"How to Overcome Your Artist Block" (Free Workshop)

started for them yet no one can see anything it's live now oh were you just talking and no one was listening okay so we are we are live now um a short little practice round with an intro uh to the workshop so let's try to remember what exactly we just said because it was so good guys I'm telling you uh I'm just kidding so uh well welcome to this Workshop we are so excited um we're gonna be talking about how to overcome artists block uh and it's really for artists of any skill levels it doesn't matter if you're a beginner or a professional every single person at some point in their artistic career or just Journey uh experiences artist block and what does that mean what does artist block mean well it kind of sounds dramatic um and for some people it is dramatic where they go through a few months or I don't know maybe even longer period of time where they just aren't painting and they just have this huge resistance we're gonna be talking a lot about resistance but um so that's one way of like artist block happening um and also I think just not feeling inspired maybe there's something in your paintings that you're just you're getting bored of it you're getting sick of it you want something new um so you're lacking motivation to get into your studio you're making other things a priority so we're gonna be talking all about that yeah and this this Workshop I'm personally really excited about uh because I have never actually taught live before so this is the first Workshop where one we're doing it just the two of us and two where I'm teaching something painting live I've taught marketing workshops and stuff like that but never painting so I'm a little bit nervous but the thing about this technique that we're going to be teaching you and sharing with you um really it's a sharing it's not so much it's it's surprisingly simple it's not um something that's completely mind-blowing but the implementation of it it the because it's simple it makes it beautiful because anyone can implement it uh and if you no matter what skill level you are implementing it will definitely help you break out of artists block um and so we're going to be teaching you this awesome technique and in addition to this technique we're also going to be sharing with you just some of our battle tested uh you know proven techniques for um not just getting rid of artist block but also pre-empting it and preventing it from happening so I'm excited about that so why are we doing this Workshop so we just want to help we want to help all of you watching and we know that every artist goes through this at some point and it happens multiple times throughout your journey um it can happen a few times a year it really depends um but I think that this is for everybody and no matter what level you're at in your in your artistic abilities this is going to be helpful so we're really excited to share this with you and we just want to help you guys out so yeah I think um uh sorry I don't know it's okay so I just wanted to encourage all of you uh in the chat because um to to communicate with each other and share your thoughts share your questions it is a live chat this is a live Workshop it's not a deep fake uh you know I'm just kidding but uh well it's not the fake but um you know I really love our workshops and our chats uh and usually I'm on the other side of it I'm doing what Dino over there usually does uh and so Dino why don't you say hi hello everyone I'm on the mic but you can't see me yes so usually uh I'm over there and I'm looking at the chat and um but now dino gets to do it and he's even better at it than I am so we are super happy to have him here uh but one of the things I love most about our chat is that the people who are in the chat are so encouraging and so friendly and they ask such good questions um and I feel like every Workshop gets better and better and the community and the connections that are created within chat um just expands uh and so let's make this the best chat ever uh better than any Workshop we've ever had before and that starts with you guys you know just sharing where you're from what you're hoping to get out of this workshop and uh hopefully we can deliver that so yeah and also at the end um we'll be answering questions probably throughout this but at the end we'll save some time just to answer your questions so be sending them in the chat and Dino is going to um you know save those keep track of them and what's so cool is that there's people from all over the world who join these workshops and we've heard from so many people just testimonies how they've made friends with people during these workshops and they're still I mean they're lifelong friends and it's it's just so cool so yeah tell us in the chat where you're from so um I guess we should do a small little introduction into who we are in case you don't know who we are uh and so my name is Jake Dunn uh I am one of the co-owners of Milan art uh I'm also the marketing director and I am an artist part-time so uh um so because well anyways so I really love creating art and I really love the fusion of Art and marketing uh and helping artists you know learn how to create a better career for themselves and amplify their voices to be heard amongst um the entire breadth of the internet so that's what I'm really passionate about and I'm excited to be teaching and sharing in this Workshop and my name is Dimitri Milan and we're married yes and mentioned that um I'm also a co-owner of Milan art and I've been a professional artist since I was 15 and I'm 23 now so I also really enjoy teaching and helping other artists find their voice find their style and just really doing what they love to do you know for a living so yeah I'm really excited to get started yeah and this little guy down here is Zion that's her baby boy so uh okay so moving on let's talk about identifying artist block so what does artist block look like for artists because it can have sort of a lot of different um it can appear in many different forms oh definitely yeah so one of those I mean we also call it resistance so it's just I mean resistance shows up in every way possible especially when you're meant to be doing like you know you're meant to be in your studio you like that's your calling and you have that feeling inside you that you are supposed to be painting and that's your destiny but then resistance will come and try to stop you from accomplishing that so just amazing powerful things happen when you're able to unleash your creativity and paint and create things and so resistance is just a form to comes in our life and stop us from doing what we're meant to do and so it could be as simple as just having a lot of doubts we have self-doubts all the time um also feeling like other obligations maybe in your family or uh your work life other things are more important and they're pulling at you and you think oh Art's just it's just not as important I'll get to it later and then you never do um or let's see there's so many different things yeah there's a lot of different manifestations of resistance yeah and if you want to learn more about like resistance in general we sort of got the concept not sort of we directly got the concept from the super amazing author his name is Stephen pressfield and he has a book called The War of art uh and so if you you know want to take a deep dive into that then you can read that book and you will fully understand the context of resistance and it's a really great book and it's written really well so highly recommend it I think another thing that is really big for artists that keeps them from going into their studio and creating more is just kind of it's just lacking the right skills you feel like you have this really beautiful Vision in your head and you want to get it out on the canvas and it's frustrating when your skills you just can't do it and it's it's not coming out the way you want so we have solution for that that we'll get to um yeah and then another um another thing that a lot of artists struggle with is feeling like they need motivation in order to get into the studio uh and there I think that the whole hype around motivation is sort of flawed because really if you look at the most successful artists the most successful people in the world they worked when even when they didn't have motivation it's not it's not the people who show up only when they feel like it it's the people who work when they don't feel like it the people who are able to get in there and you know throw some paint down onto their canvas regardless of whether or not they feel motivated to do it and this is called discipline really and so there's this you know discipline is a skill I think that people can attain just like anything else and you know it's just it's just like learning how to paint some people are born with a little bit more Talent OR born with a little bit more natural aptitude