The Rhythm of Creativity with Fiona Valentine

Intro: 0:36

Welcome to Story and Horse, a podcast where we hear stories from creative lives. Meet new people, hear about their challenges and triumphs, and get inspired to move forward with your creativity. Now, here's your host, Hilary Adams.

Hilary Adams: 0:58

Hello, thanks for joining us here on the Story and Horse Podcast. Glad to have you listening. I'm your host, Hilary Adams. I'm a coach, theater director and founder of Story and Horse where I work with people to help get their creativity out into the world. Here on the podcast. We meet people living creative lives, hear their stories, and gather inspiration for our own creativeness. Today, we're joined by Australian artist Fiona Valentine. Fiona is a business coach for artists and the creator of the profitable artist method. Thank you so much for joining me here today.

Fiona Valentine: 1:31

Thanks for having me, Hilary, looking forward to our conversation.

Hilary Adams: 1:34

Me too. can you start us off by introducing yourself?

Fiona Valentine: 1:39

Sure. I'm an artist in a business coach for artists here in Australia. I love helping artists to connect their art with people who can't wait to buy it and showing them how to build a simple business model. I really enjoy that coaching process.

Hilary Adams: 1:55

And the art that you do is primarily and what media.

Fiona Valentine: 2:00

Actually I work in three mediums, which is not what I encourage my students to do. Because you know, the, the wider you go, the more work you have to do to keep your skills up. But I started in watercolor. And then I experimented with acrylic, eventually got up the courage to try oil and discovered I probably should have started there. But I love all of them. So as well as drawing. Yeah, it makes it problematic.

Hilary Adams: 2:24

What do you like to have as your topics of focus

Fiona Valentine: 2:29

anything that's nature, so primarily landscapes, and I particularly love water and reflections, big skies, things like that. But I also really enjoy the tiny details, flowers that are a big thing for me, I just really enjoy them and birds and butterflies, small details, trees, anything natural, really.

Hilary Adams: 2:49

So how did you get started as an artist,

Fiona Valentine: 2:51

I was really fortunate to have some good training in school in high school. And then I didn't really do a whole lot. I went overseas, I met my husband, we went back to Africa where we met, and life just sort of took off. And then I had kids and was homeschooling my children. And it wasn't till summer in those years that I realized, wow, my creativity is really important. I need to get back to this. And I started pursuing drawing and painting in earnest. And eventually, of course, that just took over. I enjoyed it so much, I had to find a way to make a living doing that instead of working had been.

Hilary Adams: 3:28

So when you work with people as as a creative coach. Are you working with people that are primarily in the visual arts? Or do you work across different types with different types of artists

Fiona Valentine: 3:39

primarily with people who are in the visual arts, but I also am expanding my coaching to work with not only people who can create recognize themselves as creative or work in the arts, but also with people who may be building a business, but they're feeling challenged to tap into their creativity. And just coming from the understanding that I have an understanding how the brain works, I'm really able to help people tap into their creativity and recognize it's not just for some of us. And you know, if you're the kind of person who feels like, oh, I don't even have a creative bone in my body. Well, that's good news. Because your creativity isn't in your bones, it's in your brain. And we've all got it. So it's just a matter of learning to recognize and develop that creativity. So yeah, I I really like that aspect of my work as well. And helping artists to basically live their dream and figure out how to recognize that being an artist entrepreneur is an extension of their creativity. And that's something I find really fundamentally satisfying. How do you define creativity? I really love that question. I think that it's easy for us to recognize creativity in the arts, obviously. But it's maybe not so easy to recognize if you're working with animals, or if you're into gardening, or if you are making spreadsheets, or working in bookkeeping. But actually, creativity is a whole complex process of bringing together different kinds of things, ideas, some kind of inspiration, or even a problem maybe the starting point. And then letting our brains do what they do, bringing together things that don't seem to be connected and coming up with some kind of a solution. So whether that solution is going from idea to finish painting, or whether it's going from we're having this problem in manufacturing. And as a team, we need to figure out how we're going to solve it. It's actually a very similar process, even if you're parenting, and you're trying to figure out how to deal with something within the family, this whole idea of going from an idea or an issue, and working through all of the iterations and to come up with a solution. To me, that's really what creativity is about. And so it's so important, whatever industry you're in, and I read a book by Michael Gelb called How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. And he says something really interesting that confusion, endurance is the most distinctive trait of highly creative people. And that's that confusion, endurance is developing strength to push through that horrible feeling when you don't know how to do something. It's new, and it feels awkward and you feel like a Gumby just, you know, you don't know what you're doing, and persevering until that thing becomes something you're more comfortable with, and then eventually become really good at it. And that brain science really helps us see how our brains do that we understand now, things aren't just fixed at birth, but our brains are constantly developing. And so that's a long answer to how would I define creativity? But those are some of my thoughts.

