Create art podcast, commentary, bare necessities.
Hello friend.
This is Timothy Kiem O'Brien, your head instigator for create art podcast,
where I bring my over 30 years of experience in the arts and education
world to help you tame your inner critic and create more than you consume.
So I'm continuing on with the make.
Fun A Habit series.
And it's a 30 day workbook and it's put on by Michael Brennan.
And the book is called Make Fun A Habit.
And what it does is it gives you different things each day
that you can utilize to put fun.
Back into your life and make fun a habit for yourself.
Now I heard about it from his podcast, creative chats.
And again, links to the book into the podcast will be in the show notes for you.
I was reading through the book and I really enjoyed everything
that he was trying to do.
And so I thought, well, Why don't I just do an episode for each day?
So that'll give me 30 episodes for this.
And we're just about halfway through the book here.
So if you've missed the other episodes, definitely check them out.
And learn from Mike and myself and how you can put fun back into your life.
So today we're talking about the bare necessities.
Now I'm not talking about, you know, the the song in the jungle book, you know,
the bare necessities, although I'm a big bear and I love that love that show.
But we're, what we're talking about is what are the bare
necessities for you to do your art.
Whatever that art is, whether it be composing music, writing.
Sculpture, painting, whatever you're interested in.
What are the bare necessities that you need?
And that's going to be different with each and every artistic discipline.
Now, a lot of times we think, man, this is going to be really expensive.
You know, it's going to be really expensive to to start a painting or,
you know, to get my book published, but there's ways around that.
You can use the materials around your house that you currently have right
now to paint a wonderful picture.
You don't have to go to the art stores, which Hey, you know, I love
going to the art stores as well.
We have a Michael's locally here and I love to take my
wife and my kids to the store.
And then when we you know, check out, it's just like, Oh, ouch, that hurts.
And a lot of times we can get.
Stopped by how much it's going to cost us.
But you can always like for paintings, you can always reuse canvases.
You can always, you know, there's, I'm sure there's junk around your house, quote
unquote junk, and you can put it together and make a sculpture out of it, or like
me, I'd like collecting comic books.
I made a collage a couple of years ago, just by cutting out some comic book
things It was a book that was promoting comic books coming out in the new year.
So I took out some of those pictures, cut out some of those
pictures and slapped it together and made a made a collage out of it.
So I'm sure you have something like that in your house.
A couple of years back, I did a sculpture of a door and deadbolt.
I tore it apart and then I put it together in a different way
and I made a sculpture out of it.
Why not?
You know, you're only limited by your imagination.
So your artwork does not have to the materials for your artwork
don't have to be that expensive.
When we're talking about music creation, you can go, let's say
you want to you know do a guitar song, you know, a song on guitar.
You can go to your local Salvation Army or or thrift store or
something, something like that.
And go get an old guitar and start strumming on it.
And then once you get better, you get better strings.
Maybe you go to a guitar store and get a better guitar, get a beginner, you
know, get a brand new beginner guitar.
Once you start making money from your art, doesn't matter.
We all have to start from somewhere.
With podcasting, we all start with zero audience.
I know when I started my podcast journey back in 2006, I
started off with zero audience.
Now I have people in Singapore listening to this podcast.
I have people in Romania, a ton of different countries.
Canada is a huge country for me, France, Germany, the UK.
People are listening to this podcast from all over the world, and I want to thank
you all for doing that, but it all started with me Using what I had available.
I used a media host called blog talk radio and My cordless phone and I
did it that way and I put out You know, about 60 episodes that way.
Now, when I got better at it and when I became more serious about podcasting
and about 2016, that's when I started to add microphones and different
software and started investing in it.
So I took my hobby.
Which was podcasting, and I got serious about it, and that's when I started
spending a little bit of money here and there and to have the setup that I
have right now, but you can start with.
Let's say you want to do drawing.
You can start with the pencil that may be in the junk drawer and a piece of
paper and just start sketching every day.
You know, you can set up your own still life.
Every day.
One of the things that I did back in in college, we had a intro to
drawing class and our instructor there loved techno music.
He was from the UK, loved techno music.
So he would have that blaring.
throughout the whole class.
And his first assignment was in your book bags, pull everything out, put it in front
of you, draw it, just draw how it looks.