towards it same way people are born with a little bit more discipline than others but just like anything you can grow in your ability to be disciplined and you know this will help you overcome artist block once you you know whenever you run into it so just learning how to build up your discipline and exercising that that muscle within your willpower so yeah that's I think that's just a huge sort of framework um not only for painting but for your life if you want to be a successful person if you want to be a high performer then you have to be a disciplined person okay so um what most people don't know we want you to just have a new perspective on it because it's really it's designed it's like an opportunity for you to grow and so every time you feel that block or a wall comes and you're painting and then just something you just feel stuck it's it's just a way to once you overcome that and you learn how to push through that wall you're gonna be on the other side of it and have this great breakthrough and just have this amazing feeling and discover new things that you didn't know you were capable of doing yeah so it's actually really healthy to experience this every once in a while because that's just that's just you being able to grow and if you never experience that then you're just staying in the same place and you're not growing so we just want you guys to see it as um actually a good thing and to embrace it when it happens yeah and it's just it's such a powerful idea um because you can actually create more um more breakthroughs in your in your art by pursuing artist block by by stepping out there and challenging yourself further uh than what you normally do and you know this is so in the beginning of this you know I said that uh something that might seem controversial for people or like you know clickbaity that's like you can preempt artist block and basically let's just take a look at like how artist block comes about yeah so artist blog comes comes about every time you get into a lull as an artist uh and what a LOL looks like is you know you you're going along and you can predictably know that the painting like the source that you create you're able to create that painting and you know what it's going to turn out like you know you have the skills to create what you set out to create um it's not super difficult you're not really challenged by the painting um you know maybe you've been doing it for a while yeah sorry yeah so like what it might feel like is you're you're painting for I don't know this can for every artist it varies but maybe it's several months where you are just painting and you're in this flow and it's not like a bad thing it's it's good you have all this work that you're creating and like he was saying You can predict that it's going to be a successful painting and you know exactly the outcome and um that kind of I think what we're talking about applies to artists who are really like in in their professional Journey or um starting to go that way where they're painting really often and they have like they have scheduled hours for painting so that's kind of like what we're talking about where you know exactly the type of paintings that you're you're putting out there so yeah yeah so you know a lull isn't really a bad thing it's going to happen to everyone though because um basically it comes as a result of getting into a flow the lull is like the tail end of the Flow State so maybe it's like after two months you know you had a breakthrough a few months ago you found this new style it could even be a whole year uh you know you found this new style you found this new look that you're pursuing and you've done it and you've repeated it and you're sort of starting to get this um you know style and this momentum and maybe it's resonating with a lot of people but then you know towards the end of it it starts to feel a little bit boring maybe you know you you are um you're you're creating art and it doesn't excite you quite as much as it did in the beginning when once you had that breakthrough and so basically what you can do in order to preempt the artist block and to incite the Breakthrough without having that huge struggle of artist walk you will have this sort of resistance towards it still yeah it would be a struggle but just to like clarify like when I say you won't have the artist block you won't have this prolonged period of time where you feel almost Paralyzed by the idea of going into the studio yeah and creating because that's like that's the worst really like having some resistance that's you know everybody experiences that every single morning you're going to wake up and feel resistance but feeling this aversion to go into the studio to the studio for a prolonged period of time that is like the that's the ultimate artist block that's like the what we're really trying to prevent um with this Workshop so so just before we get into the technique I just want to share with you a little story of how I had some pretty terrible artist block and how I uh overcame it so I had this painting shoot I didn't send them the picture of the painting ahead of time dang it uh well it's on my Instagram if you want to go to my Instagram maybe Dino can send a link or something yeah do you know it's electric Dawn it's the flower painting um The Orchids with the orchids uh it's on my Instagram I don't know but basically um I had this painting and I started it um you know and I I came up with this concept for this painting those I was really interested in you know geometry and combine combining different layers um and art and I had just finished this multi-dimensional piece and I wanted to sort of try to do something like that but visually on a canvas one-dimensionally um and so I set out with this very lofty goal and I knew before I even started painting it that it was going to be really challenging because there's so much uh complexity into it it was like creating probably like 15 small paintings within this bigger painting um and so I started out with mixed media I was working on acrylics I was working uh I did spray paint you know I did Karen Dosh I was getting all the lines getting everything figured out and then I hit this this point where it just everything started to slow down and I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere with it yeah I felt overwhelmed I felt like I have no clue what to do with this and luckily you know this is sort of an unfair advantage that I had but I had Deidra in my studio well maybe because we're married and she's watching me toil with this uh and and you know I'm so I turned to her and I asked her like what should I do with this and she gave me some advice uh and basically that advice was to go into oils and for those of you who don't know when you go into oils There's No Going Back you're stuck in oils from there on out so I went into oils and I realized after doing a layer of transparent paint that it was just too early to go into oils for me if it was Demetra working on the painting she would have been able to whip that out like nothing and like get it done right away but for me I was like oh no I don't know what to do now so basically I got it it got super ugly it was super messy and it sort of just sat in my studio for a long time and I didn't work on this yeah and you know work got busier you know I was doing more and more for Milano Institute and so I had this perfect excuse um helping artists I you know I can justify to myself uh not to paint and so I you know then we filmed season two of the outstanding artists and I was the host and director of that and I mean that was all consuming you know for like an entire month we filmed every single day basically with one day off every two or three episodes uh and it was Non-Stop and even on the days off we were planning the episodes and stuff so uh well we and Tanner too Tanner's right there but uh we're planning all the episodes and stuff but I'm watching these artists in the show and it's genuinely inspiring me so much because I'm I'm they're in some of the toughest scenarios they're you know Asia runs into a spider web and then like minutes later has to go and paint and you know she's freaking out she's like Jake come help me and you know like all right well we gotta put the camera down and help her get some spider webs out of her face uh but then she goes back and creates some absolute beautiful paintings and all the other artists you know Elena Andrea Isaac Barb all of them are creating awesome art uh and I'm watching them do it in such short amount of times finishing these masterpieces and like four to six hours and here I am with this painting that's sitting in my studio and I'm watching them I'm like how can I even call myself an artist if I won't even get into the studio so I get back into the studio and I decide to just finish this painting and after finishing that painting I felt like it's like I realized that well he worked on