Hilary Adams: 6:50

Thank you. Yeah, I think that the fMRI studies and functional MRI studies are now being done, which allow people to last scientists to observe activity in the brain in real time during activities, one of the things they're looking at is divergent thinking, which is a little bit of what you talked about there, where we mash up different ideas and come up with something new.

Fiona Valentine: 7:14

It's so interesting, isn't it. And the way that that often happens when we stick back from the work, when you're chopping vegetables, driving the car, taking a shower or a walk, sometimes that's where, you know, sometimes that's where the brain kicks into a different way of thinking off and makes all of these interesting connections. Yeah, it's fascinating.

Hilary Adams: 7:35

As a visual artists, where does your inspiration speaking of that, where does your inspiration come from?

Fiona Valentine: 7:43

It comes from all sorts of different places, I mean, the obvious one is standing somewhere beautiful. And just looking at the landscape and being moved by wanting to somehow share that. But I found that inspiration shows up at really weird times, it doesn't always show up when you expect it to. And then if you can catch it, when it shows up, and then use it when it's time to work that really works well. So I've discovered that for me, it's probably not surprising being a visual person, that images really work. So if I'm not feeling incredibly inspired, or whatever, sitting on the couch, with a magazine that's got beautiful images in it, whether they're have gardens, or homes or anything, really, just looking at the images, all of a sudden, I'll discover that I've had an idea. And it might be nothing to do with the image on the page. It's really interesting. But the actual process of looking at images in a relaxed state often generates ideas for me, and of course, you know, going into a gallery or being out and about doing things often like going through fruit or vegetable markets, or flower markets, even just the simple ones, the local ones, just looking at colors and beautiful things. My problem is probably not generating ideas, it's having too many ideas and having to sort them and just go with the most important ones.

Hilary Adams: 9:09

There's two things that I want to return to and that one is, you mentioned the idea of capturing inspiration when it arrives. And I've encountered that before with guests on the show that idea of sort of when inspiration comes, it doesn't always show up at the opportune moment when we can sit down and immediately do something with it. Do you have suggestions, ideas or wish to share how you sort of capture so that you have it ready when you do have that time to bring it forward?

Fiona Valentine: 9:42

For sure. I like capturing it on my phone. Often, if I have been flipping through a magazine, whatever it was that happened to trigger the idea, sometimes I'll just take a quick photo of that, not because it's necessarily the thing I had the idea about, but it was the trigger. And so it helps me remember the idea. And then I'll make some some notes. The trick is you can if you're catching ideas on the fly, it's easy to have those notes on scraps of paper and all sorts of places where you lose them. So if you can have either one spot on your phone or a journal or both, where you collect the ideas, so maybe you've got a notebook by your bed, and you've got your phone with you most of the time. But then you need to probably have another place where you collect those photos, scraps of notes. Comments and even voice recordings, and kind of collate them all together, sometimes putting them in a spreadsheet is a great way to do it. Because then you can even sort things by topic. And it's easier to come back to it. So whatever works for you with your pencil and paper person or a digital person, an image person or a words person, or a bit of both, just spend some time thinking about how can I catch this when I'm on the run? How can I catch this? If I wake up first thing in the morning and have an idea late at night? When around the house? And then how am I going to collate all of that. So when it's time to work? If I'm at the part of the process where I've got to make a decision about a series, or the next painting? Where do I go to tap back into those ideas and sort of sawed them? Yeah, I feel like that's a really important part of the creative process. Painting begins long before you pick up a brush. And if you can embrace that, and learn what helps feed your inspiration and learn how to capture it, you're going to be halfway there on whatever it is that you want to create.

