THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Charlie O’Shields:
It takes a lot, a lot of practice. I mean, for me, it was 2000 hours, 2000 days. It was only an hour a day, by the way, I called it my happy hour.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh wow.
Charlie O’Shields:
But I also, in order to do it had to not go to happy hours, so all my happy hours with friends changed to lunch dates so I would have time.
Miriam Schulman:
Nice.
Charlie O’Shields:
And so a lot of it too, I think that is tough, even if you want to practice, it’s making space in your day to do that thing you say you want to do and if you can really make that space and commit to it and just keep doing it, you will get awesome-
Speaker 3:
It’s the Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place podcast, an art world inside a podcast, for artists by an artist where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman:
Well, Hey there, passion maker. This is Miriam Schulman, your curator of inspiration and you’re listening to episode number 199 of the Inspiration Place podcast. We have such an amazing episode for you today and if you’re listening to this as it goes live at the end of June, you’re just in time for World Watercolor Month. And by the way, if you’re listening to it a little late, make sure you hit that plus or subscribe or follow button in your podcast app so you don’t miss episodes.
Now, World Watercolor Month is the creative inspiration from today’s guest, so you’ll be hearing much more about that during today’s interview, but just so you know, to help you out, I want to make sure you get your hands on my complete watercolor supply list. It is completely free and on that list you’ll find all the supplies I use in my watercolor portrait. So we’ve listed the supply list opt in the show notes. And I also wanted to let you know that if you’ve always wanted to do portraits, but perhaps you’ve been afraid to try either because you think you can’t draw or maybe watercolor scares the heebie jeebies out of you, I want to make sure you also take the time to listen to episode number 186, which I did a few weeks back called the taboo technique. In it I reveal the legal cheating method many realistic portrait artists use, but would probably be embarrassed if their clients found out.
Now, if you rather watch the movie version of this rather than the audio, the podcast is the audio, the movie version is my masterclass then you can do that. You can go over to schulmanart.com/demo as in D-E-M-O, and in that masterclass, you’ll discover the taboo technique, the watercolor advantage, as well as watch a demonstration of me putting those principles into action. Okay, so again, that link is schulmanart.com/demo, as in D-E-M-O, we’ll link to that in the show notes.
Now what’s really funny, actually, let me just do a little sidebar here, so my guest and I, after we finished recording the interview, the two of us really geeked out on our love of Harry Potter books and he asked me if I read them as they came out and the two of us basically had the same journey where we didn’t start reading them until there was maybe a few out and then from then on we read them, every time, as soon as the book came out and he did the same thing I did, we locked ourselves away in a room. My husband jokes like I used to lock myself in the bathroom until like two in the morning reading Harry Potter, I didn’t want anyone to spoil it for me or anything like that.
So the reason I bring this up is that there are some people who prefer books over movies. I actually like the whole entire Harry Potter world, I like the movies too, they’re just different. But if you’re the type of person who prefers the book over the movie, we actually just created a brand new workbook that goes along with the portrait painting masterclass. You’re going to want to get your hands on that, even if you’ve watched the masterclass before, you’re going to want to get your hands on it. It’s super valuable and juicy, it’s almost like an ebook. It includes the watercolor supply list, it includes everything I go over in the masterclass. And so you can get that when you sign up for the masterclass, you go to schulmanart.com/demo, and we send you that workbook immediately. If you don’t find it, just email us back, we’ll make sure you get it. So again, that link is schulmanart.com/demo. Now let’s get on with the show.
Today’s guest is the creator of Doodlewash, host of the Sketching Stuff podcast, author of Sketching Stuff books, and a big kid at heart. For over 2000 consecutive days and that is like, oh my God, what is that, 10 years? He created a little watercolor illustration in his sketchbook and shared a story about whatever came to mind that day. In 2016, he founded World Watercolor Month, which is in July, so pay attention if you’re listening to this as the podcast goes live, and it’s an event to support arts education that features the 31 watercolors in 31 days challenge. His true passion is inspiring as many people as possible to sketch and create and help people of all ages reconnect with their inner child, natural creativity, and just have tons of fun. Please welcome to the Inspiration Place Charlie O’Shields.