it for days like it wasn't just it wasn't like oh I just went and whipped it out you know I still it still took like how many hours total do you think you spent on it I probably spent like 20 to 30 hours on this painting yeah um total so probably like 15 maybe 20 hours after that initial stent with it but I realized when I finished the painting um that I could paint anything it was like that painting led to me being able to paint anything that I could see no matter how difficult The Source was and all this is just to say that even when you have the greatest artist block even when you feel like you just can't get into the studio um and you know there's just like huge block it's that's when you really need to go do it because you know that as soon as you finish that as soon as you over come that adversity you're going to experience maybe the greatest breakthrough of your entire life with your art the bigger the blocks the bigger the Breakthrough so the key is you I mean it's simple you just gotta paint you gotta finish that painting whatever painting is making you feel stuck work on it and maybe in the end it's a terrible painting but who cares you finished it and you continued to push through and at the end of that you're going to realize something I mean like you like you felt like you could paint anything and it gave you such a huge confidence and then you started painting more and that gave you more momentum with your art and you didn't have like that one drain of can I even do it because you all can do it it's all it's inside you yeah um but I think going back to what we were talking about with uh preemptively preparing yourself for an artist block um or so that you can prevent that from happening the key is to choose painting once you kind of feel that lull happening and you're just in that almost you're almost bored you that's like the time where you gotta do something to challenge yourself you have to either create a source for a painting that's just like really challenging you're like oh my gosh I it's outside my comfort zone do something that's outside your comfort zone and um do this technique we're going to share too but you you have to like think a few steps ahead and know that if you don't challenge yourself then and you don't have that breakthrough feeling of wow I actually did that challenging thing and it's so cool and now I have this new inspiration then you're you're like over that hump and you don't have to you won't have an artist block so that's the key there is paralysis keep challenging yourself yeah okay well should we get to the technique yeah okay so well it's sort of and this was your idea for the technique oh yeah yeah it was yeah it's a good idea okay so um the reason why okay well first let's tell you guys what this is uh so we are going to be giving you a mini challenge uh a mini version of the uh if you're watching if you've watched outstanding Artisan this is your mini challenge right no but this is a mini version of the hundred painting challenge so instead of taking three hours a day for three days straight to create 100 paintings we want you to come to create 10 paintings in 30 minutes so the reason why it's so short is because anyone can take 30 minutes out of their day there's no excuse uh if you love to create art then you have to make time for it you don't find the time you make the time so um you know whether that's waking up 30 minutes earlier or going to bed 30 minutes later you can find 30 minutes no matter what day so hopefully right after this you'll be able to make the time or tonight or sometime today you'll be able to make the time to do this challenge to help you overcome your artist block so we're each we don't have enough time in this workshop for us each to do uh 10 10 minutes we have seven here and we have seven or seven so we're gonna do around five paintings each uh and spending three minutes and I'll be timing her for each painting and she'll be timing me so what you want to do is you just get a random assortment of uh art supplies and you know you can do a bunch of different art supplies or what I recommend um well it depends on sort of what level of artist you are if you're a little bit further along in your art career or art Journey then I recommend you choose one Art Supply that maybe you've had a little bit of an aversion to or that's been challenging or that you're just interested in and only use that art supply for the entire time you'll really sort of by going deep into it you'll sort of understand um the nuances of using that specific material whereas if you go the breadth uh route and you try a bunch of different art supplies you'll kind of find maybe something that you are interested in and this this is your challenge to do really this is if you want to do you know uh 20 paintings in one hour because you have that time to make then do it you know if you want to do the first 30 minutes with a bunch of art supplies and then you find one that you really love and then you want to run with it then that's a perfect way to do this challenge as well and then spend the next 30 minutes working on that Art Supply so you can make this whatever you want for yourself because each of us sort of has our own individual journey and struggles and things that excites us so yeah so the the importance of this challenge is definitely making the time for it and we believe like you have 30 minutes in your day you can make that time no matter what so there's no excuses um and just to create 10 small paintings this is such a good release to just experiment and play and have fun and there's no serious expectation with it so especially if you're someone who struggles with perfectionism um then this challenge is really good for you we have no plans all we have are the materials and tools that we're going to use yeah so yeah if we make something horrible then you know you have permission also to make something horrible so let's make something bad right let's give everyone permission but we're gonna make a mess but not on my laptop uh oh I want to I think we should share so he um I think a little a few months ago you were kind of struggling to get back into the studio again before we moved and I think you were experimenting and creating small paintings and then that led to a series of abstracts that you really loved yeah so yeah just the very short version of the story is basically I missed out during the Mastery Program on abstract week and also on the 100 painting challenge yeah you never did that um I think during the 100 painting challenge week was when I proposed to her here in Georgia right over there actually on this property uh and so we were you know scouting out properties and we were trying to find where we were going to move to so I had to miss both of those and I always wanted to know how to paint an abstract um and I felt like it was this like sort of missing component in my art because I never did that in the Mastery Program um and John and Ellie are masters of abstract so I and I never went back and watched the videos just because you know life right but but so excuses yeah I should go back and watch them honestly but um I so I I wanted to learn how to do abstracts and I thought like ah the best way for me to do that is to just do the 100 painting challenge knock out both at once so I did the hunter painting Challenge and I discovered so many small little things that I can incorporate into my art and um actually so one of the things that I discovered I don't have the small painting with me is that I love using these scraper tools and I love being able to drag paint across um and sort of create these these straight lines with it and so that led to a series of different abstracts like this one that I did on aluminum with like this dragging effect right here and creating these straight lines that are a little bit different from the Plaid that I had been doing before um and that's actually in the painting behind this painting so that's just an example of how a challenge like this can lead to you you discovering a specific technique to apply to a new series of art so that is just a small little story mm-hmm so I can do this as many times as you want um just on the side from your regular work that you're working on so let's get started turned off is it yeah it's just it's dead I wanted you to start oh man so much pressure okay so let's see let's just go over the art supplies that we have briefly so we have Karen Dosh crayons we have a crank marker um I have these squeegees that I bought off of Amazon um and these are really fun because they're basically a large version of this so um that these are some of the tools that we have and then of course we have some brushes over here so there are the brushes and then let's move the paint sort of into fraying we have some spray paint and this is um indoor indoor water-based spray paint and then we have acrylic inks High flows and some really fun alcohol