Hilary Adams: 11:33

Thank you. And the second question that I had was you talked about sort of going into looking at images and things when you're in a relaxed state. And as you know, looking at brain science, and I know from the studies I've done, that state is very important to sort of be open to this, what we're roughly calling this creative process, this sort of inspiration, this flow. So ideas or thoughts, suggestions, were how you go into that.

Fiona Valentine: 12:05

Yeah, yes, it's so interesting, because it's multifaceted. And if you're really tired, and it's often a really terrible time to experience inspiration, sometimes it shows up, but more often it shows up well rested. So one of the weird things about it is that if you can cultivate some boredom, it's great for inspiration for getting your brain into that state where it can come up with ideas. So even cutting down on reading TV, or social activity just for for a space to give yourself recharge time can be really important. Sleeping more, doing nothing. Looking at nature, going for a walk, exercise is great. If in a shorter frame of time, even a hot shower is really good chopping vegetables. So just doing something that doesn't take deliberate thinking. The wonderful thing is that they're all part of our normal, everyday life. So if we can kind of pace ourselves in those ways, we'll find where we've got more creative energy, we're refilling the well, because we're not overworking when I realized that you can only really work very intensively for about four hours a day, before you're putting yourself in creative debt. That was a real aha moment for me, not that I don't work more than four hours a day. But I do different kinds of work. Not that really intensive, initial problem solving deep dive focus kind of work, or break it up with other lesser activities. So those are some of the ways and also as a woman, it's really interesting to think about how my energy changes with different parts of my cycle, because men are on a 24 hour cycle, whereas women on a 28 day cycle. And if you factor that in and pay attention to when you're feeling very energetic, when you're feeling more like withdrawing, and resting, when you're feeling very social. And when you can just smash out the tasks, if you can recognize those different stages in yourself and not hold yourself to a more male 24 hour, I'm productive at this time of the day and not productive at this time of the day. I found that really helps. Yes, I'm a morning person, but I'm not the same every morning. So if you can go with the energy that you do have, then that can help you be more productive and really recognize Whoa, this is one of those days where I've got 1000 ideas, let me make room to capture them.

Hilary Adams: 14:35

So as a business coach, how do you support helping people figure out a way to both honor themselves and generate revenue. And even if you're not feeling super inspired, or creative at that moment,

Fiona Valentine: 14:51

when you really get into a rhythm of creating, so you're capturing inspiration when it's there, and you're resting adequately. You've got much more gas in the tank for discipline, when you've got a deadline and you've really got a power through. You can do that for short stages, and that's fine. One of the ways that I tackle that is that I help artists to be really realistic about the time that they've got available to work and I work with a lot of women. So we have a different set of responsibilities often often were the one that is caring for children, whether On maybe managing the household meals, and there's an emotional component to that supportive component, that means you can't just say, darling, would you just hold that crisis for 24 hours when I'm free. Often there's a drop everything I need to be there for you nature to being a mother. And so I've built a business that works with that, because that's definitely been my experience. And one of the ways I do that is I encourage my clients to work towards four collections of art a year. And during the 12 weeks leading up to the release of that collection, there are seasons of painting, there are seasons of planning, obviously, there are seasons of photographing that work, there are periods of working on telling that story via social media. And so we set up this ecosystem where you can repeat that process. And it's never the same because no series of paintings is going to be quite the same. But the structure is not so incredibly complex, that there's no breathing room, there's a lot of breathing room in that when we start off with clarity, I get my clients to really look at the time they have, the money they want to make and what they love to do, and then create their highest value offer. So if you're trying to sell 25 $3,000 products, that's a lot different than trying to sell $3,025 products. You don't have to do everything. So one of the things that we build in is simplicity. And that means that when you do actually have a deadline, you can come to the party, use a discipline and make the deadline. But we also plan a business in a way that's really smart. So there are fewer deadlines, and there is plenty of room to prepare for that deadline ahead of time, leaving lots of white space for life to happen as it does.

