Miss Led aka Joanna Henly is an artist, illustrator and art director based in East London.
As an artist Jo works from portrait commissions to large scale complex works, this work is often in public spaces or a live performance as part of an event – or she is the event, also creating portraits of guests of responding to a gallery or theme. In addition she creates personal work which is exhibited globally, as well as selling prints online.
-How each year of her career has been defined by something big.
-A look into the highlights of her career from the eight-year gap to workshops to working with agents.
-The way in which you think differently when you are teaching others and on the spot having to move quickly.
-The difference between teaching in-person and teaching through her books Figure Drawing and Portrait Drawing.
-Not having a day off for six weeks.
-Properly understanding burnout and how to deal with it.
-How everything she creates starts with writing things down, even if it is a very rudimentary idea or self-coaching.
-How The Artist’s Way and morning journaling changed her life.
-Putting yourself in a productive and positive state of mind so that you create opportunities for yourself and also have the confidence to jump on opportunities that are presented to you.
-Signing up for and taking a course, and how it brought her out of the darkest part of her eight-year gap.
-How her seasons or years become themed.
-The forethought that goes into each project in terms of style and composition.
“When you take your ego out of the picture and it’s not about you anymore, you start thinking differently.”
“Push, but know that you can’t go all four cylinders all the time. You can’t. You need to have some time out. And thank your body for telling you that you have to stop.”
“It all starts with words. It starts with writing things down. Even if that’s just self-coaching myself.”
“My brain works like too many Google tabs open all the time.”
“I always put everything on paper first. I have tons of notebooks. They are core to my practice and to my ideas and to my mental state.”
Portrait Drawing by Joanna Henly
Figure Drawing by Joanna Henly
Why People in Cities Walk Fast
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
Website / Store / Facebook / Behance / Instagram / Twitter
Cat Rabbit : Website / Instagram
We lost a dear member of the Your Creative Push family. Nathan Carson aka Streetarthustle passed away a few weeks ago.
In this update, Youngman pays tribute to the artist that made him rethink what it means be open and honest, yet still wonder why not open up?
Rest in peace, Nate. You were an incredibly talented artist and a wonderfully kind person.
YCP Episode 54: When the path disappears, PIVOT PIVOT PIVOT (w/ Nathan Carson)
YCP Episode 100: The Universe wants you to be alive! (w/ Nathan Carson)
Matthew Miller is an artist in Tallahassee, FL who likes to paint natural beauty and human activity from life. Creating live paintings at sports events, music venues, and more, he paints with an energy that can be seen in the final product.
Matthew started painting seriously three years ago because it makes him feel at peace and confident. "I started self-medicating with art therapy," he says, "and ended up getting addicted." Matthew is currently finishing a PhD in Philosophy at Florida State University, where he is writing a dissertation about the role of flow states in a good human life. In his free time, he can be seen playing outside, usually without shoes.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/304
-Moving to Tallahassee to finish the PhD program that he had started a few years ago.
-How jumping into art full-time jeopardized how special art was to him and it became a stressor.
-How he was letting other aspects of his life go to the wayside when he started pursuing art as a full-time career.
-His experience working on athlete’s art at sporting events and the stark contrast of working alone in the studio.
-Dealing with personal struggles and the need for art to be therapy
-Pursuing plein air painting and how, since it is a new pursuit, he is able to think less about where the painting is going to end up and more just about pursuing excellence.
-How live painting is similar to a triathalon because it forces him to find a zone and to also not get preoccupied on mistakes.
-His decision to honor the sacredness of the creative process by not defiling it with excessive process pictures and Instagram stories.
-The power of flow states and the challenges of our environment in this technological age.
-Wanting to start a podcast.
-His increased interest and experimentation with cold exposure (and how it sets a base line for what is actually “hard” to do).
-Determining the ways that he wants to express himself with his upcoming ideas.
-The way that he has been communicating with his friends.
“Going full-time in art and putting myself in that position jeopardized how special art was to me because I was taking it too seriously.”
“Art will always go better if I have my other ducks in a row.”