inks yes yes so we're just going to yeah just so I'm just going to get started I have no plan whatsoever my only plan is that I'm gonna I shouldn't have done this with my laptop on the table but I am not a robot and I need notes so so I'm just gonna get started teacher do you want to time me yes I have three men suits okay let's go back and forth how about I do one then you do one then I do one yeah okay ready set go okay oh out of water oh no big issue danger maybe go fill up that water no no okay that already has some color on it that's interesting so I'm gonna I think the key is like also not thinking so much about what you're doing you're just kind of feeling your way through this and go with that gut instinct and see what happens so sometimes it'll be just a huge mess and it might turn into an ugly mushy Brown painting but um other times you'll have this really beautiful thing happen and then you'll be like whoa how did I do that I want to do that again so that's cool I don't know also practice with different surfaces because some paper is more absorbent than other paper and we're using um Strathmore I think it's the 300 series so it's pretty thick and it's really great for all this mixed media type material and then he is using that paper is a little different it's kind of a more thicker yeah it's thicker and it's more um gritty I don't know how to describe it uh I think this is a more natural paper and then try canvases or or boards like if you want to try if you want to practice oil painting and try um just using oil supplies and really pushing yourself in the oil Department there's so many different things you could do with oil you could use oil like watercolor and paint really thin and kind of work flat on a table and so just by limiting your supplies or having all the supplies around you one or the other you're going to discover something really cool and try to like mix things that you don't normally think would work together um the only exception to that would be mixing acrylics with oils while they're both wet that's not going to work so don't do that oh look at that spray paint on top of wet ink yeah cool and then a fun little accidental drop okay accident that just sort of made me think what if oh that's cool yeah you can like find um okay cool that's a little like I don't know just different Tools in your house that you could be kitchen tools or Dina saw it um everyone else in the chat is probably still out too that was look nope we're gonna get that out of here don't you guys just hate when the bottle I like this painting I think it's turned out great cool and I still have 15 seconds left what do I do well sometimes you can end early if you think you know no must use all the time yeah three two one and stop okay okay all right so we got our first painting it started out vertical and then it went horizontal all right you have three minutes three two one go okay higher yeah future using spray paint future never uses spray paint here I'm gonna move this though the black so that the uh Shadows not on it yeah there we go so sometimes holding the spray paint in other ways like different ways you can get different techniques and I really wanted to see what it would do with alcohol inks um that one's not coming out this paper is very absorbent it's sort of like the opposite of what I do with the um acrylic and aluminum oh I love that color palette it's hard to do this with you because oh that's so cool you know well I've never used alcohol inks and spray paint before whoa I like that so I think the trick is to do it while it's wet oh did I just get white all over me I was so worried about you being messy getting paint on me and then I do it oh man what do I do now with your because you're so cool I'm trying to plan ahead nope I can't I don't want to plan I'm just gonna try to not think about what I'm gonna do okay phone is in the shot so people can see how much time is left is that in the shot I just don't get a bunch of paint on my phone but it's okay if you do no pressure oh wow I love a spray paint actually on top of the oh that's so cool it's hard not to feel inspired by it I know I like this I want to add this to my paintings it makes me feel like a Brie Bart's kind of you know with the black and the the vibrant pink pretty Bordeaux yeah sorry also Tanya OBU Obi I love the way that's reacting but now the oranges I feel like we're no no no for myself yeah I wish we had more almost but that's so cool I like that I just realized one issue that I have sometimes with my art sometimes I feel like I have to go from like edge to edge and cover the whole thing so I'm gonna try try this okay I'm already planning I can't help it move it higher Ninja what [Laughter] see you're just gonna have so much fun when you try this I like that I I don't want to keep working on it 10 seconds but I think it's done all right move it up you keep moving towards yourself you gotta make sure people can see it all right all right Jake your turn my turn all right let's do it no no we're trying to keep the phone in the shot because you have to think about this so go don't think about it okay also if you guys have questions in the chat I feel like I could answer some while you know or while we're taking turns hmm I'm just trying to make some art Club colors cool let's try some inks on top not alcohol yeah let's try regular inks oh what that's interesting oh wow look at how it's reacting and bubbling oh my gosh that's so weird yeah and then let's drag this out I feel like you gotta like sorry I don't want to tell you what to do but I know what to do I want to see some dragging oh that's cool that's pretty cool I'm done sometimes if you have like like a messy I don't know it's kind of drippy and wet you could let it drip onto another piece of paper or Surface and use that as like a base for your next painting um that's an idea and sometimes you don't have to go super fast like you don't have to rush through this yeah sometimes like how I felt when I first did it is I felt like oh I only have so much time I have to hurry but sometimes it's even better practice for yourself to just go a little bit slower you know you always have these really strong straight lines that come through or like these blocks it's very interesting I feel like during these exercises it feels um if it's like you you start to um sorry you see like your words yeah but you you find your um your abstract language that's what I'm trying to say so you discover what kind of shapes are you more drawn to like what just naturally comes out of you when you're not thinking and some people have more organic shapes and um some people don't cover up their whole thing they just have like this one little spot and then they'll have a bunch of open resting space where other people will fill their entire page with color and everyone's different and there's no wrong way to do it so it's really cool the things you can discover about yourself by just letting go and creating these messes you really inspired me with the alcohol inks I have to oh what happened there I love this one as it is I think that's great oh I just I don't know what happened but oh this top comes off right here so that's what that is cool all right that's it time's up I really like that one I think I like that one more in the first one all right your turn and have you discovered something yet that you want to do um I feel like I have not yet but let's keep going nothing new I'm playing it safe all right I am going to okay three two one go so I was seeing this technique actually on Instagram and by some other artists so I'm gonna try this myself where you have like these little dots of acrylic fluid acrylic and then you kind of create these um it's hard to describe it with words but you I'm gonna show you so okay I need this but I want it to be clean oh no we don't have paper towels over there okay here oh man it's all completing off the edge of the papers so so it's just like this little smearing of the colors and you get these Cool Shapes happening I didn't mean to do primary colors but that's kind of just what happened you remember in my Vlog when um I did that one uh collage and it was absolutely awful the same color palette no it looks good though I think yours looks good I would use the same idea maybe different colors but I would use this idea in my paintings where yeah you have those dots and then you kind of drag it through and create these organic shapes and then I'm just scraping the rest right here I actually really like what's happening right here on the glass great idea ask them yeah oh yeah you can answer them [Music] all right is my mic on [Music] so they can hear me it's been on this whole time I like that isn't this cool okay I like that right there that's so cool wait so believe it uh maybe let's just not have some overlap though guys this one I think is done and I still have 10 seconds left Dimitri I'm gonna answer some