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You are dedicated to your craft. You have spent countless hours honing your skills. You have a boundless curiosity for the underlying theories and structure of communicating ideas. You are the artist who finds the connections between your medium and other communications media. You are the artist who relishes in a setback; after all, it's a new opportunity to learn and grow. Inspiration is more than a haphazard mode of thought requiring constant nurturing: it is your natural state of mind.

Lean Into Art is where you go when you're ready to push yourself as an artist in new ways. As a place to learn communication arts online it combines an art-journaling approach, the best of live and time-shifted classes, and a recognition system that encourages students to finish projects, give feedback, even participate in teaching.

It's a big art challenge - that's why we put the enticing warning in the name. You have to lean into it.

Sunday
May122013

LIA Cast 76 - Everyone Doubts

DateSunday, May 12, 2013 at 12:52AM

Why would anyone care about what I have to say? In this episode of the Lean Into Art Cast, Rob explores the topic of self-doubt with special guest co-host: writer, former therapist, and mommy blogger Kate Shields Stenzinger. Where's Jerzy? He's off to the Toronto Comics Art Festival!

Kate and Rob discuss their own encounters with doubt in their creative projects, approaches to dealing doubt, and wonder if there's a strong connection to motivation and fear. Along the way they highilght very different models that they've each adopted: creating for the expression vs. creating as an ongoing commitment or service.

We wrap up the show with some tactics (a.k.a "stupid helpy tips") to help battle the doubt!

Links Mentioned in this Episode

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Closing Thought: Leaners Aren't Weiners! Thanks for Listening!

Lean Into Art Cast 76 - Everyone Doubts

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Monday
Apr292013

LIA Cast 75 - Lying Low or Walking Tall

DateMonday, April 29, 2013 at 1:04PM

Listen to the mp3 here!

It's another epic-length episode as we deconstruct a question from Leaner Tyrel Pinnegar:

My question is this: Under what circumstances is it appropriate to make the progress of your project public? Are there any advantages to lying low until the project fully completed?

Links:

 

We also review LIA Quest 6: An A-Team of Your Own!

And to exercise more in this arena, check out these two workshops!

 (each workshop comes with a bonus 12 hours of extra video content from our Creative Topics Variety Pack and more!)

Connect with Jerzy and Rob

LIA Cast 75 - Lying Low or Walking Tall

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Monday
Apr152013

LIA Cast 74 - Preparing for Opportunities

DateMonday, April 15, 2013 at 11:13AM

Listen to the MP3 here!

Our curveball once again hacks the show! We got an interesting question from Lee the other day:

Can misidentifying your tribe initially hurt your career/personal projects?

I keep following people who do what I do/what I want to do, but it feels like high school all over again with me not fitting neatly into any cliques. I feel like I must not be understanding what a tribe is, or how to find mine. What if a tribe doesn't exist for someone, they're too.... unusual? :<

If it is like high school, how can we learn from our past experiences to navigate these "tribes" to find the groups where we feel at home?

We build upon this with a tweet from Kazu Kibuishi, who always shares thought-provoking posts:

And this episode features the return of the Lean Into Art Quests! Check out Rob's An A-Team of Your Own, and share your efforts on Twitter with the #liaquest6 tag by April 24, 2013 to have it shown on the next episode.

Links:

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LIA Cast 74 - Preparing for Opportunities

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Friday
Mar292013

LIA Cast 73 - Unlocking Consistency

DateFriday, March 29, 2013 at 10:38AM

Download the mp3 here!

You're making a comic and everyone is off model. The style you've tried out on page one doesn't match the style you're achieving on page 24. Some days you feel like drawing loosely, some days you want to draw tighter illustrations. How do you make your work more consistent?

But before we take on this question we back out to explore all the different aspects of consistency, including: 

  • Keeping on Model
  • Defining one's style
  • Output
  • Workflow
  • Outlook

And as usual, we close with some tips and strategies to unlock consistency in our On the Ground section.

We also review this episode's entries for LIA Quest 5: Not THAT Guy! 

 After this quest, here's where to go for more awesome techniques and strategies on this topic:

 No quest given with this episode, but you can check out and try the first five on the Quests blog.

Reference

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LIA Cast 73 - Unlocking Consistency

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Wednesday
Mar202013

LIA Cast 72 - Collective Art

DateWednesday, March 20, 2013 at 12:15AM

Download the mp3 here!

Whether you find yourself working on a team for a job or just engaging in a creative "rock band" experiment, chances are that you'll eventually work with someone, sometime, on something.

But when groups get together to do any collaborative tasks, various kinds of tension and friction occur. This time we focus on the 3 Key Friction Points to evaluate when a collaboration gets a little less...harmonius:

  • Unpredictability (delightful and otherwise) 
  • Assumptions or Mental Models of the team members
  • Motivation or Intent of the team members

But we always start with a curveball, and this episode's pitch comes by way of Ryan Estrada:

And we close with a discussion of LIA Quest 4: The Smell of Funny!

After the quest, take it to the next level!

And don't forget to check out this episode's Quest: Not That Guy! Deadline to participate in time for the next show is March 27!

Connect with Jerzy and Rob

LIA Cast 72 - Collective Art

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