BAP Hobby FIN
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[00:00:00] Charla: Wanted to learn the rules before I could break them, which is one of my favorite sayings.
[00:00:05] Marijanel: There's this evolution happening in you where you're like, I wanna try something new.
[00:00:11] Charla: I distracted myself. With something that I absolutely loved, and it was almost like it just automatically, everything calmed down, and I could all of a sudden the next day get up and be refreshed.
[00:00:27] Marijanel: Welcome to today's show. Can you just feel the creative juices bubbling for the upcoming summer season ahead of you? Do you have anything exciting on the go that you're gonna tackle this summer? Some projects, or maybe it's just a really fun camping trip that you're gonna get inspiration from. What's on the horizon for you, Charla?
[00:00:48] Charla: Sunshine. Sunshine is on the horizon.
[00:00:50] Marijanel: Capital S. Sunshine.
[00:00:51] Charla: That is like so inspiring to have like hot sun coming down, vitamin D bringing energy and life after what I think is the longest, darkest, dreariest winter of the Okanagan. And I just cannot wait to see what summer comes. Just I find, you know, you go, you go, for us in Canada, we have long winters, or we have winter, we have all the seasons, we have winter.
And when summer comes, like everyone goes outside. Everyone comes to life. Every, we live in a beautiful area that lots of people wanna come visit. And we've already had lots of visitors, and you just like energy. There's just so much energy.
[00:01:30] Marijanel: Yeah.
[00:01:30] Charla: And I like to soak all that in and see what happens creatively in the fall, because that's kind of then where all that energy comes back out, right? Us artists need to soak things in, process them, figure them out kind of somewhere deep inside our soul and then let it come out in our creative endeavors. And in the summer I don't always have lots of time to make things 'cuz I wanna be outside. I wanna be swimming, camping, visiting. Um, but in the fall, that's when all that will come out.
So I'm just excited to soak it in.
[00:02:01] Marijanel: Yeah, absolutely. The season of soaking and just getting that inspiration. It's so true. I know that... yeah. Uh, for myself as an artist, I need to be out in the nature and just letting it ruminate, and then the ideas start to bubble and the new creative juices start flowing.
So over the winter, we had some amazing podcasts about everything from skill building and challenges, and a little bit of news on the Bold School community, what's happening on the inside of our classes and the challenges in the community. I feel like we've just delivered so much good meaty content that someone could be listening to all of these podcasts and really growing their skill as an artist.
But you and I got talking about how, in order to really grow our skills to, to get better as artists, we also need to give ourselves this space and time to just explore. And I remember that when we talked about exploring, it sprung up our hobby episode, which was before Christmas, and it was an episode where you know, you got challenged about the mindset of hobby being a dirty word. And it was something that you didn't want anything to do with because you are a professional artist, and you felt like the word hobby oftentimes minimizes our skill building and our abilities. And, and so we talked that through and it was really interesting because since then, you have really separated a part of your life to be sacred for hobby. And it's a little bit different than your professional life. It's a space that you can just play and not feel the pressure of the performance that our other professional art, you know, often imposes on us. And so, um, do you wanna tell us all what you've been hobbying around with a little bit there, Charla?
[00:04:00] Charla: Well, I think even more important than what I've been hobbying with is that I've actually found myself telling people you need a hobby. I'm like.
[00:04:09] Marijanel: So you, you've done a 180 here because you... hobby was a dirty word, and now she's like, you need a hobby.
[00:04:15] Charla: I can't believe that's coming out. And it's almost like you need a hobby, like, oh, sorry, I didn't mean to say that. But I'm like, then I, I'm like, I need to be able to explain myself after I use that word. But I see, I see like how, how much it's like, um, I don't even know the right way to say it, but just... change things for me in general. Just my, my own personal person.
[00:04:41] Marijanel: Yeah.
[00:04:41] Charla: My own health. I guess mental health, if you wanna say that. Like, it's just better overall, let alone how much has changed my art being free to hobby. And I think it was a year ago, um, well, it was like, last, it was probably more than a year ago. It was last winter spring where I started to delve into the using markers and sketching.