questions oh sorry yeah no it's okay um so starting with the first question that I had I have a list of Saved questions um so swalla is wondering um she was explaining how she feels that and feel free to chime into YouTube and like answer the questions of course is also a good idea um so uh I felt like I found my style with my last series of paintings and a lot of people loved the paintings but now I feel like I can't top that anymore um and to that I would say that that is kind of just the condition of an artist that kind of that feeling is very natural and it happens um so what I would recommend is to I know it's easier said than done but just understand that um that feeling will go away and really this the only solution past that to get past that feeling is to continue painting and don't hold yourself at such a high standard um just keep yourself in a really positive state of mind and that will really help you to produce um better artwork or uh it will it'll show through in your artwork if you if you feel like you're not holding yourself to such a high standard it's okay to make bad paintings and to make mistakes um that's that's just life as an artist you you have to live fearlessly and keep creating even though it um you know feels like you can't top your paintings because yeah I've definitely felt that as well um it's a very difficult thing to to get through but once you just keep painting you'll find your way through um and sarmud is wondering um and Jake this would be a good question for you to answer so my block comes from the element of marketing how will I brand for an audience and consistently present it for sales and engagement possible to answer right now okay he's in his right brain Dimitri yeah can you say sorry can you say that again yeah I was watching his blog comes from marketing yeah so how do you overcome the the marketing block well I think um I mean that's the I think it's just a fear that you're feeling that's keeping you from um going for it and I've I've can definitely relate because I felt that myself um where it's hard to know like you know you want to grow your business but it's hard to know what direction to go in and there's so many different things you can do with marketing I think just like trying a few things and you have you just have to try you just have to do something and if you start somewhere like you're going to learn as you go and so um you know having a website that's step number one that's really important and she's ruining this one yeah that's okay we we said it from the beginning it's okay to ruin it so I'm just I wanted to show you an example of what a bad painting looks like so just don't do that um so if you want to make cool art don't do this I'm just kidding though because of course no like I just said it's it's good to start the process I think it is cool oh so yeah I think with marketing it's like you just got everything kind of there's there's no really wrong way to do it and there's everyone will have their own recipe of what works for them so I think with marketing I don't know if you've taken our Mastery Program but we go through super like super in depth in the marketing section of how to promote your work and it really starts with branding and you can't do branding if you don't have a consistent style and voice as an artist and know what you're about so all those things kind of stack on top of each other and that's why we've put together the Mastery Program we don't have it separated because really with marketing you have to like I said you have to know your style and then you have to know your branding and then you can really market and promote yourself so all of that like they're all very um connected to each other so I'm not sure if you're in the Mastery Program but it sounds like maybe you're not and we give tons of advice and techniques and a clear like road map on how to Market yourself so all right you got to get started girl you only got we we're run out of time okay maybe we just do one more each is what I'm thinking two well then it's on unequal because I started oh one two three okay what do I want to do what do I wanna play time's taken um so my two cents on marketing oh nice yeah I'm glad you brought out that one is that um a lot of times marketing gets kind of convoluted because it is a very complex subject there are so many different routes that you can go with marketing um and sales ultimately because that's the gold marketing um but you can break it marketing down pretty easily into three different phases so there's the the lead generation phase which is trying to like find potential collectors uh there is the um like warming up face so that's like getting collectors to know who you are getting them acclimated with you and your brand your story as an artist uh and then there's the converting and that's like actually making the sale so my advice is to pick um a strategy um and a strategy isn't a tactic you know a tactic would be like um uh like using a welcome email sequence when people land on your website and collectingly it's like that's a tactic a strategy is building out the different steps within the journey um that you want to create for someone to go from not being a client to being a repeat buyer of your art um just really quick sorry uh just absolutely blew my mind because uh so we have someone in the chat who speaks Arabic and she said that you just wrote God in Arabic oh my gosh that's so cool yeah that's awesome I love that that is such a cool little abstract right there it's not fair having to do this next to her [Laughter] um okay so what was I saying oh yeah so you want to make an overarching strategy of your like marketing plan basically um and it's really such a complex subject like this is you can go so in depth on there and spend a lot of time on it but sometimes the best route is to just start simple like start with like okay I'm gonna try this one thing for trying to get new collectors and that is finding as many Facebook groups as possible and going through all the Facebook groups and um trying to add value to these Facebook groups and hopefully uh and that's through like posting your thoughts about your art you know sharing your story in a non-salesy way from the beginning um you know trying to figure out how can I make myself valuable to these other people and desirable rather than you know how can I get a sale right from the beginning I think a lot of a huge mistake that a lot of artists make is they try to like they come right out the gate in sales mode um and they're trying to make the cell right from the beginning and the truth of the matter is like and the reason why the marketing isn't the last part of the master program is because it's all the steps before it that lead up to the the sale of the artwork that it really isn't something that just happens like within a week I mean of course you can post a video on Tick Tock or on Instagram or on YouTube or whatever and it goes viral and then all of a sudden you get a bunch of sales from that that definitely happens to some people but that's not the common denominator that's not you know that doesn't happen to everyone and so if you want like a career with longevity then you have to figure out how can you provide value to people consistently for an extended period of time and then you showing up to that place and providing value to those people consistently um for an extended period of time eventually people will buy your art if your skills are there you know so that's it's marketing strategy it really I mean there's a lot to it like there's so many different um there's so many different small tweaks and stuff that you can make but maybe it's not even going and trying to do this digitally maybe you should just go to a bunch of art shows and you know that's what you commit to doing for a whole year you're like you know what every single weekend for one year straight on Saturdays I'm gonna go to a different art show within you know a 200 mile radius or 300 mile radius of where I live and that's what I'm gonna do and that's my marketing strategy and I guarantee if you did that for a whole year and you were like doing it intentionally and you're trying to figure out like okay how can what did I learn from this last show and how can I do it better on the next show and then you built out like a system for yourself you're gonna be freaking successful for sure if you just did that alone if your art is good now the whole like I mean it all comes down to is your art sellable too so um should we get to some other questions yeah okay there could be a whole workshop on that topic yeah that's true and that's why there could be a whole program that's like a year long so oh I'm not ready now I'm in Left Brain um so I have two for you Dimitra okay uh okay so Angelina Allison uh is wondering so she said my art studio is in my room and I had a major artist block that I didn't even want to go into my bedroom