You know, I had a pack of cigarettes.
I had a lighter.
I had my keys.
I had my wallets and that's all I had.
But it was stuff that I already had, so I didn't spend a dime on it.
Now, did I spend money for the class?
Yeah, absolutely.
I did, you know, and I'm still paying for it these days.
I'm still paying, you know, college tuition for it these days, but.
The objects that I had right then and there are what I
first started to learn with.
And you don't have to, you know, go to Michael's or go to Blick's and,
and, and buy stuff left and right.
You can use what you have right there in front of you.
So I definitely, you know, challenge you to take a look around your house.
You know, you have an idea of what you would like, you know, in a perfect world,
I could wave my magic wand and I could give you all the supplies that you needed.
But really what would you learn from that?
You would learn to rely on me to wave my magic wand, which I'm not going to do.
Okay.
I'm not going to wave my magic wand.
I need it for myself that I mentioned.
I have wife and kids that like to go to Michael's.
So I need that magic wand for myself.
Maybe one day it'll pay for our Michael's trips, but just look around your house.
If, if you want to do sketching or painting or even photography, You
probably have a phone right now.
You probably have a smartphone right now that has a fantastic camera on it.
We've talked to professional photographers on this show that have said your camera
on your phone is better than most of the cameras that are out there.
So you already have something that you can use in your hands right now.
Go ahead and utilize it.
And Make art with it.
You know again, your music, you want to be a musician, you want to play
guitar, go to the thrift store, grab an old guitar, or you can go on to
like Facebook marketplace or next door and somebody will have something
that they're trying to get rid of.
Utilize that for yourself because that's the bare necessity.
You just need something.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
It doesn't have to be beautiful.
It doesn't have to be, you know, finished.
It just has to be something.
And that's where you start.
And then you get better at drawing that.
And then you move on to new things and better things.
And that's where you go with that.
So getting back to making fun, I have it.
Mike gives us questions, action items, and tips.
So let's go ahead and jump into the questions.
First question is what ordinary objects already around you can
you repurpose in your process.
So I'm into a lot of different arts.
You know, I love to draw, I love to paint I love to write I love to make music.
So what do I have right here?
Well, I do have a bass guitar that needs to be restrung so I could use that.
I have a couple of keyboards here that I can use to make music.
I have a.
Uh, music making program called magics that the intro music that
you heard used it with that.
Now that cost me 50, 30, I'm sorry, 20 a month to do that, but they have free
versions of that kind of stuff too.
So find out what is free, do a little bit of research on that.
And I'm sure you're going to be able to find objects in your house that
you can use to start a project with.
Next question is, are there other systems or structures that can
be adapted into a new process?
So, 1 thing that I really have wanted to work on in the past year is my
drawing and I recently went out to Michael's and I got some some specialized
markers because I had an idea of something that I had saw on Tik TOK.
And I thought, well, let me go ahead and give this a shot.
You know, let me, let me try to do this.
At first I tried it with colored pencils and looked okay.
But then I got these specialized markers, which cost a little bit of money.
The first thing I did as I tried it with what I had it in
hand, which was colored pencils.
And then I moved up from there and to create something that, You know, I was
pretty happy with my first time out.
It was a watercolor markers and they didn't cost that much.
And, you know, there was, you know, you could get, you know 12, 18, 32, 64.
I went with the 32 because I wanted to have a lot, a lot of choices and colors.
And they were double ended.
So one was a fine point tip and one was more of a brush tip.
And I found that that worked great for me.
So I use that in the process, made a piece of art that I really enjoyed,
made a little sketch that I really enjoyed and really got me excited.
And I showed it to the online groups that I'm with and they really liked it
too, they were very supportive of it.
So think about.
You know, the final goal or the, you know, the final project may be huge,
maybe outside of your reach monetarily.
Well, what can you do that's similar to that, that can be
done a little bit cheaper?
Next question is what objects draw your attention and why?
And how can you use them in your current projects or processes?
What objects draw my attention?
Everything draws my attention.
I'm looking at everything.
So right now I'm looking at a lot of geometric patterns and different
ways to do that kind of stuff.
So that's what's, what really draws my eye and what I did to kind of, make
those pop is to get these watercolor markers and give them, give them
a try just to give them a shot.
And it actually worked out really well for me.