And that was when I started realizing, uh, what not, I used, I was using those for practice, but it started to become its own, um, medium and its own art form for me using Alcohol Inc. Markers. And I started realizing that I don't need to just paint. I can hobby. It doesn't have to be my practice, and it doesn't have to be work, or I don't have to make money off it or whatever.
All you can listen to those episodes where we talk about all that stuff, and then it just opened up the world of maybe I can do other things I've really wanted to do.
[00:05:35] Marijanel: You, you started to dream again, is what I noticed. Yes, and.
[00:05:38] Charla: And I had permission. I always, I always think in my soul that Marijanel gave me the permission I needed to try things. And now I'm like, I, I keep asking you like, can I try this? Can I do something else? Because now I'm afraid I'm gonna stop painting and only hobby.
[00:05:54] Marijanel: And I'll say, only if you get on the podcast, then I, I tell you about it.
[00:05:59] Charla: So I've like, I've given myself permission to try new things and the one, the one thing, um, I still am using my markers. I'm sketching more and, and all of those types of things I've even started, uh, sketching and drawing different subject matters, which has been really interesting. And challenging. I got oil paints again after we had, um, our newest artists at Bold School came and brought oil paint medium into bold school with landscape.
[00:06:27] Marijanel: And I purposely left the paint from the shooting sessions, the, the class shooting sessions, I purposely left the paint at Charla's house.
[00:06:36] Charla: Yeah.
[00:06:36] Marijanel: So that she didn't have the excuse to say, I don't have oil paint. I'm like, yes, you do have oil paint. Um.
[00:06:43] Charla: And I started playing with it and I, I love it. I used to use oil paint way back in the day.
And I've forgotten how to use oil paint, so I need to learn and I think that it'll be, that oil paint will actually become part of my practice one day. But for me, especially as a teacher, it's been really good because I'm recognizing that I have to learn, I have to learn the techniques again. I have to practice and it's time consuming.
So for now, it's still a hobby, but I do think that one will very intentionally move into my art practice. Eventually. But there's one thing that I think you're trying to get at, but I've...
[00:07:19] Marijanel: i, you know it, you know it.
[00:07:21] Charla: I got into over Christmas was the art of miniature making, and a lot of people just call it doll houses. But, um, miniature is, is kind of the word that I use, and it kind of has been something, I've posted other people's miniature work on my Instagram and, like, I've been wanting to buy these little tiny, like, I, I remember seeing these little art pallets and, um, paint pallets and stuff, and I wanted to buy them and I didn't even know where to buy them.
Now I've learned that people do make them and sell them, but they make limited amounts, and they sell out really fast. So they are hard to find. But I've been posting about them for a couple of years and didn't think I would ever, ever consider making them. And then, so every Christmas. I'm trying to do this quickly.
Every Christmas we get our kids, we've got three boys.
[00:08:08] Marijanel: It's okay. I know everyone is fascinated right now. So, just take your time. Tell us the story. How did this evolve? Because you know you are a master at Bold Color Portraits and then you've had this whole transformation of understanding you needed some sacred hobby just to refresh your creative soul.
And then over here.
[00:08:25] Charla: Yeah.
[00:08:25] Marijanel: There's this evolution happening in you where how you're like, I wanna try something new.
[00:08:31] Charla: Yeah.
[00:08:31] Marijanel: And so that's what started happening. This, yeah. I wanna do something new.
[00:08:36] Charla: Yeah, that's exactly it. And I didn't know how, and it wasn't, miniatures wasn't in my conscious thought, but I was, um, I guess right before Christmas, people ramp up their social media advertising, and these little miniature kits were being advertised and they probably, my phone probably heard me talking about it at some point or knew that I posted stuff on Instagram.
So it showed me these little kits and then I was thinking, Christmas is coming. What am I gonna do with my kids? And I'm buying them Lego sets, and we always sit around after Christmas and put together Legos, but they're all old enough now that they wanna put together their own Lego sets. And I miss doing it with them.
I used to do it for them, then I did it with them, and now they don't want me touching their Lego sets. So I was like, what am I gonna do while they're all putting together their Lego sets, and I'm gonna be all sad because I don't have a Lego set. And then the miniature kit came up. Um, you know, the internet read my mind.