I don't have access to another room for my studio since I live in a very small home I did break through but what would you recommend when this happens and then we also had some other people who had some issues I don't know how your what your studio looks like but I know for myself and a lot of artists that I talk to your studio space even if it's just a corner in your room like if it's just one little spot which sounds like that's what you're dealing with make that like your space where it's your aesthetic and everything's organized how you like it and just make it a really inviting fun place to be for yourself so maybe if you're like into candles or um aromatherapy or I don't know cool lights just create that atmosphere and I think you'll have a big difference where you'll be excited to come into that space and create and I know for a lot of people like just having a beautiful space to create and it does something like it lifts your mood it just helps you feel inspired so and sometimes we don't even think about that like little things like that can make such a big difference yeah that's a good answer um and then we also have a lot of people who are having this issue um I also personally have experienced this many times um how uh do you overcome the resistance of finishing payment uh payments paintings yeah I am actually going through it right now um I think the key is to have multiple paintings that you're working on to keep yourself busy and engaged and when When painting is kind of giving you some problems or you just you're not sure how to finish it move like you have just put it to the side you're not giving up on it but work on another painting and I think it's okay to have like four going at once and they're all kind of in different stages and then um you'll overcome something in the next painting that you will later like oh I know I know how to finish that painting now and so sometimes you just need fresh eyes too and to take a break from it so um I don't think it's good to take a break for too long like several months go by but um it's not the worst thing in the world so I think having multiple things multiple projects you're working on will help you just uh yeah it'll help you so if you just have one painting and like that's all your focus um I think it could be difficult to um if you're if you're feeling stuck on it just yeah have something else that you're working on yeah all right do you want to make one more I think I think we're almost two o'clock yeah I think we should just answer some questions um yeah I have I have some more questions if you want to if you want to answer them yeah yeah Jake um do you want to like just I don't know maybe we should okay yeah actually let's do some questions then we'll close it out after that yeah okay so uh Sheila or Shayla sorry I'm saying your name wrong uh is said that she is currently in a gallery uh and there's not that many sales so I'm asking myself why do it uh that is my current block and gallery yeah yeah and then also um swalla is also um having that same kind of similar so that could be um there's a it could be a few different things happening but um personally like how I view galleries um is most of my sales happen online through social media and that's not for everybody but that that's what works for me so how I treat galleries is it's just a place that people can um it's great for foot traffic and so I choose galleries that are in like a destination city that people are traveling to and it's a good fake vacation spot so you get a lot of foot traffic and you're just exposing yourself to another audience so um also if your gallery isn't selling your work I mean you got to give it a few months for them to get traction and for them to you know really test it out and maybe sometimes it's just tweaking like you gotta try different sizes or you have to try different subject matter so if you just put in like three to five pieces and you haven't heard anything for like a few months then well first of all I would follow up after like a month or so and see what kind of feedback you're getting and then if they say oh well there's a lot of people who are looking at it and they like it but I think the price range is just a little bit um different for this clientele like maybe it's too expensive then just give them a smaller painting so I have a few galleries where right now I only put smaller paintings in those Galleries and then I have some that I put large paintings and a variety of sizes it doesn't matter what size is so every Gallery is different and you just gotta communicate with the gallery owner and the sales people there and just you know get feedback about what's happening and sometimes it's just not a good fit so you have to choose what works for you and and what works for the gallery yeah yeah yeah I agree and honestly my advice would be to just keep painting paint more like don't worry about the painting so much that you've already sent to the gallery if it's been several months like the intro said then you can start to reassess maybe you want to put it somewhere else but I would say the best thing to do is to create more inventory and then maybe send those paintings to other gallers since you're already in the gallery you can leverage that that relationship that you have with that gallery in order to get into other galleries yeah um as Gallery owners ourselves if you're already in another gallery and even if your Art's not selling um it does sort of say something to other galleries uh that you are Gallery worthy right so you can use that say Hey I have you know a few paintings and this other gallery and I noticed um from some of the people when I looked up that Gallery at maybe I found your gallery or I don't know but you can craft a message or craft some sort of pitch where you humbly brag you know you you in a humble way that's not like I'm the best because I'm in this Gallery you know where you you presented that you have some leftover inventory and you know you want to expand your Horizon and you think that you would be a perfect fit for their Gallery so I don't know I would say try to get into more rather than like and then over time if that one's not working and you just never sell and you try out multiple different sizes different price points then pull it out and just say thanks for the opportunity next question um so we have two more questions if okay you're okay to answer that yeah yeah okay so uh Diane Lemley is uh wondering how do you overcome not knowing what to paint next so inspiration block well I think yeah doing this exercise will definitely help because um I'll just say for example like working we don't I think I only did four yeah I only did four but on the on this first one oops I'm so sorry I just ruined your piece um I discovered like with the wet spray paint and adding the inks while it's still wet and playing with that with the alcohol inks that was so much fun and I really love that effect and that gives me a starting point for my next piece so you never know what could happen when you're just trying new supplies and I would say if you're feeling uninspired go out and buy a few art supplies that are um you know different for you that you haven't used before and that will definitely like trigger something within you like either you won't like it or you'll love it um and that actually brings me to uh our promotion of the day ding ding ding ding we forgot yeah we forgot to talk about this so we have this lovely box with the art store Milan art store that is called the abstract no what is it called the unblock the anti-art block box cool try saying that five times and it has uh this super awesome first of all it's got a super awesome wrapping paper collage paper with DJ freezie J uh painting Doodles drawings extraordinaire in there and inside we have a Karen Dosh set um 10 sheets of canvas pad um so perfect for this 30 minute challenge yeah we didn't even plan this our art store director just got on it and uh we didn't even tell them that we were doing tin sheets or anything it just is a happy coincidence so can you hold this yeah thank you uh and then we have one random color of Fluid acrylics from DaVinci another random color of light body uh Luminaire Luminaire uh no this is Neo some sort of acrylic that's fluid by uh Jacquard is it Jacquard yeah pearlescent yes this is pearlescent it's purple pearlescent that's awesome uh a couple different markers and a random brush uh is it a random brush see I should have this is completely unplanned right um but so yeah this box is designed to help you get unstuck and try out some new materials I really think every time that like just to answer your question if you buy some new tools that you've never used before maybe it's I think when Jake bought this scraper tool it gave him so many ideas inspiration for paintings so just one simple tool that you've never tried what can lead to a whole different um portfolio