deliberately and with forethought and intent.”
Artstation / Facebook / Instagram
Amarilys Henderson : Website / Instagram
Bill Logan is an artist who left his career as a commercial illustrator to devote himself to fine art, with a particular focus on drawing, bronze casting, woodwork, and the creation of very intricate sculpture. He has participated in over 2 dozen group and juried shows, 4 solo exhibitions, and has enjoyed a very well received New York debut.
He is also a passionate writer, writing articles about fly fishing and fly tying in the United States, Japan, and Great Britain.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/billlogan
-Switching back and forth between multiple creative disciplines.
-How he has enough ideas and things that he wants to create to last him for 500 years.
-Trying to go in one creative direction, but also trying to take all of the interesting side trips at the same time.
-Looking back on work that isn’t even that old and having the feeling that it is, in fact, old.
-Those rare moments of creative “genius” that seem to come from somewhere else and trusting that they will continue to come through dedication and determination.
-The difficult task of not judging what you are doing.
-Saving your old work.
-The importance of the encouragement of the people that he loves, like his wife and his sister.
-How he balances his time.
-The beauty of “stop days.”
-Some of his experimentation with drawing blind or drawing with his left hand.
-The importance of realizing that your art is at your mercy, you are not at your art’s.
“Sometimes the best work happens when you’ve been so damn stubborn that you haven’t walked away.”
“It’s just dedication. It’s just stubborn determination.”
“There was a period in my life where I tried very hard not to be an artist, but I couldn’t do it. To feel right and whole and as much like me as I needed to be, I couldn’t walk away from art making.”
“If you’re not making judgments or decisions, then what is directing you? How do you move?”
“Do what feels right in the moment, and then allow yourself a whole lot of time after that moment before you decide whether what you did was right.”
“How do you be what you want to be, and also be what you have to be?”
Bird by Bird: some Instructions on Writing and Life by Annie Lamott
Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies by Ross King
Even Mehl Amundsen : Artstation / Instagram
Scott Listfield is known for his paintings featuring a lone exploratory astronaut lost in a landscape cluttered with pop culture icons, corporate logos, and tongue-in-cheek science fiction references. Scott grew up in Boston, MA and studied art at Dartmouth College. After some time spent living abroad, Scott returned to America and, shortly before the real life, non-movie version of the year 2001, began painting astronauts and, sometimes, dinosaurs.
Scott has been profiled in Juxtapoz, Wired Magazine, the Boston Globe, New American Paintings, and on at least one local television station. He has exhibited his work in Los Angeles, London, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Miami, Montreal, Boston, just to name a few.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/scottlistfield
-How he wanted to be an astronaut as a child, and how that would later (greatly) influence his art.
-High school art class, and how it took him some time to realize that college art classes could be similar.
-The experience of travelling abroad and not feeling at home, and how that feeling remained with him after he returned to America.
-Watching Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and how that influenced him to use an astronaut as his protagonist.
-How he could have never expected the astronaut paintings to last as his subject matter for so long.
-How and when inspiration strikes him.
-The obligation that he sometimes feels to cover current political issues.
-The importance of getting out of your everyday routine if you are lacking inspiration.
-His daily struggle of not having enough time in the day to do everything he wants to do.
-How he was nervous about running out of ideas once he became a full time artist (but found the opposite to be true).
-His advice for balancing a full-time job with your own personal artwork.
-Building a routine out of your creative passion.
-The amazing tool of the internet and social media.
“I felt like I had been tossed into the deep end of American pop culture and I didn’t feel at home or comfortable.”
“There’s this idea of artistic inspiration. The artist is usually wearing a beret with a pipe in their hands, staring at a blank canvas, saying ‘Aha!’ And that is never the case for me.”
Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Tumblr
Bill Logan : Website
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Just a quick one today, asking you to please consider donating what you spend on one cup of coffee, once a month.
So much of my time, effort, and money is required to keep this show going, and it is starting to really add up. And with sponsorship not yet panning out, I need your help in order to keep up the quality and quantity of episodes that you are used to.