And show me these miniature kits. And I was like, I wonder, I just wonder if I could buy one and put it together.
[00:09:39] Marijanel: Yeah. So, you know, I knew that you had a fascination with miniatures because I dollhoused when I was little, and I have all of these, you know, just really precious heirlooms in my family of the these dollhouse furniture pieces that I, I still have and I've shown you pieces, and you were fascinated by them.
And so what's really interesting is those same, those same miniature kits had popped up on my computer, and I sent it to you as a screenshot and said, look at this Charla. And you said, funny. I just ordered one of those for myself. And so, You know, it was just like all, somehow I knew that you needed to do miniatures.
[00:10:18] Charla: Yeah. Maybe it was our conversation and our phones listened to our conversation.
[00:10:22] Marijanel: Maybe.
[00:10:23] Charla: And that's why it showed us those little kits. I don't know. I was thankful. I'm thankful for the, a algorithm that reads what I want and shows it to me.
[00:10:31] Marijanel: So can you show, can you show us all here on YouTube what you put together over Christmas?
And I need you all to know that when Charla's miniaturing, she goes, Mia. So I didn't hear from her for quite a long time because she was busy doing this. How about you show the screen?
[00:10:47] Charla: Yeah. So I bought this little kit and opened it up, uh, like I bought it for myself. I didn't wrap it. But I bought it for myself and I got it open on Christmas day, and I sat down at the dining room table and I literally only moved for Christmas dinner and for like events we had over the break. I worked for probably two full weeks, night and day on this thing.
[00:11:07] Marijanel: Yeah, she did. Yeah, she did.
[00:11:08] Charla: Way more work than I thought. But see, it's a little greenhouse, and I love plants. I've got plants in my studio, I've got plants in our living room. And I love plants, so I was like, this one would look really cool, like sitting in with my plants. And that's where I put it. It's even got a little light. Little light. So it's a kit. I didn't make any of this up on my own. Um, I had to put it all together though, and it's all, see the little light? So cute.
[00:11:34] Marijanel: So sweet. So rotate it a little. So we see in the sides of, uh, like the side of the greenhouse because it's just so intricate and every little thing in there, it didn't come preassembled. Like, Charla assembled all that.
[00:11:49] Charla: Yeah.
[00:11:49] Marijanel: And some of it you made up yourself, you said. So like the plant in the corner. Didn't you make that one up yourself? This one I, oh yeah. This big plant in the corner. I did some work on it myself, I think. Cuz I screwed up. It's really hard to follow their directions. I screwed up a lot actually.
But this one, I pretty much just did what they said for me to do because I wanted to just see how it all worked. I wanted to learn the rules before I could break them, which is one of my favorite sayings. I learned all the rules of miniature making and learned how they use, you know, a lot of like beads, they'll collect you, a lot of miniatures will collect beads and, and like, this is like a twine. And they, they get all these, they collect all these things together to make these items themselves and, and make them all and design them all themselves. So I had to learn all of those things. Like inside, there's little shovels and little water containers and books, and there's like a water tap.
There's so many tiny little details. I just absolutely love. It's so fun.
Okay, so I, I just have to interject here because I hear a whole lesson for artists going on, and especially our Bold School artists that are on the inside of our community learning, painting and learning Charla's process of painting.
I hear it. You saying you've gotta learn these rules. You've got to put the time into following maybe in someone else's process before you can break out into your own style and process. And it's really important to spend that time in training, which is what we do inside of Bold School, and it's what our mentors are always doing with our artists. But from that point, Charla, that you had that little mini greenhouse, you took everything you learned, and I want you to show now, show us here on YouTube what you made from your own imagination, with your own skills. Something that it's just like precious is gonna blow artists away. Like anybody out there who's a painter, who's interested at all, you're just gonna love this.
[00:13:42] Charla: But, but there was like a middle step. I went from, like, I, I bought this little kit at Christmas time and I put it together exactly as they told me to do it, except for a, a thousand mistakes that I made. And then I decided, at first, my whole reason for buying it was just to have something to do at Christmas with my kids while they were putting together the Lego sets. They put their Lego sets together, they left. I didn't see them most of Christmas because I was putting this together by myself. But then I decided, or I thought I would just buy another one next Christmas, and that would just be my fun little thing. But when my kit was done, I was like, I need to do more of this.