Charlie O’Shields:
Hello.
Miriam Schulman:
Well, Hey Charlie, welcome to the show.
Charlie O’Shields:
Thanks for having me.
Miriam Schulman:
Sure. And where in the world are you?
Charlie O’Shields:
Where in the world am I? That’s a big question, mentally or physically? We’ll see. In the world physically I’m in right in the middle of the United States in, Kansas City, Missouri in the Midwest.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, cool. I think another guest was on recently from Kansas City or maybe Kansas because that’s different. Kansas City’s not in Kansas, right?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, well, there is a Kansas City, Kansas, but Kansas City, Missouri is the larger city that everyone has heard of probably or knows what’s [inaudible] if they’ve been there.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, I think-
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, it’s really so confusing though, because you say you’re from Kansas City. I always say Kansas City, Missouri and people will still say, I’ve never met anyone from Kansas or what’s it like to live in Kansas? And I’m like, I have no idea, I’ve always lived in Missouri and it’s great here.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s awesome. Okay, and then we could talk about where you are mentally too if you want to go there.
Charlie O’Shields:
Well, mentally I’m in a really good place because we’re actually recording this the day after my birthday.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, happy birthday.
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah. So again, I’m getting older, which is not necessarily… My age-
Miriam Schulman:
That’s usually how it works by the way with birthdays. I don’t think anyone else has figured out how to do it a different way.
Charlie O’Shields:
But I’m not growing up, I refuse to grow up because that is always entirely optional, but yeah, I’m just in a good mood because I actually have the day off today, it’s beautiful weather outside, visually, but it’s still too cold for this time of year, which is bugging me a little bit. But other than that, everything’s great.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. I mean the New York weather today is amazing, we have one of these freak warm days today.
Charlie O’Shields:
Oh see, now you’re just gloating.
Miriam Schulman:
Well, we don’t normally get to gloat about New York weather so just give that to me.
Charlie O’Shields:
True, gloat away.
Miriam Schulman:
All right. So a thousand day project, why don’t we just start in the middle of right there because that I am the most curious about at this moment. A thousand… No, it was 2000, 2000 consecutive days. So that’s like six years?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, about like five and a half years or so, it was a long time.
Miriam Schulman:
And you broke the streak?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah. So I didn’t even plan to do that. I started my blog, @doodlewash.com and I had made a promise to myself to post every day just because I wanted to practice watercolor and that was really the only reason. And then once I started posting, I started posting what people would normally post on an art blog and I got bored with that real quick because I am a huge child. And so I started writing just stories about myself and anything that came to mind or stuff that was going on rather than even talk about art some days. And I would pair that with whatever illustration I made, which either my story would inspire the illustration or the illustration would inspire whatever I talked about. And it was fun and people showed up and so that kept me going, it was fun to have this connection with and meeting all these new artists and just people in many cases because of the type of content that I was putting out there.
And I kept it going for a really long time, but I just had other projects I wanted to try to do and I knew that if I kept doing that like I was doing it, I wouldn’t be able to do those projects. So I decided to just show up once a week now, so I still do that same thing on Doodlewash but now it’s only weekly. When I first did that, people were like, where are you going? What happened? And I’m like, do you know how much time it takes to do this particular thing which I adore, but I had no time for anything else because I actually still have a full-time job as a creative director during the day. These are all side hobbies and side projects that I do.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay, and then your position as creative director is of… Tell us what a creative director is and what you do.
Charlie O’Shields:
Oh my gosh, my mom asked me the same question and I’ve never been-
Miriam Schulman:
Of course she did.
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah. My whole family just says I work in computers because many of them don’t.