Hilary Adams: 17:19

I love the idea of seasons. It sounds friendlier. There's more room and you know, a season is cyclical. And it has it has an organic feeling to it, which immediately spoke to me more than simply quarters as saying, but somehow the word helped.

Fiona Valentine: 17:41

Because it's so much more beautiful. So much more filled with life.

Hilary Adams: 17:48

Yeah, so when your creative process as as an artist, what's it like for you, when you sit down? Man, the blank, I'm gonna say canvas, but the blank page? How do you work?

Fiona Valentine: 18:04

I work I definitely work with a plan. And I work with a reference. A lot of people think that artists go from idea to Canvas, sort of in one giant leap. But often it's not like that most artists work with references, either a live model, or they're out in the landscape or photographs. And some people have a weird hang up like using tools is cheating somehow. But we would never think that of a doctor or a plumber. It just wouldn't. They couldn't do their job without tools. And it's exactly the same for artists. So I make use of, of tools. And I like working in quite a systematic way with a really strong drawing. And I'm, I'm interested in realism. So that's a big part of my process is looking at the details, getting the shapes, right, color mixing carefully, I really enjoy taking my time with getting accurate, naturalistic color, which is not the bright stuff you get when you squeeze the tube, it takes a lot of mixing and understanding of color theory. And I really enjoy that process. I enjoyed teaching that process too. So the funny thing is about art is that there is a kind of resistance, even when you love making art. And you've made room for it in your life, at the moment of sitting down to paint or sitting down to draw, all of a sudden, you'll be hit with all sorts of, I just need to throw the washing on, I just need to call that friend or I just would rather be doing anything else except this in this moment. And when you know that that's probably going to be there just about all the time. And it doesn't mean anything except you just need to push through it and get on with it. If you can recognize that get over that little hump. The feeling of just getting involved in the process. Just finding a rhythm, where you lose track of thinking about other things is wonderful. I love that feeling. I do have to be careful to set a timer to pull myself out of it. Or I've been known to forget the school bus. Which is a problem. So yeah, it's quite a deep state. And I've learned it takes some time to pull yourself out of it so family members can come and talk to you and you just sort of stare at them blankly. It can take a minute to reengage with the rest of the world. But yeah, I like to have a plan with my process and I like to be quite regular in the hours that I spend and sometimes that creative Rudy is coming out on the business side of things, which I believe is just as creative as the actual making art side of things. And so sometimes I'll rather than as an artist, you really need to spend about 50% of your time making and 50% of your time on the business side. But that doesn't necessarily mean you have to chop every day, down the middle. Some days might be dedicated to art other days to business, sometimes even weeks a week of art and a week of business, just depending on the rhythm the season that you're in.

Hilary Adams: 21:03

How do you know when a piece of art is complete?