And I researched kind of what the tools and all the, all the things I would need to get. So I decided to buy another kit. And what I was seeing on YouTube, cause I was watching a lot of YouTubers, was that they would buy kits and customize them. And I thought, okay, that could be a next step of learning. So instead of buying everything and doing it from scratch, I could learn to customize a kit, and that way I'll learn. Like you could make your own wood floors, and you could make your own tools to put inside, and you could paint the furniture, add furniture, add art, whatever, those types of things. So I did that. That was my first, oh, that was my second step.
[00:14:51] Marijanel: Okay. So your second step was customizing what you learned.
[00:14:56] Charla: So this is another kit.
[00:14:58] Marijanel: That is so precious.
[00:15:00] Charla: Little vintage trailer. Camper. And it's a kit. So the structure of the trailer came. The, the trailer was pink with silver, just as you see it here. But then I made the barbecue. It came with the barbecue, but I didn't like it. So I made my own barbecue and I, so I purchased, you know, the tools that I would need to make the barbecue, and like the silver papers so I would have that. On here, it's probably hard to see, but there's like this little iron frying pan. I'm, I learned how to make that one myself. Like, so there's little things like that.
[00:15:31] Marijanel: So precious. So the silver. The silver on your barbecue. Cuz I remember we were at Opus picking up some art supplies for one of the Bold School classes, and you saw a silver marker, paint pen.
[00:15:43] Charla: Marker. Yeah.
[00:15:43] Marijanel: Did you use that or no?
[00:15:45] Charla: No, this is tape. It's like,
[00:15:47] Marijanel: okay.
[00:15:48] Charla: A big roll of silver tape. So it's really easy cuz it just like sticks on cause it's already sticky. Um, so I learned, so I bought some of those things and I started learning how to do it myself.
Like I messed up. I, I kind of used my a alcohol link markers actually to draw on here and kind of make it look dirty and used. And, um, what else did I do? I added a ton of stuff inside, like I made little knives. Furniture inside. It's hard, really hard to see on here. You wouldn't be able to see. So anyways, the idea was just that I, I made the kit.
It's, if you search this kit, it'll look very similar to this, slightly different. And I just decided to customize things just to see if how far I could push it myself and get to know some of the tools I would need to use without having to do it from scratch.
[00:16:32] Marijanel: Yeah.
[00:16:32] Charla: Because from scratch is just a million other things.
[00:16:35] Marijanel: Okay, so step one, you followed the rules. Step two, you followed the majority of the rules, stepping out, testing some things on your own. Step three...
[00:16:47] Charla: I went on Amazon and to my local craft store and bought every miniature tool known to man.
[00:16:53] Marijanel: She sure did.
[00:16:54] Charla: Which was only a few hundred dollars.
[00:16:55] Marijanel: And, and Charla has a huge dining room table. And this took over the, that huge dining room table.
[00:17:00] Charla: Yeah. It took over our whole dining room table.
[00:17:01] Marijanel: Like, hundred percent, every square inch
[00:17:04] Charla: yeah,
[00:17:04] Marijanel: was covered with miniature making supplies.
Just a quick note here in this podcast, to ask you if you're ever frustrated mixing your paint colors. Do you feel like you just end up with mud and you need help?
If that's the case, you're gonna be thrilled to know that boldschool.com offers a learning path that's dedicated to color theory. It's called the color path, and it will transform your eye and skills as an artist to know, understand, and mix colors. Check it out on our website. Our classes and community are here to support you and mentor you, not only in growing your skills, but in becoming a wholehearted artist.
Now back to the show.
[00:17:46] Charla: Yeah, and what's funny is that the table would be a mess, but the only, you'd have to like look for the miniature thing that I was making out of all of these tools. I've since moved it into my studio. But from there, I've made a, a bunch of different little things and learned lots, but I'm gonna show you the one that I love the most that I made, designed it from scratch, and made it all on my own, and it's a little miniature easel.
You can see how these things actually like lift and move. And this thing, I'll, I'll probably break it now. It's, they're very fragile, even if they do function. So this moves.