So I challenge you to go ahead and figure out what objects are drawing your
attention and then use them, use those objects or those processes to go ahead
and update your, update your process.
Because we're always, Learning, growing, and evolving.
At least we should be.
So action items.
First one, make a birdhouse out of milk cartons.
Now, back in my day, you know, the milk cartons are made out of cardboard,
but now they're made out of plastic.
I've seen people cut them in half and turn them into candles, you know,
or to turn them into luminaries, but why not make a birdhouse out of it?
That would be great.
You know, bring birds to your house.
Maybe you cut off the top of and just leave the bottom and
fill it up with bird seed.
Boom.
There's a birdhouse or you cut it in half and put some sticks in there.
So that way they can have some cover at the top and the birds
can go in there and get the food.
That's an idea.
There you go.
Steal it, take it.
And then you paint the outside a different colors.
Go for it.
You know, if you're drinking milk, I don't drink milk, but if you're
drinking milk, what better way to use it or laundry detergent.
I would say even, you know, take those laundry detergent and plastic bottles
that, you know, we throw in the recycling and, and, you know, are so difficult
to get rid of and do something with them, you know, cut them up in different
ways and make something out of it.
Another thing is turning an old t shirt into a tote bag.
Now I'm guilty about tote bags.
I just recently went on Canva, made a design for my podcast and threw
it on a tote bag and brought it with me to a podcast conference.
But, you know, you can take an old t shirt.
I'm not wearing an old t shirt right now, but I have plenty of t shirts.
Why not turn that into a tote bag?
You know, especially if it's got a little rip or something like
in it that, you know, you don't want to use the t shirt anymore.
You don't want to wear it out anymore, or it's really faded.
Boom, tote bag.
You can take that to the grocery store to pick up the milk and.
The laundry detergent that you're going to, as soon as you use up, you're going
to turn it into something else, create a sculpture out of recycled materials.
I actually did that with a door and a deadbolt set.
You know, you just tear it apart and grab a screwdriver and tear that
bad boy apart and put it together differently with some super glue.
And there you go.
Why not?
Who else is doing that?
Not a lot of people.
You can write a poem about an ordinary object.
I do that all the time.
I, I'm usually when I'm out and I'm feeling in the mood,
I want to write a poem.
I'll just take a look at something or I'll notice something happening.
Maybe it's, you know, I'm writing a poem about the coffee cup that I have, or
maybe it's about the couple that's you know, just sitting a few tables down
from me, or maybe it's the table that I'm sitting at and it has different things
underneath the glass on top of the table.
You can write a poem about that.
Jumping off of that tangent, compose a song about an ordinary object.
You know, write a song about the time you went down to the coffee shop, write
a song about the time you went down to the library or to the fast food
place, you know, what happened there?
Was there a reason that you went there?
Were you hungry?
How, you know, how was your stomach rumbling?
Compose a song about that.
If you're into movement and dance, do movement and dance about that.
So, Mike's tips.
There's four tips here.
Use everyday objects as inspiration.
Going back to my drawing class, my intro to drawing class, what
was in my book mag at that time?
Cigarettes, lighter, keys, wallet, pens, and pencils.
Erasers, use that and then draw that.
So, you know, look at your nightstand, you know what's on your nightstand.
Is it just a clock?
Do you have a picture on your nightstand?
Snap a picture of it and then draw it.
And that way you can, you know, have that picture right in front of you.
And you can copy from that drawing and then add to it.
Maybe you want something else at that nightstand.
Maybe you want a vase of flowers.
You know, so make that drawing into something that you
wish was on your nightstand.
Experiment with different materials.
Again, who makes a sculpture of doorknobs and a deadbolt?
This guy right here does.
So, you know, try different materials that you have.
Right now I am in the process of making some clocks and what I'm going
to do is I'm going to take do, do it with a laser cutter to, to cut out.
The body of the clock and you know, make it so it's kind of finger jointed in there
and that's the first time I've done it.
Why not?
I need a clock in my room anyways.
So one that actually works.
I have one here that has a map of the world like an old timey map
of the world clock doesn't work.
So it's constantly at 2 10.
So it's always 2 10 here in my office.
Try different materials with that.
I've made clocks out of books.
Give that a shot for yourself.
Next tip is to be creative with your use of colors.