Fiona Valentine: 21:10

The ultimate artist tricky question. I think it might have been tager, who said that paintings never finished, they just, well, they're never complete, they just finished in interesting places. I'm not sure if that actually was his quote, I might be mistaken there. But a famous artist did say that paintings are never finished. They just sort of end in interesting places, which I think is really true. But as you get to know your own style, more, you learn sometimes by mistakes, that if you take it too far, sometimes you lose that edge. And so you sort of learn for your own paintings. Where's that spot between incomplete and overworked. That just sort of comes with experience and also just saying enough, I think I've said what I was trying to say, and I'm going to walk away, without giving into the perfectionist drive, but rather, you know, Done is better than perfect. And having lots of other ideas you're excited about is a good motivation for wrapping something up and moving on.

Hilary Adams: 22:18

There's stories for you and your work.

Fiona Valentine: 22:23

Yes. And my stories when they're about the landscape, usually stories that have no people in them. Because when I'm in the landscape, I love that feeling of being alone, that feeling of space and in quiet and solitude. And so I reflect that in my work, they're very rarely figures in my work for that reason. So the story for me is really that feeling of being in the landscape. Maybe it's being on the water, or just looking at the sky, and that wonderful feeling of space, and renewal, and rest that comes from being able to be outdoors. If I'm working on something that's more close up, birds or butterflies, flowers, things like that. Then to me the story is really in the detail on the shapes. And I, I love playing around with all the different angles and trying to find how that item that bird that wing that series of petals expresses itself most beautifully. What what angle is going to really capture the identity of that thing that I'm painting. And so that's not so much a narrative is more than an observation. It's my interaction with the thing that I'm painting. At the moment, I'm working on a book with my daughter Mikayla called Tiny Wings. And I've been painting illustrations for that. And the story of Tiny Wings came about because we love books, Makayla and I, and she was diagnosed with autism. At nine we'd been looking ever since she was a tiny baby to figure out what was going on with this daughter of ours. And it took a long time that we were sort of ahead of the curve. She's in her 20s now, and she's a girl. So it can be trickier to uncover in girls. So we were looking for what was going on with this child. And we noticed that she wasn't very communicative. She didn't do the normal look, Mommy look. And you know, tell me things about her day. We borrowed work from the library called All things bright and beautiful. And it was a beautifully illustrated book of a country girl going for a walk with a dog just enjoying the beauty around her, which was totally my kind of book. And the words were just Cecil Alexander's him. All things bright and beautiful. So each little flower, each little bird that sings he made the glowing colors. He made the tiny wings and we read this book over and over and over and over as little kids like to do and then one day I heard her calling me from the other room. Look mommy, Tiny Wings. And I went over and had a look there with a tiny lacewing moth on the glass door. I was stunned because she had never done that she'd never drawn me into her world and shared something that she was Thinking, noticing. So it was a really emotional moment for me. And it began a kind of game of looking for tiny birds, Tiny Wings, tiny butterflies, and it was a connection point for us. So books have always been an important part of our story. Now, wings became an important part of our story. And a few years later, there was a really pivotal moment for me, where I realized I had to stop looking at the problems. As a parent of a kid with special needs, you are an advocate, right? And you're so you are thinking about the medical problems and the relational problems, and you're getting hundreds of emails from the school and all this sort of thing. And it's easy to become very problem focused and forget to look at possibilities. And I heard a lecture that completely blew my mind and helped me realize, I had to look at what she was good at, I had to look at what she loved. Well, of course, that was stories of his books. And it helped me look for that in her and I asked her when she was having trouble staying in class in year seven, school was just really hard. What do you want to do? What's your dream? Not really thinking there would be an answer. And she said, I want to work with animals and people with disabilities. And I picked up my jaw on the floor. And I said, what, like, Tell me about that. And she said, because people with disabilities deserve respect. And so often they don't get it but were people to I was amazed, there was all this passion inside this, this girl. And it started a journey. And we ended up she spent a couple of years working with or writing with writing for the disabled Association here in Victoria, which is wonderful. They work with kids with disabilities and help that connection with with horses. I know you know something about that. That was a really lovely time, we thought maybe that would be her life's work. But anxiety and allergies meant that that wasn't her pathway. So we kept going and eventually it led to the library. So yes, stories and horses have been a big part of our, our journey.