[00:18:21] Marijanel: It completely functions. I've seen it in person and every, like I know that the screen of YouTube is not gonna show you, or do justice to how amazing this is. But even those, those ha little handles the gold ones on the back all turn and move.
[00:18:38] Charla: Yeah. This moves up and down.
[00:18:39] Marijanel: Everything functions. Now, if you tilt your head over to your right, you'll see that Charla made it replicate her own amazing easel.
[00:18:49] Charla: Yeah. It's hard to see it, but it is,
[00:18:51] Marijanel: it's almost identical. That's so fascinating to me.
[00:18:56] Charla: Yeah. And I, it took me a few easels to get to this easel. Um, but it was, that's, that's kind of the outcome of what I've been doing since Christmas. I was like half a year of work.
[00:19:08] Marijanel: Okay. So what's happening to your professional art while you sit and explore this hobby, which Marijanel predicts won't be a hobby for too long. I think it'll go somewhere really interesting and creative in your professional life. But you've segregated it for now. As this, as this hobby time. To just let your, give yourself space to breathe, relax, do something that you've wanted to try. What? What is transferring from that hobby time, that relaxation mode over into your professional life? What are you seeing?
[00:19:46] Charla: Well, I think, um, I don't, I don't know. I'm not, I don't know if I've put them into word, I've really put it into words. I do miniature making at night, like after supper, as soon as supper's done, I go and sit at the table sometimes till 11 or 12 o'clock at night. One thing I've noticed is that I haven't been that excited about making something for many, many years. I think I even talked about hearing the podcast at one time. You know how when the kids were little, a lot of my creative work as a photographer got done at night, and I would be, I was a night owl and I'd be up till late. I'd be up late because that was my only time to work. And now it's cha, my work, uh, habits have changed and I rather work in the mornings and the kids are older now, and I, I can work during the day.
What I realized was that I still have that same like creative vigor, I guess you could say. Because as soon as I sit down knowing that I'm not gonna be doing this during the day, cuz I have a business to run, I would stay up so late working on these night after night trying to get this easel done cuz it would probably took a week or 10 days to get that easel done. To create that easel.
[00:20:51] Marijanel: Yeah.
[00:20:51] Charla: And I wanted it done and I still had that same drive. So it was kind of exciting to see that drive, that creative drive come alive for something that I was absolutely loving and finding that everybody loves them. Like, everybody who come, it would come into the house. Yeah. And be like, I would tell them what I was doing, they'd wanna see it and touch it. Young, old men, women, everybody loved it. And it would bring something alive in them. Um, I was getting.
[00:21:21] Marijanel: It spark, sparks joy. It, it sparks joy in people.
[00:21:24] Charla: Yeah.
[00:21:24] Marijanel: Yeah.
[00:21:24] Charla: And I could talk about miniatures too, like why I've been really intrigued by why those things spark, why miniature spark joy in really everybody who sees them.
Um, but just in general, having a another practice. I also love embroidering at night. I embroidered my, my art at night as well, and I'm sketching and all those types of things. But this kind of brought this new joy. And what it did in my, it actually started making, I, I haven't quite figured this out yet.
Maybe somebody will enlighten us, is watching. But it started, and maybe Marijanel will enlighten me. It started igniting like, um, excitement to paint again to want my painting, like I've, I've had, I've talked about this here up to about a year ago. I. Really not painting a lot. My business had taken over and that's just the season.
This, it's normal. It was nothing bad, but my business had really taken over. I was only painting for Bold School, and I had decided I that needed to change, and that's kind of where hobbies came up, came back into my life to kind of as creative outlets. But I was bringing painting back into my regular life and practicing again and doing daily painting and all those types of, but what I found when I was working on a hobby, a creative hobby, that I was absolutely loving every second that I was doing it and thinking about it every second that I wasn't, was it reignited my love for painting again. It wasn't just that I have to get in the studio, and I have to practice, and I have to become a better painter cuz this is what I do, it was, no, I love this. I love painting, and I wanna get back in the studio, and I want to paint. And what is the thing that I'm making as a miniature, I'm making art studios. Like, I'm making little pallets, and little tiny paint tubes, and those are the things I wanna make right now that could evolve and change as I grow as a miniaturist.