Miriam Schulman:
So that’s what my family thinks I do too.
Charlie O’Shields:
Oh, there you go, see it is always easier, then I just say, yeah, that’s true. A creative director can be a creative director of anything and I’ve been a creative director of many, many things from digital marketing and online web design to product development. I spent about seven and a half years working at Hallmark and now I’m creative director of Venn49 Creative Lab, which is a packaging design studio. And what that means is that I oversee a group of people way more talented than I am at doing things and make sure that everything is kind of staying on brand and on concept and helping to come up with those new concepts and things of brand new things that we’d like to try next.
Miriam Schulman:
That sounds so fun. And is Hallmark in Kansas City?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, it’s great.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. Yeah, that’s great. So Terry Runyan was the guest from, I’m assuming Kansas City, Missouri not Kansas. All right, the pieces fall into place now. Okay.
Charlie O’Shields:
It’s all there.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. All right, so-
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, Terry’s fantastic.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, it was great. I actually ordered her cat swag as soon as the show was over and it came today so I have my cat mug downstairs, so that was really-
Charlie O’Shields:
Fantastic.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m definitely a cat person. Do you have a pet?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yes. I have a puppy now. It’s very recent. So for the last, it was in March, I got a puppy because my husband and I thought it would be really cool to like, oh we’re in a good spot, we could do a puppy without really, really thinking it through. So he’s adorable, he’s wonderful and he is a ball of constant energy that-
Miriam Schulman:
Does he eat your art supplies?
Charlie O’Shields:
No, thankfully, but thankfully, it’s so funny in my kind of kid-like approach just in case people want to use my books with their kids. A lot of my new palette and everything that I’m using is non-toxic, I just switched to that in case somebody wanted me to recommend something I wanted to make sure it was okay for kids and adults, even though my stuff is really geared toward adults who just want to act like big kids like me.
Miriam Schulman:
So has the dog made an appearance in your illustrations and in your work?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yes, just recently I introduced him last week on my blog as a little puppy, but I used the puppy picture of when I got him because it was cute, but he has a little Teddy bear and he is already grown. That was about four weeks old and now he is like already a few inches taller.
Miriam Schulman:
What kind of dog is he?
Charlie O’Shields:
We had to actually get the DNA test because it was a shelter mut and so we found out he was 42% Australian Cattle Gog, 14% Husky and then I think 9% Chihuahua and about 10 different other breeds after that.
Miriam Schulman:
Well dog adoption has been on the rise. I mean there was the pandemic puppy adoption spree that happened, I don’t know if that happened all across the country, but definitely here in New York, the pandemic puppies were a big thing. And then I was seeing some research yesterday how people in general are looking for dogs because they’re looking for love. Which I think is kind of sweet and sad, both sweet and sad at the same time when you think about it.
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, it is in the type of companionship that you get just to have that connection. And especially during the pandemic, when we were all just robbed of all of the connections that we were used to.
Miriam Schulman:
Yes.
Charlie O’Shields:
So it was… Yeah. But I think it’s wonderful and I always tell people, definitely go get a shelter pop if you want one, they need homes and they’re wonderful.
Miriam Schulman:
We have a shelter cat, but my daughter has taken her because we’re moving and so we kind of kicked her out of the nest… She’s 24, by the way, so I didn’t kick out a teenager or a young child just so people who might be listening to me for the first time. Yeah, my 24 old, we said, okay, we’re moving, she’s like, do you have to? It’s like, yeah, she didn’t want to leave, you’re leaving, but you can have the cat. So the cat has gone to live with her.
All right. So Charlie, I really want to talk to you. I know we talked about some of this before I hit record, but I want to make sure our listeners are caught up in that conversation. So you put out these workbooks and I mean, you can hold up one now, this is a mostly audio podcast, but maybe we’ll have some of this eventually on YouTube, I don’t know.