Hilary Adams: 27:40

And now you two are working on the book together.

Fiona Valentine: 27:44

Yeah. Yeah, we've three sessions a week, we're pounding out that rough draft, and we've just passed the halfway point. So we're hoping the book will come out in February.

Hilary Adams: 27:54

And is Tiny Wings, the book about your journey together? Or is it a different story?

Fiona Valentine: 28:00

Yes, Tiny Wings is our journey through autism. And it's telling this, this story of looking for what Kayla's challenge was this pivotal moment and realizing we have to stop looking at the problems and look at the possibilities. And then following that pathway and her finding her wings in becoming a library assistant and now writer. And for me finding my wings in becoming an artist and a business coach for artists and this these journeys were happening at the same time for both of us. And yes, it's really enjoyed doing this together. Although it hasn't been easy. Going back through some of those. There have been some traumas. It's not just been autism, it's been epilepsy and all sorts of things, celiac disease, and it has been hard to revisit some of those stories, but we're hoping that by telling our story that it brings hope to other people who are walking that road or understanding for people who maybe are alongside someone who's living with disability just by by telling the The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly. Hopefully that there's just that, that sense of Oh, wow. Okay, yeah, me too, as people read it,

Hilary Adams: 29:13

and you're doing the illustrations for it, also.

Fiona Valentine: 29:16

Yeah, it's it's not really a picture book. But I've made this series of paintings to go with the book. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that all comes together.

Hilary Adams: 29:28

So I just want to ask as somebody who's played around with visual arts sometimes. And not knowing that endpoint because it's not my primary medium. It's sometimes I make mud sometimes. Sometimes things don't go quite, you know, kind of end up in that muddy state. Is there a way to get yourself out of that? Or should you just sort of say, You know what, we're gonna we're gonna release this one and then move to the next or restart.

Fiona Valentine: 29:58

There's definitely a place for it; it depends on what medium you're working in. So if the muddiness is happening in acrylic or oil, you can probably paint right over the top of it, you can pull out of this, if you're working in watercolor, the best way to pull out of it is with a fresh piece of paper. With a watercolor there's less going back. So rather than repeat layers, it's easy just to start over. It's just a piece of paper. If your muddiness has happened because of your colors, then that's it. Color Theory thing, and your best to get some fresh paint. And actually, when you mix colors you, you need to have each kind of primary, you need a warm and a cool of yellow and red and blue. And the pigments that are in the paint you're using need to be chosen quite carefully. Otherwise, what's going to happen is whenever you combine two colors, you will actually be combining three colors. Because there's this little fugitive bit of color in your yellow, some, some yellows have a bit of red, some have a bit of blue, the same with Reds and Blues, they each have some of the other primaries in them. So you need to find very pure color. And if you're mixing a yellow with a red and you want a bright orange, then you need a yellow that's only got red in it, it doesn't have any blue, and so a warm yellow, and you need a red that's only got yellow in it, not any blue, so you need a warm red. And when you mix them together, that color will stay bright. If you're wanting a duller color, then by all means use all three primaries. But that's what's happening. When you get mad, you've got yellow, and red and blue. And they're wiping each other out making this sort of sloppiness. So if you're finding that that's happening, it might just be a color theory problem, I've got a color course on my website that takes you through a really fun exercise in building a color model, discovering what's in your paint, and how to choose the right kinds of paints, and then how to mix color really accurately when it's a really fun thing to do. Once you've figured it out. You've kind of got that skill for life. So it depends what's causing the mud, there's always hope. But it might mean starting over.

Hilary Adams: 32:08

Thank you.

Fiona Valentine: 32:10

I've got a blog post too on color. So on my website, there is a blog. And I've got quite a few posts about color. So you might enjoy looking at those. And there's also links to some other color resources there.

Hilary Adams: 32:22

Thank you. Is there any other creative story or story about creativity that you'd like to share?