“I don’t want to contribute to people vicariously living the artist life through me, I’d rather people just do it themselves.”
“I think today in order to live a fully good human life, we need to develop new types of virtues that enable us to manage all these new technological forces and preserve, protect and be stewards of our own brains and attention span.”
Matthew Miller on YCP Episode 238
Website / Facebook / Instagram
Miss led : Website / Facebook / Instagram
Polly Guo is a storyboard artist, currently working for Dreamworks. She has previously been a storyboard artist for Adventure Time, and she has produced varied personal works such as Gawain's Girlfriend and the Green Knight and Houdini & Holmes.
Polly lives in Los Angeles with her boyfriend, her rat Brown, and her dog Aggie.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/pollyguo
-Her creative upbringing, from drawing Pokemon in middle school to storyboarding for Adventure Time.
-Realizing that a certain style or method isn’t for her and then questioning why she doesn’t draw like everyone else.
-The story behind Gawain’s Girlfriend and the Green Knight.
-Advice that Sam Alden gave her to draw in a very tiny space to make decisions very quickly and not be too precious.
-How art should be something that you discover as you’re creating it and from as much of the subconscious as possible.
-The inspiration that she takes from Paul Thomas Anderson.
-The story behind creating Houdini & Holmes.
-How working on guilt and fumes can get things done, but it doesn’t lead to a proper lifestyle or mindset.
-How incredibly important it is to complete your first personal project.
-The difference between using creative criticism to be helpful or to tear someone down.
-Valuing criticism from someone who is completely disengaged from your creative pursuit.
-The difference that she sees between personal and professional work.
-Her biggest source of resistance of trying to figure out who she is outside of her work, as she came into herself so much through her art.
-How she continues to make personal work despite every bone in her body wanting her to relax.
-The power in working with other people.
“Something I like about writing is letting yourself be taken by the process and letting yourself discover what you’re writing as you’re writing it.”
“Who you are as an artist doesn’t exist inside Pixar’s 20 Rules of Storytelling or any other rulebook.”
“When you get to the point where you’re creating work not on purpose and it reveals something very deep about you that you didn’t even know yourself, that’s when people really start to relate to it.”
“I feel like before you’ve completed your first big personal project, the wall of completion is nearly insurmountable.”
“Get to the finish line by any means necessary.”
“My biggest source of resistance is trying to figure out who I am outside of art and outside of my work.”
“Art stagnates if you don’t live your life and have new ideas and influences.”
Gawain’s Girlfriend and the Green Knight by Polly Guo
Houdini & Holmes by Polly Guo
Matthew Miller on Episode 238 of Your Creative Push
Matthew Miller : Website / Instagram
Mike Lowery is an artist and illustrator living Atlanta, Georgia. His work has been seen on everything from greeting cards to children’s books to gallery walls all over the world. His illustration clients include Hallmark, Random House, Nick Jr. Magazine, Viking, American Greetings, and Disney, just to name a few.
He is also the co-founder of Paper Ghost, a gallery and studio space in Atlanta, and he is a Professor of Illustration at the Savannah College of Art and Design Atlanta.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/mikelowery
-The enlightening experience of a client asking him to make his final product feel more like his original sketches.
-Why he encourages people to sketch and doodle (and not throw away your sketchbooks).
-How Random Illustrated Facts came to be.
-Not telling other people your ideas and instead simply making it.
-Saving your old work and ideas.
-Keeping lists and then attacking them later, piece by piece.
-How and why he started his Kickstarter.
-Getting caught pretending to draw on his helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon.
-How Paper Ghost Press started.
-How he find the time to be a part of his band Minor Miracles.
“It was a relief because I realized that the work that I could get paid to do started looking like the work I was doing in my sketchbooks.”
“I think that it’s important to get out of your head when you’re making art.”
“Start with the little pieces. Set aside thirty minutes a day to get to your work and I genuinely think that stuff will start to grow out of that.”
Slightly Jet Lagged : The Travel Sketchbooks of Mike Lowery