Charlie O’Shields:
This is me smiling with one of my books there.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, there it is. So I’m describe it as if I’m talking to a blind person since most people cannot see you. When he flipped through it, it reminded me of Ranger Rick and there was another one for kids…
Charlie O’Shields:
Highlights.
Miriam Schulman:
Highlights, that’s it. Highlights. Did you like this as kids?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, because I loved those magazines as a kid.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh my gosh, I loved Highlights.
Charlie O’Shields:
That’s what I used for inspiration to create the design.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, well, it shows. So why don’t you flip to page, I don’t know, since your birthday was the 13th flip to page 13 and let’s talk about what’s on that page, like what kind of thing we can expect to find inside this book.
Charlie O’Shields:
So on page 13, you find your brain on creativity.
Miriam Schulman:
Holy cow. Okay, and then is this like a teaching moment or is there an activity? Tell us about it, Charlie.
Charlie O’Shields:
Well, backing up just slightly, the overall context of the way that I approach creativity and my thought process is that we always have this inner child that is our pure creative self and then we have our adult mind, which sometimes the two kind of are at odds with each other. So the inner child’s like a child wanting to do all these crazy things and then the adult mind is the critic and kind of comes back in and I’ve always talked about that but what I ended up doing was starting to study neuroscience and psychology closer and find parallels between that simple little concept and actual science. And so what we’re able to find on this page is our brains on creativity.
Our brains have three networks, there are three brain networks. The executive control network is responsible for keeping focus and targeting our attention. And then the default mode network, my favorite, is the one that’s also called the imagination network. It basically helps us with brainstorming activities and awesome things like daydreaming. And the other network is the salience network, which I see as the sensory switch. And so if you think of executive control network as the adult mind and this default mode network as the inner child, then this sensory switch actually alternates between the two and kind of helps us choose. One side wants to do this, then the other side kind of looks at it and judges it and decides whether or not we’re supposed to do that.
When your brain is on creativity and you’re in a wildly creative moment, it does something exceptional and that is that sensory switch opens both paths. And so both networks that are normally kind of switching on and off switch on together. And so it isn’t as much about your inner child winning and your adult mind losing, it’s about getting them to work in continuity together so that you can get your strongest and greatest ideas that are both amazingly surprising and actually a little plausible, like maybe something that you could actually do that will work.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So I’m going way out into a land which you may not even be able to answer, but I’m just going to go there anyway. So I’m willing to guess that somebody who has an ADD brain like myself, has a lot of trouble with one of those areas and a lot more ease in the imagination realm. Is that true?
Charlie O’Shields:
Um, yeah-
Miriam Schulman:
Executive functioning is the part that ADD people are going to struggle with, right? Or is that really the switching that we have trouble with?
Charlie O’Shields:
I think it’s more the switching, but I think everyone kind of has the other stuff. It’s hard to kind of switch one side often kind of get back to that more, for lack of anything better, levelheaded or focused side. You have trouble… I mean, I’m in the same way, I have trouble retaining focus at all times but knowing that other side is there and that it’s not a bad thing, it’s actually a good thing to check in with [inaudible]. I kind of use exercises and the creative exercises I create help to do both, get us to think about what just happened there, what crazy thing just happened there. And when we start to think about it more cognitively, that’s usually when the other side is coming back into play and we start to judge it a little bit from afar outside of the fun and chaos of our mind going, woo, this is so awesome.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So if I wanted this magazine, which I absolutely do, so I get it on Amazon, is that right?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, it’s ‘Sketching Stuff, Create Like A Kid Again,’ and it’s currently on amazon.com.. And it’s on some other places as well, but I know it’s there.
Miriam Schulman:
Now is this something that I just buy the ones that you have, or can I subscribe to it the way I would a regular magazine?