If the podcast has helped you to get to your creative passions, please consider becoming a Patron.
It will go a long way to helping out the show, and it will make me love you more than I already do.
Thank you so much for your support, and thank you even more for getting to your creative passion every single day and making the world a better place!
<3 Youngman
Glen Phillips is an American songwriter, lyricist, singer and guitarist, who is best known as the singer and songwriter of the alternative rock group, Toad the Wet Sprocket.
This episode features songs from Glen's latest solo album, Swallowed by the New, which is available everywhere music is sold (and links below).
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/glenphillips
-The story of how Toad the Wet Sprocket started.
-How he originally wanted to be a teacher and didn’t think that he had the ego or the thick skin to be a professional performer.
-His thoughts on religion, spirituality, and his desire to reclaim the word “God” for himself.
-The importance of being grateful.
-The singing circles that he is taking a part of and the sense of community that it has brought to his life.
-His take on the purpose of music and how it is not about one person singing and everyone else listening.
-His attempt to be vulnerable and share his pains so that it can act as a tool for other people.
-How he felt miserable for years in the role of provider that he put upon himself.
“In some ways it’s everybody’s dream and it’s everybody’s nightmare because you’re getting up there and bearing your soul in front of people and allowing them to judge you.”
“Life gives you the coursework you need, not the coursework you choose.”
“I just feel a great compulsion to give thanks.”
“Everyone came in here, ready to wake up and the music is serving as this solvent to take away all this stuff that’s secreted over everyone’s soul and kind of free them up for a moment.”
“Music is not about being the star. It’s about sharing and losing yourself in the song and ceasing to exist for a moment and realizing that you are a part of something larger.”
“The happiest people I know are the hardest working.”
Swallowed by the New [iTunes] [Amazon] [Physical]
Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
Scott Listfield : Website / Instagram
Jake is an illustrator who has worked for 15 years on everything from animated films to comics to picture books. He is the creator of the Missile Mouse graphic novel series published by Scholastic, and he has worked for Blue Sky Studios, creating sets and environments for feature films like Horton Hears a Who, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Rio, and Epic. He now freelances out of his home studio in Utah.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/jakeparkeragain
-A bit about his personal life and what he is currently up to.
-Why he started SVS School, who his target audience is, and what you can learn there.
-Some of his earlier memories of drawing.
-How his parents and teachers were very supportive as well as his friend's mom, who was a painter.
-How doubt, comparing himself to others, time restraints, and over-committing to things are the main things that sometimes hold him back.
-How sometimes he compares himself to other people who are doing other careers and making lots of money, but then he remembers the freedom and joy that drawing gives him.
-How he gets through negative thoughts and battles through his resistance.
-The influence that both his wife and God play in his life, especially when he feels lost or discouraged.
-One of his hardest moments creatively, which actually came as a result of accomplishing one of his lifelong goals.
-An e-mail that completely changed his perspective when he was feeling like Missile Mouse was not having an impact.
-If you are taking on a large personal project, making sure that you create an appropriate balance with all of the other things that are important in your life, such as family, friends, and work.
-Making a large project into a marathon, not a sprint, and chipping away at it.
-The importance of rewarding yourself as you reach milestones.
-Finding a way to create accountability with self-imposed projects.
-How he balances his time, by making sure that everyone knows what is expected of them and being able to be flexible.
"For this little artist kid, there was all this opportunity and I just ate it up."
"If I faced any resistance then and now, it's always been self-imposed."
"I think being an artist as your career choice is probably the hardest thing you can do to make money."
"Yea. I could be sitting there on the beach, thinking, Man, I wish I was drawing."
"Life is hard enough as it is with everything that people are doing, and I'm happy to provide a place for someone to escape to when they need. And that's what keeps me going."
"It doesn't work to have accountability to yourself. Because yourself knows all your excuses and sees the validity in them and will give you a pass."
"You need a final product, you don't need a project."
Society of Visual Storytelling (SVS School)
You Need a Product, Not a Project e041 (Jake's YouTube channel)
Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Pinterest / YouTube / Tumblr / Store
Glen Phillips : Website