And I did that with one of my latest drawings.
I was.
Using different colors that I don't normally use.
I don't normally gravitate to, and it really added some spice to this drawing.
Really made it pop.
So definitely use the different colors that you have available for you.
The last and certainly not least.
I have kids.
Don't afraid to get messy.
When I was gluing together the deadbolt and the and the doorknob, I ripped the
skin off my hand a couple of times, but you know, don't be afraid to get messy.
Who's going to, nobody's going to see the messy part unless that's,
you know, unless you're taking the picture of you getting messy,
nobody's going to see that messy part.
They're going to see.
the final object.
You know, when I'm doing paintings, I get paint all over my hands.
People don't see that.
They see what I put on the canvas.
So we don't need to worry about that.
Basically what, what, what I'm trying to tell you here
is don't worry about the cost.
Don't worry about the messiness.
Don't worry about the mistakes.
Just get out there and go ahead and do it for yourself.
And you're going to feel wonderful.
Heck, you're They're great gifts to give for holidays, for birthdays.
You don't have to go to the big box stores and get somebody a 45 inch screen TV.
It would be nice.
You could do that for me.
I already have one, but.
By all means, do that for yourself and do it for your loved ones.
And you can give those gifts or you can, you know, create something online where,
you know, with Etsy or with eBay or Redbubble, what have you, and create that
art so that way you can sell that art.
To your audience.
Okay.
Well, we've reached that time of the show where I'm going to let you
go ahead and get on with your day.
I'm going to go ahead and get on with my day.
But first and foremost, I want to thank you for listening
and definitely appreciate it.
No matter where you are in the world.
Definitely appreciate the time that you've taken here with me to go ahead
and listen to my ramblings about art.
Really appreciate that.
I've been doing this since 2006 and you know, every time I take a look at
my numbers, I always see people from different countries people from all
around the United States taking a listen.
So that says a lot about you, that you took time out of your day to listen
to me talk, and I appreciate that.
I want to let you know that.
You can reach out to me.
My email is Timothy at createartpodcast.
com and I'm definitely wanting to hear about your journey,
about what you're working on.
So feel free to email me.
You can use that email to give me ideas about topics that
you would like me to discuss.
Maybe you would like to be a guest on the show.
Definitely email me and let me know what what kind of stuff you want to talk
about and we'll get you on the show.
It's not a problem.
I promise I don't bite too much.
And then if you have critique of the show that you'd like to give me, shoot
me an email, let me know about it.
You can, you know, rate and review this on your podcast app of choice.
That's perfectly fine.
But if If you, you know, have some critique, I'd have to go ahead and email
me, let me know, basically, I want to turn this into a five star podcast for you.
And I can't do that.
If you don't let me know what I'm doing right or what I'm doing wrong.
And as specific as you can get, would be very helpful to me.
So I do appreciate that in advance of you doing that.
I want to also let you know that I do have a newsletter that I do
about once a month and that is on Substack and you can get to it.
Timothy Bryan, Bryan is spelled B R I E N.
substack.
com and in that newsletter comes out once a month.
I give you some ideas for what you could do for that month.
I also let you know the episodes that I've done for that month.
So definitely check it out for yourself.
Only comes out once a month.
You can always unsubscribe if you're getting too many emails, but it's a way
that I can, you know, between episodes, reach out to you and say, Hey, here's some
ideas and give you some ideas for things that you can do in your creative process.
Also, I run another podcast.
It's called find a podcast about, you can find it at find
a podcast about dot X, Y, Z.
And there I go ahead and review podcasts that I find very binge worthy and
help you outsmart the algorithm and find your next binge worthy podcast.
So definitely give that podcast to check and to see if I have some podcasts in
there that you've never heard about before and why I think it's They are
worth your time because we all have a limited amount of time in this world.
And when we're creating our stuff, it's nice to have a
podcast on in the background.
So I'll let you know which podcasts that I have in the
background happening all the time.
So check me out over there.
All right.
It's that time.
So again, thank you for listening and thank you for being a part of this
because you definitely are a part of this and you are the reason why I do this.
I hope you got something out of it.
Now go out there and tame your inner critic, create more than you consume.
Go around your house, find some stuff to repurpose into art and go and make
some art for somebody you love yourself.
I'll talk to you next time.