But I love the art practice. And it's ignited a love for all the other things that I do. It's, it's like everything went stagnant at once, and I, I wondered if, I was not wanting to be a painter anymore, but it wasn't that, it was just that I was burning out in general.
[00:23:38] Marijanel: Yeah. And hobbies are, are an amazing way to balance the burnout because
[00:23:44] Charla: Yeah.
[00:23:44] Marijanel: They are meant to have no pressure.
They're meant to be something that's just special for you and something exploratory. And what's really interesting about being an artist that also needs hobbies is sometimes people just look on from the outside and judge and say, well, you just do everything. Can you not figure out what you're doing?
But the truth is, Some realm of that is usually our profession in the art. And another realm is us balancing and having play. And we talked about that in episodes with a fiber artist and amazing puppet maker, Melissa Nasbe, where she says she's a professional mess maker because that's how she fuels her creativity to develop.
Like she makes huge life-sized animals and fiber sculptures that just are, they're mind blowing. Some of them look really realistic. And then she has this whole other fantasy side where she creates little worlds and things that are made out of fibers and felting that it just blows your mind to see the, the like limitless imagination that she has.
But she says the number one way she fuels that imagination is just making messes. Play. Play. Play.
[00:24:53] Charla: Yeah.
[00:24:53] Marijanel: And it's been such a good thing for our audience to hear, and even for our students to hear and know that even though we drive home skills, like at Bold School, we're all about growing your skills and becoming wholehearted very skilled artists, there's this element of play that we need in order to not burn out.
[00:25:14] Charla: Yeah.
[00:25:15] Marijanel: And in that whole area of giving ourselves permission to explore, which is what you've shown us an example of today. Your miniatures, you showing us your miniatures has been you showing us an example. Like, Hey, here I am. I'm a professional artist.
I run an online, founded an online bolds, founded an online painting school called Bold School. Couldn't get that out. And here it is so serious, and so meaningful, and so impactful, but you still need that element. Of just play and exploration to fuel your creativity.
[00:25:53] Charla: Yeah, it does. It, it fuels what I do during the day. And it makes me wanna get my day job done so I can go back to making miniatures. But it's also like, I, I hate using the word mental health cuz it's really important, but it's like everybody's talking about mental health. But I, when I was like close to burnout, I realized, why was be just because, well, there's a million different reasons why, but one of the biggest parts of burnout is not overworking.
It's not like you're working 48 hours a day. It's, it doesn't, you don't even have to be working as much as normal. You could be procrastinating a lot, but it's, it's to do with overwhelmed. And the reason you get overwhelmed is usually because you're not thinking straight and you've allowed all of this stuff to come into your life.
So
[00:26:39] Marijanel: could, could become a mental overwhelm.
[00:26:41] Charla: Yeah. It's a mental overwhelm, not nec. A lot of people think burnout is, is a physical burnout, which it can be. Or it's because you're working physically too much mm-hmm. And you're not taking breaks, but it's actually affecting your brain and your mind. And that's why you, you burnout.
Cause a lot of people can work pretty hard without burning out. Um, so anyways, part of that, Is kind of thinking, overthinking everything. So I would find that as I was getting closer to full out burnout, I was doing less. And by doing less I was overthinking everything. And that was making everything more overwhelming.
So what I find and, and there's lots of outlets for this. I've heard the story, now I can understand the story. I've heard it in lots of different ways, but the hobby, I'll say hobbying, became a way for me to not overthink the overwhelm that I was feeling with everything in life at that time. And then because I stopped overthinking at night when I wasn't working and I was tired and, and feeling guilty for not completing what I needed to get done and thinking about things that needed to do that were never gonna get done instead of worrying about that so much. I distracted myself with something that I absolutely loved. And it was almost like it just automatically, everything calmed down, and I could all of a sudden the next day get up and be refreshed.
[00:28:05] Marijanel: And probably be more productive.
[00:28:07] Charla: Yeah. And eventually,
[00:28:08] Marijanel: that's my guess.
[00:28:09] Charla: Yeah. That's how it went. Yeah. So it was a way to kind of get healthy again, and there's lots of way to do that.