of work so I recommend just trying some new supplies and see where that leads you anti-art block box anti-art Black Box call 1-800 anti-art blocks so you can find our art store and Dino will go look on the art store and find the link to send to you guys in the chat now [Laughter] um okay cool um while you're looking for that do you have another question yeah oh I already pasted it in the chat but yes so uh Cecilia funder sorry I'm saying that wrong um is wondering how to overcome um procrastination or maybe even laziness hmm that is a good question yeah that's a really good question so I would say like there are so many different reasons for procrastination um or laziness or basically avoidance um because you're you're trying to when you're procrastinating you're putting off something that you know you should do inevitably right like that's what procrastination is so I think that um what you have to do and one thing okay so actually this is a great point I wanted to bring it up earlier uh anyways and I forgot to so thank you for asking this question so I read this amazing book I read a lot of books this one is by a super awesome author his name is James clear and it's Atomic habits and in this book he talks about like one of the number one things that sets the most successful people apart from everyone else and that is the ability to when you break a habit to get back into the good habit so basically how that ties in and now I'm trying to find the direct link to procrastination I don't know it made me it made me think of that but basically what I'm thinking is that um if you're procrastinating it's sort of like you've come into this bad habit of putting off what you know you should do and how you can overcome that is by setting yourself up in this environment and putting yourself like figure out what are your Tendencies like what are you tending to procrastinate with is that your phone is that TV or movies uh is that socializing with other people um you you can preempt your bad habits by um putting yourself in an environment that promotes good habits like for example I know that I like to snooze my alarm in the morning and this is a confession right so what I do and I've been waking up at 5am every morning uh for the most part except for when I know that I can sleep in a little bit because uh we have a workshop like today I slept until 6 30. but uh so I wake up at 5am 5 a.m every morning and I know that I'm gonna really want to turn that snooze button and I'm the most vulnerable I'm the most weak I am like I'm not waking up at five I have no willpower at 5am in the morning when I went to bed at 10 30 and I only got six and a half hours of sleep but how I overcome that is I take my phone and I put my phone in the bathroom and so basically it's like so far that I have to get up out of bed to go turn off the alarm and I have to turn on the light so that I can find the phone and since I'm already there and I smell my own breath and it stank I might as well brush my teeth and go to the bathroom and start my day and so that's like how I preempt my procrastination or my laziness of wanting to go back to bed and so what you could do is figure out what are your Tendencies like what are the the different environmental stimuli that is like you're going towards that is preventing you or that you're sort of procrastinating with and then just eliminate that like eliminate that from and make it difficult maybe you don't have to take your TV and put it in the closet but you unplug your TV so that you know that if you want to go watch TV you're going to have to get up and you're gonna have to find the plug behind the thing and go plug it back in so it's a little a bit more difficult there's a little bit more friction there and it makes it so that you're less likely to do that action and it's easier to go into the studio just make painting as easy as possible it goes back to what danger was saying before make your studio a sanctuary make it somewhere where you want to be where you love being because oh my gosh it smells so good with those essential oils or that candle the lighting is just so perfect and you know uh it's just fun so that's that's my advice for that very good advice thank you James Clear thank you James Clear pretty much all of the questions okay that's all the questions well I hope that this exercise really inspires you guys to go and do this and do it multiple times um and just do it on the side from other paintings that you're working on and this will help you just get out whatever I don't know bad feelings you have and and discover something really cool with using new materials or old materials in a new way but you want to just find the 30 minutes make the 30 minutes and don't find it make it yes choose those 30 minutes and just make it happen yeah and no matter how busy you are you'll have 10 paintings by the end of it and maybe half of them will be ugly maybe they'll all be ugly but it'll be fun and you get to express yourself and play with materials and find new ways you're guaranteed to find at least one thing that you are inspired and that's going to inspire some new paintings and you'll find one technique that you really enjoy doing and what you'll want to repeat it even if you don't find one like most likely you will but even if you don't you'll at least eliminate you'll learn by failure that okay I know not to mix uh all these different inks with these different uh you know colors because that color combination is just not good like you know that's not a good color combination all right not gonna do that again right so and maybe there's 10 of those that you just learned like okay there's 10 different color combinations that I know for sure don't work uh and that's you know so there's there's always a bright side there's always a positive as long as you search for it um and sometimes you do have to search for it sometimes it's not super evident um but you as long as you keep painting uh and keep creating you will eventually stumble upon something that you love and that you love to do and that's really cool so a few things before we completely wrap up I wanted to share um some different ways that you can go into this Challenge and some different mindsets or some different strategies for this so to me there's like three different areas that you could focus on with this and you can combine them together too so there are the different elements of art there are the materials and there are different surfaces uh sir I've said that really weird there are different surfaces and so you know a different surface would be like paper versus Plexiglas versus wood versus cardboard versus you know a white board I don't know that would be weird but maybe it would work or maybe you'd find something new with that so you can experiment on those different types of surfaces or you can use different materials or you can use one material and then with the elements of art you can think about color okay this challenge I'm gonna really push myself to be super minimal with color or vice versa or you know the opposite I'm gonna push myself to be explosive with color I'm gonna try to record this that you don't Tastefully as many colors as I possibly can and the same goes with line I'm gonna try to push the boundaries with line and see how I can create so many different varieties of line in this specific Challenge and honestly I would encourage you to like go through and try this challenge many times um and you know take notes like record your process figure out what it is reflect on it Journal you know um spend as much time as you can thinking about your process uh even when you're not painting because you know you don't have to necessarily be in the act of painting in order to get better sometimes the reflection is where you learn the most what is our name for this challenge so they can just go and do this and share about it anti-artisblog anti-artisan I was thinking the 10 30 challenge 10 paintings in 30 minutes yeah 10 30 challenge I like that it's a little bit easier to say yeah anti-artis block box anti-artist block box so yeah we want to see you guys doing this and sharing about it and maybe some of you painted along with us today we'd love to just you know repost that and so more artists can see this and overcome their block yeah and so just to talk a little bit more about the mindset behind overcoming artist block um anti-artist block box uh but you like just to go back to what we said before the challenge you can uh you can challenge yourself um you know with your Source making with your materials like challenging yourself creating some sort of limitation or extreme Freedom um getting outside of your box your comfort zone your comfort zone they're gonna say no I'm not gonna say it again you're getting outside of your comfort zone can really help you um go to new levels go to new heights with your art and continue to elevate your skills like without