Charlie O’Shields:
This is just a single book, the look is kind of magazine like and the layout, but it is just a single creative activity book. I’ve got two other activity books that are for drawing and watercolor, and they’re also for… I say on almost all of my books, they’re for people of all ages, because it really is, just if you’re looking… Those two activity books, I got one on nature, one on food, they’re just to kind of walk anyone through the process and they’re really built for people who say they can’t draw. If anyone thinks that they can’t, then those are the books for them because I guarantee you can. It’s super easy to draw something satisfying, it really is and we all can do it and it’s all really fun.
Miriam Schulman:
I think there’s too much of a myth that you have to be talented to draw when really it’s a question of skills and techniques. Don’t you agree?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, it’s practice. Everything in life is practice. If you practice something all the time, but we don’t practice things we don’t love, so a lot of times people don’t get good at drawing because they don’t love it enough to practice it enough. They don’t get good at something because they just don’t do it enough times to ever be good at it but they could if they were able to stick with it and continue to practice it. Creativity is the same way, it just takes a lot of practice. Because there are people who tell me, they’re like, oh, you’re so creative, I wish I were creative. And I’m like, well you are because we’re all born that way, but it’s just a matter of doing creative things on a regular basis, and it’s not just doing them, it’s a practice. Everything in life is a practice, and-
Miriam Schulman:
It’s like Serena Williams, obviously she has some natural gifts as well, but it’s not like she didn’t work hard at it for 20 years and then showed up at the open and then her talent is what won the games, she had to learn the skills and she had to put in the work. The other thing that comes to mind is the Tiger Mother book, I’m trying to remember the name of the author, but she said that her philosophy was that she makes her kids practice at their instruments because they’re not going to enjoy it until they’re good and the only way to get good right is to force them to practice. So once they get good, then they start to like it but until that point you have to force them to do it.
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, that’s very true. I know and that’s true of absolutely everything. So that’s why if anyone’s interested in writing or being better at writing or drawing or just creativity in general, that’s what it takes, it takes a lot, a lot of practice. I mean, for me it was 2000 hours, 2000 days. It was only an hour a day, by the way, I called it my happy hour.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh wow.
Charlie O’Shields:
But I also, in order to do it, had to not go to happy hours. So all my happy hours with friends changed to lunch dates so I would have time. And so a lot of it too, I think that is tough, even if you want to practice, it’s making space in your day to do that thing you say you want to do. And if you can really make that space and commit to it and just keep doing it, you will get awesome and you’ll get to that place like the little musician who hates to practice, but then suddenly goes, yes, I’m awesome and this is so fun because, it’s true, it gets a lot more fun when you feel like you have some level of prowess in something when you actually can kind of do it, I always tell people satisfying way. Like it’s just a way that you feel good about what you just made or what you just created.
It doesn’t have to look like or be like the thing that you saw that made you want to do that in the first place, like if you were doing watercolor, you saw this amazing watercolor painting that someone made after 20 years of painting with watercolor and that’s why you want to do it, do something really satisfying in watercolor that satisfies you that’s better than what you did and the next one that you do, if it’s better than what you just did, you’re the kind of pace car, it’s like you are, not anyone else. And as long as you can kind of keep making little improvements over what you just did, then you are moving forward really quickly and awesomely.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s really beautiful. I’m actually am a watercolor artist, even though you’re not seeing any behind you, so you got a puppy during the pandemic and I stopped painting realistically.
Charlie O’Shields:
Oh, that’s fantastic.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. I actually do serious watercolor and I haven’t done it in a while. I found that with all the chaos in the world, it’s like I wanted to paint the chaos, if that makes sense and it was a shift for me creatively that’s happened and it’s new to me also, so I haven’t been with it too long, maybe I’ll go back to painting that way again. I don’t know. Don’t know.
Charlie O’Shields:
It’s very true, because during the pandemic was when I made the decision that I was going to end at that year, in 2020, the daily thing and switched things. I paused my podcast, I basically wanted to invent my own chaos to kind of combat the chaos that was going on around me.