Like, it could be exercise you start, like, playing a sport or you start traveling or just getting out and socializing more. Like there's lots of ways to distract yourself from your burnout. Burnout usually happens because you're stuck in a tunnel and you have this tunnel vision, and you're completely overwhelmed by everything you have going on, and as soon as you distract yourself from it, you, you, you break out of something.
You know, it's just, it's a part of dealing with burnout. It's not the only way to deal with burnout, but it's a part of it. So it helped me to have hobbies. And I feel like as long as I have something going on that I'm, I'm loving, I'll be able to get through whatever I need to get through in my daily business.
And I think no matter what your, um, life is, the daily grind of doing the same thing and the stresses that come with it, it all comes on all of us at different levels. And different ways.
[00:29:05] Marijanel: And it's, it's particularly hard for artists because we are such exploratory, creative people.
[00:29:10] Charla: Yeah.
[00:29:10] Marijanel: That, that daily grind can feel so restricting, and we can like bor, like border on burnout all the time. And so it's, if I can't, I, I just need to emphasize again how important that hobby, how important that exploration really is to, to your mental health and wellbeing of being a wholehearted artist.
[00:29:32] Charla: Yeah, and I think that's all, that's really it. That's the summary of the whole thing.
[00:29:37] Marijanel: Yeah.
[00:29:37] Charla: So find a hobby.
[00:29:38] Marijanel: Yeah. So what I, my takeaway from today's podcast is, is really even just observing how you've used hobby to re-energize and refuel your business as an artist and your profession as an artist, and how you took something that was totally new and foreign to you, like a medium that you've never even tried before.
How you stepped through a process of learning. First, following the rules. Second, breaking out of the rules a little bit, trying your own thing in customizing a little bit. And then thirdly, getting the right tools and completely well, like several trial and errors later, coming up with your very own design. Which is exactly what we want our students at Bold School to be doing, learning from us, but becoming their own artist.
[00:30:30] Charla: Yeah, and it, and I think it's like, I think a good lesson in there too is that it's okay even if you're a creative who likes to forge new ground, like I don't like doing what other people are doing. I always like to, to be always thinking I'm a step ahead or I'm trying something that's never been done before, or I'm creating something.
[00:30:46] Marijanel: You're, you're an innovator. You're an innovator.
[00:30:48] Charla: Yeah. I wanna innovate. And so I stop myself from doing a lot of things because I don't know how to, like with oil painting, I have no clue how to innovate with oil painting cuz I get that on my brush. It doesn't do what I wanna do, so I get frustrated. So it's okay. I had to give myself the permission that it's okay to buy this kit and put it together.
And there's gonna be a lot of people who will see that kit cuz they have, and they have one on their desk. And we all have the same kit. We've all done it. It's no big deal. You buy the kit, you can do it. Do exactly what I did. It is hard, but you can do it. You know, there's nothing innovative. There's nothing really even creative in a new way.
But give yourself permission to do that, and see where it goes. And I had no intention of making a little art studio. But, it, it evolved into that. But if I had started with making the art studio, I probably would've been really frustrated, cuz I.
[00:31:41] Marijanel: You, you probably would've given up because you wouldn't have learned the skills that you had by doing the kit and copying the patterns.
[00:31:49] Charla: Yeah. And I succeeded by copying the patterns. And it felt really exciting, and I could see that I could do it myself.
[00:31:55] Marijanel: Yeah.
[00:31:55] Charla: So give yourself permission to just have fun. Like if it feels like a craft, who cares? Like do a craft, make pom-poms. I don't know. Like, just give yourself permission to go and, and create things, even if they've been made a million times before.
[00:32:06] Marijanel: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:07] Charla: It's fun.
[00:32:08] Marijanel: Yeah. Thank you so much for showing us inside of your miniature world and your hobby, Charla. It has been inspirational and I hope a lot of refueling and resparking for the artists that are watching and listening because we all need to keep our creative juices going. You know where to find us.
Go to boldschool.com. Make sure you're on our newsletter list for all of the upcoming events in our classes and community that you don't wanna miss out on. Find us on Instagram, boldschoolinc. And right here on the YouTube Bold School Channel. We can't wait to see you here next week. Until next time, keep creating.