ceasing like you can constantly get better and better and I don't know about you I mean if you're watching this chances are your goal is to just keep getting better in your art um because you know that's what we're all about and you're if you're following us then you'll know that that's what we're about it's about continuous Improvement um but while at the same time loving what you do and I think that is like a path to fulfillment in life it's it's constantly improving but also like being grateful for what you have um and I think that if you you know continue creating art and you continue challenging yourself but then you know you you will get into the flow and then you'll get into the low and then you'll challenge yourself it's just this awesome process as an artist and it's really the best sort of Lifestyle to have not just for art but for everything in life um so get out there constantly improve and I just wanted to share one little detail um that kind of goes back to the story about the painting the multi-dimensional flower painting that I did and I didn't mention this detail before because I wanted to save it till the end sometimes when you're in a rut and you're in a block you know it's the most difficult part is knowing how to get out of it and hopefully this Workshop helped you but we don't have you know like we're not able to ask each individual person and work them through their individual needs because every person's different every person sort of is on their own journey and sometimes what you need the most is just one-on-one help and so when I was working on that painting or when I wasn't working on that painting I was telling Ellie you know like I'm just struggling with this painting so much I don't even know where to go with it um and she told me well what if you just figured out exactly how much time it would take for you to finish that painting and then all you have to do is just set aside that time to do it and just make that time to do that and because to me I just I couldn't conceptualize like I couldn't figure out how long it would take and not knowing how long it would take really was kind of stopping me because I'm a pretty busy person and so as soon as I put in the time to figure out okay this is going to take me about 20 hours is this painting worth putting in 20 hours to fix and then the answer was yes because I knew that it was so difficult if I did it then I could do anything after that and you know what he sold it I did yeah I recently sold that painting and that's the reason why it's not here well I haven't shipped it yet because she's doing a payment plan but it's packaged up at my house and I didn't want to unbox it for this so but anyway anyways so I hope that inspired you and if you're looking for some one-on-one help with your art we actually just launched Art Club Pro some of you may already be a part of it a lot of you are probably already in art Club but and if you don't know we have Art Club Pro um which is this super awesome opportunity for you to have a personal Mentor with one of the professional artists in our community that's gone through the Mastery Program that's selling their art that has probably already been through the same struggles that you have or at least something similar and they're able to give you the personalized advice that you might need in order to overcome your artist block so if that sounds like you if you're the type of person who loves to connect individually with someone who is at where you're trying to go then I think Art Club Pro might be perfect for you and in addition to that we also have these awesome courses that are included in the art Club Pro library and so you can learn all about oil painting mixed media portrait painting seen drawing collage there's a lot of different courses in there and it is just a you know jam-packed full of value and not only do you get this personal Mentor but you also get to be a part of this group mentoring environment on art social so you get access to all of our mentors in one place that are dedicated to giving you feedback and they do eight uh live classes every single month with like pretty cool it's just what we set out to do with this is figure out how can we in the most cost effective way because you know this is business right how can we in the most cost effective way provide the most possible value to artists for the least price possible so that it's super affordable and you know anyone can you know just sell one painting and be able to afford this every single month um less I mean a tiny painting you could sell half a painting and be able to afford this so if you if you're interested if you want to learn more about this you can go to the link that Dino's about to send in the chat we have uh what he already sent it uh um and if you uh oh I don't ah I'm Brian I was gonna send them the art advisor link but uh oh shoot I don't have the link on hand to send you that um you know what Deidra why don't you talk a little bit about mentoring and your experience as a mentor and I will get the link for them to send right now while we're live right okay so um yeah I just I think Art Club Pro and well we have three different tiers in art Club but Art Club in general is just an amazing place to be um as a growing artist there's so many things you can learn and like we were saying before to challenge yourself and preemptively like uh stop that artist block from happening you have to challenge yourself and so when you're feeling that kind of boredom spot in your art it's good to try a challenge try something that's really outside your comfort zone and that's what we've designed in art Club so every month we have challenges um that you can join and actually win money and win prizes by participating in these challenges and it's just such it's just such a cool place to be and yes I agree with the mentoring I think having a mentor is everything because that artist has gone through their their ahead of you like they know what the struggles are they can relate to your struggles and they can give you advice it's they're just so helpful in every way and we wanted to make that possible to everyone not just people in the Mastery Program so you can join Art Club we have Art Club Plus and Art Club Pro and with the pro you get your own personal Mentor that you can message at any time and you get monthly a monthly Zoom call just private one-on-one with your Mentor where you can ask them anything and you can message them all the time too um so I just sent Dino a link and basically if you aren't sure if you know our club pro is right for you or if our club plus is right for you and you want to talk to you know one of the artists one of our art advisors then you can book a one-on-one call completely free with one of our art advisors it's just 10 minutes all these people are professional artists um or you know aspiring to be a professional artist and our art advisors can set you up get give you some different feedback help you you know determine what your goals are in art and point you in the right direction there and how we can help you with that so if you want to book a call with one of our art advisors Dino is going to put a link to that in the chat we don't have a lot of space because there's only four of our art advisors right now and they're all working artists so there's not a lot of times available but if you want to do one of those calls then I highly recommend you jump on one because they are super awesome people we've been working with them and we just got this going like we literally just started this as a way to help artists better so um you know if you're super ready to step into that and get over artist block then join Art Club Pro or book a call with one of our art advisors I hope that you enjoyed this workshop and you know you found it to be valuable I had a ton of fun I had a lot of fun this is like this is so much fun just doing this creating um these random little pieces sharing our experiences and getting to interact with our lovely artist community and answering your questions too yeah and we hope to see you at the next Workshop so thank you so much for joining we hope you have a wonderful day um just don't forget about the anti-art club box anti-art Club box no that's not good anti-art block box okay thank you guys goodbye

Channel: Milan Art

Views: 36,783

Keywords: concept art, dimitra milan, milan art institute, art podcast, contemporary art, art, art skills, artists, artist, art school, art education, classical art, composition, texture, professional artist, professional artists, create drawings, learn art, art program, art haul, watercolor, watercolour, acrylic, oil paint, oil painting, how to paint, how to draw, learn painting, best art skills, artist mentor, art mentors, art mentor, pro artist, pro artists, learn to draw, art blog

Id: 97gxqNb8M_Q

Length: 81min 11sec (4871 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 29 2023