Miriam Schulman:
Yes, well, that’s what it is. I’m putting the internal chaos now on paper or on canvas and actually I’ve been thinking recently that I might want to do abstract watercolor also to see, well, what if I played with that? What would that look like? So it’s just following my curiosity, so that’s where I’m at now. But we have watercolor month coming out, not in our present, but in our time travel in our future when this comes out because this is coming out the end of June.
Charlie O’Shields:
Very near future, yes.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s right, for most of those who… They have time traveled or we have time traveled from April to June. Tell us about that.
Charlie O’Shields:
In the first year that I was doing my blog, I was showing up every day and it was really hard to show up every day and think of something to sketch and it was something to practice. So I wanted to do a lot of different subjects, a lot of different things because if I was doing it daily I wanted to make sure I was sketching a little bit of everything. And so for a few months in that first year I’d make myself prompts and that got challenging as well so I just started picking the days like ice cream day, hot dog day, you name it.
Miriam Schulman:
You mean Instagram hashtag holidays?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, and I would just go through the month and whatever that holiday was that day, that’s what I’d make something of to illustrate it and I did that for a few different months that first year and while I was doing it got me thinking that, well, well there’s nothing for watercolor, there was no watercolor day, there was nothing there. So my anniversary of my first year which was July, 2016 was coming up and I thought, well, let me just see. I want to try to… Well, what if July were World Watercolor Month. Speaking of ice cream, it’s actually national ice cream month in the United States and so I also had to pick a month that wasn’t associated with a heavy topic or something else there of other things so that I could-
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, you don’t want to compete with black history month or.
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah and it’s not that I couldn’t, it’s just that that was actually by a president as well, Reagan, actually made it, it was a presidential month. So I thought, well maybe another president won’t come on top of this with something very serious, but who knows, the world we live in. But right now July is World Watercolor month, and what I did was actually go to all the places that, [nationalday.com], days of the year, there’s all these places that actually found it and I just kind of submitted, I started to get it actually kind of authorized, so to speak, and it was.
And so the proclamation came out, it was really World Watercolor Month. So it is a 31 watercolors in 31 days challenge, which is similar to other monthly art challenges that are out there now all over the place, but it really is World Watercolor Month. So when you Google it and you say World Watercolor Month, Google will tell you that it’s July every year and it’s celebrated by people all over the globe. And I think that’s the part that one was, that was super cool, was to actually-
Miriam Schulman:
Get a holiday.
Charlie O’Shields:
From the real month, it really is, whether I’m here or not, World Watercolor Month is in July everyone and it’s a gift to you. But as I started thinking about it being a gift to the artist, I didn’t want it to be like other challenges where it was just a publicity stunt for myself. And so I flipped it a little bit from other challenges like this and made it from the beginning a nonprofit effort and so it’s also to help create awareness for arts education. And there was one charity that had been there for the first few years, and then they actually closed their doors to the public during the pandemic and so currently it’s to help support International Child Art Foundation.
And so my one passion for art charity is kids because I do feel like we need future artists and as a lot of the art programs in schools get canceled for lack of funding, lack of whatever, I just want to make sure that programs and charities like this are supported so that we can get kids to be interested in art because I wouldn’t be now an artist if it weren’t for my childhood art classes, because I wouldn’t have known, I wouldn’t have known that’s what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wouldn’t have had that. So that’s been really important to me and as of end of last year, I’m actually on the board of International Child Art Foundation as well.
Miriam Schulman:
Very nice. So how do you raise money through the watercolor month or how do people participate? Let’s start there and then.
Charlie O’Shields:
Start there, okay. Participation, super easy, all you have to do is make a watercolor. If you want to try the big one, which is daily, and you just post it online with the hashtag World Watercolor Month and post it on Instagram and Facebook and that’s all you have to do to participate, is show up. With either a new water color or a work in progress, if you paint large paintings, just show us what you painted that day. Just show up and show us what you have. And if you don’t think daily works, then that doesn’t matter, it’s all month long, you could show up once a week, twice a week, it’s just making a routine and kind of committing to it because that’s the goal, is to say, okay, well my goal this month is I want to do five large watercolor paintings, let’s say, then do that. You can do it however you like, but show up, share with the hashtag World Watercolor Month, that’s all it takes to participate.
For the charity… That was a good question because in the first year I was just like, Hey, and by the way, donate to this charity which was very disconnected, like what does that have to do with anything? And then the following year, I was like, okay, I got to do this a little bit differently. So now we have artist ambassadors, so there are usually between 12 to 14 artist ambassadors who also help promote the event, but they donate artwork that we then put on zipper pouches for pencils and things like that have the World Watercolor Month logo on them and those are sold in the popup shop for World Watercolor Month and it’s only through the end of July and a hundred percent of proceeds goes to International Child Art Foundation.
And so the first year was actually, it did work because people were like, that’s cool that it’s for charity and so they donated, but in the second year now the primary way is definitely to purchase a souvenir, a fun souvenir in the shop. And then also people are still asked, if they can, to make direct donations to International Child Art Foundation as well. Specifically, they have a quarterly magazine, an online magazine that they publish, and so buying a subscription to that, for instance, would be an amazing thing to help support the month in honor of the month.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s really beautiful. So you’re both raising awareness about this charity as well as supporting them financially, which is fantastic that you’re able to do both of that as well as help these people. Now, if they join your watercolor group, so you have World Watercolor Group on Facebook, is that another way they can participate in this challenge or is that separate?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yes, that’s actually born out of it. That was the group that I built for World Watercolor Month and then after 30 days people were like, you’re not shutting this down, are you? So I just changed the name to World Watercolor Group. So for all year long it’s World Watercolor Group on Facebook and then for that month we just change the banner and celebrate World Watercolor Month in July. But what was just a few people who did the first World Watercolor Month, I think there’s over 114,000 members now on World Watercolor Group.
Miriam Schulman:
And do you monitor that at all or is it just the watercolor wild west over there?
Charlie O’Shields:
Actually, no, I have… It’s nice to when helping in all of this and so much of this there, I have an amazing moderator who volunteers on the site there because all of it, World Watercolor Group, the month, everything, it really is not for profit, it was born out of a non-profit idea. And so thankfully I have lot of other artists and a lot of people who help me as kind of a volunteer basis because if you are participating in World Watercolor Month any extra money goes to the charity, so there’s nothing to split, but it’s really been great. So that’s been nice that they’ve had a lot of people step up and help.
But it’s a really fun group and amazing… There’s a lot of very masterful artists there. No one should be intimidated when they go, because sometimes people do, they’re like they see a few of those post bumped to the top and they’re like, okay, I can’t post here. It’s really not that because I post there and I do the silliest watercolor illustrations you can imagine. It’s not fine art, it’s just super, super, super fun.
Miriam Schulman:
And also, I just want to say what you said in the beginning, I mean, you don’t even have to share, don’t let that stop you from creating.
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, exactly. Well, and that’s what we should be always doing, creating for ourselves is also another way that we keep practicing and we keep doing things. I think the moment that we start creating and we think we’re creating for other people, and I think I was guilty of that as well by posting daily, there were some days I’m like, I’m not showing up for me today, I’m showing up for them, I’m showing up for other people. I don’t want to show up today, this one day or something. But then after I start painting, then the little kid gets out of control and I’m like, I’m back, this is fun.
So it wasn’t like I was in a gloom and doom moment that I was doing something really against my will, I just had some days where I’m like I would just prefer not to. Or I honestly made something some days and I’m like, I kind of want to keep this to myself. Have you ever made something like that where-
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Charlie O’Shields:
… I’m like, what if this were just mine? Do I have to share it? No, no I don’t.
Miriam Schulman:
So Julia Cameron said something very interesting and that is, creativity is a lot like sex, sometimes you’re not in the mood, but you get a little touch of it you want to keep going. She said this now and I think she’s like in her seventies, it’s like good for her.
Charlie O’Shields:
Now what does that have to do with people watching though? That’s a very strange metaphor if you play it across.
Miriam Schulman:
Well, yeah, all right, we won’t go there. All right, Charlie, this is so much fun having you here. So I just want to remind everybody that you can totally participate in World Watercolor Month, where this is coming out, June 28th. If you’re listening to this in August, that doesn’t mean you can’t create, keep on doing it and you can save up your 31 drawings for next year. Is that cheating if you’re not really doing it every day?
Charlie O’Shields:
No, we release the prompts early so that some people can get ahead.
Miriam Schulman:
Ooh, see, that would be me. I don’t like that pressure of doing it in one day.
Charlie O’Shields:
I said I’d do that, but it never happens that way so I’m still just doing it every single day.
Miriam Schulman:
Awesome. Now, if you want to learn what watercolors I use in my portraits and also some sneaky tips, make sure you sign up for that free masterclass. It will teach you the taboo technique, the watercolor advantage, you’ll get to watch me pain plus we get that workbook I mentioned. To get your hands on all of that. Go to schulmanart.com/demo. And now back to the show.
Okay, so I also want to remind people about Charlie’s books. So if you want to reconnect with your inner child and you love the exercises from those fun magazines of your childhood, like Highlight or Ranger Rick, as much as I do, you’re going to love Charlie’s books. And to get that book that mentioned the article about creativity, we can get that on Amazon, right?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah. It’s built as a book, so if you go to sketchingstuff.com, you can actually see… This book is first, so when you click the books link, there’s a books and art link on there and then you can see this book. And then also the two books that I created that I stopped my daily posts for were two interactive picture books that I still say are for people of all ages, where you add your own drawings to help tell the story.
Miriam Schulman:
Nice.
Charlie O’Shields:
And I know adults who’ve done it without kids, you don’t have to have kids, but if you have kids, it is super fun because then you get a nice little keepsake of what they created.
Miriam Schulman:
Super cool. And don’t forget if you like this episode, you’ll want to learn the secrets for watercolor portraits, head on over to schulmanart.com/demo. That’s schulmanart, I spell Schulman, S-C-H-U-L-M-A-N-A-R-T.com/D-E-M-O. Don’t worry, we’ll link to everything in the show notes in case you have trouble spelling my name. That’s schulmanart.com/demo. So Charlie, do you have any last words for my listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah. I just say what I always say, create like a kid again, but what I really want to say is to think about your inner child. We all know that feeling when our inner child sort of takes over the creative process and is doing something and it gets kind of fun. Just to always give support and remember that it’s a child and treat it like you would a child. Treat your inner child well and make sure you give it plenty of things to keep its imagination growing, his or her imagination growing.
Miriam Schulman:
Lollipops.
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, and constant fun. I mean, I know that for many artists, it’s not always about fun and sometimes too, but I prefer fun. I think fun is always a cool way to go and I honestly think that if nothing else, if there’s a bit of joy in whatever you create, others see it and feel it. And I think that is the best thing you could give to anything that you create, no matter what medium you’re working in.
Miriam Schulman:
So beautiful and so true. Yeah, people want our joy.
Charlie O’Shields:
Yeah, and they need it now more than ever.
Miriam Schulman:
Absolutely. The world needs our art. All right, Charlie. Thank you so much for being with me here today. I had so much fun.
Charlie O’Shields:
Thank you. This was wonderful. Appreciate it.
Miriam Schulman:
All right. My friend, thanks so much also for being with us here today. We’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Stay inspired.
Speaker 3:
Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart on Instagram @schulmanart and of course on schulmanart.com.
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