Fiona Valentine: 32:30

Probably going this one goes back further. When I had my first daughter, we were living in West Africa, we were living in a mud village without running water or electricity. And I was coming up close and personal with poverty and just a really basic way of life. And I made a really unhelpful conclusion about myself that my creativity was frivolous, it felt self indulgent. In that context, I saw women who were spending a lot of time getting water feeding their family and didn't seem to have time for this kind of indulgence in their life. And so I set aside my creativity, and I had no idea how much damage I was doing my mental health. And it wasn't till years later that I realized what an important part of it was in being human, and especially in extreme circumstances. And if I really had had eyes to see, I would have seen the women around me weren't doing what I was doing. They were enjoying their creativity by decorating that amazing patterns on a plastic bucket, or embroidering the hem of the skirt or making something for a new baby. They were living creative lives, I just couldn't see it because I was feeling guilty, I guess, for making this space in my life. And I think sometimes other people do that when they you know, they're watching war, they're watching suffering. They're watching something happening on the news and feeling like, Oh, my creativity is really self indulgent. But it's not. It's something that's been given us as a gift. And I think it really helps us to cope with the traumas of life. That was certainly the case for me painting, during those really stressful years of getting Makayla through school, gave me a chance to just leave that all for a couple of hours, and do something completely different was very healing. So I think that was a really important stage in my life. And I think a lot of us wrestle with that kind of thinking. So I like to be able to share that and say, Hey, creativity isn't self indulgent. It's a really, really important part of being healthy humans. Thank you. I really enjoy working with businesses and helping them see that if if you want to be involved in continuous improvement, you're going to have to help your people unlock their creativity, because 50% of people don't think they're creative. It's very hard to be creative and problem solve if you don't think you've got the goods. But you do have the goods because you're human and it's in your brain, not your bones. Yeah.

Hilary Adams: 35:05

Is there anything else that you'd like to suggest or offer as an inspiration for people who are perhaps a little stuck in their creativity or not feeling connected with their creativity,

Fiona Valentine: 35:17

creativity and how you enjoy it can be really different for different people. So I think just looking at who you are and what you're interested in and being willing to start small. Just explore or try it, try a few things and see. It could be, it doesn't have to be, there might be other things that are really calling to you, maybe it's gardening, maybe it's studying something, learning about something, maybe it's even computers. But if it is, if you are thinking about exploring art, or some kind of craft, that can be a really great tool for unlocking creativity that applies to every other aspect of your life. So drawing, for instance, is a really accessible way. Often, we're all of us draw symbolically when we're little. And then when we get to about nine, we start getting interested in more realistic drawing. And if you get some training at that point in your life, and you realize, oh, I can learn to draw like, I can learn to read, it's very empowering. If you don't get any help, you might conclude that I'm just not good at drawing. And that can shut you down right through your life unless that gets overturned. But the truth is, you can learn to draw, anybody can learn to draw, if you can write your name, then you can already make all of the shapes that you need for any kind of realistic drawing. I like teaching a really simple drawing process of shapes, shadows, and shading, and showing people how possible it is to draw really beautifully. But I think if you're going to explore your creativity, then giving yourself a time and place and a process is really helpful. Put it in your diary, like you put in a dental appointment, give yourself permission to take that time and find a place where you're going to enjoy it, and gather wherever it is that you need to get started. And it's okay to start really simple adult coloring book, three colored pens, if you're in an intense season of your life, don't have crazy expectations of yourself, start gently. And if you enjoy it, then think about the kind of art that you like and the kind of art you'd like to make, and find someone who makes the kind of art you like to teach you because there isn't just one way to make art. And so if you study with somebody who makes completely different art than you like thinking that they're going to be able to tell you the way, you might be very disappointed. Whereas if you can look at what somebody is producing, and say, Oh, I love that, I'd love to learn how to do that, then that's probably a good person to be able to teach you, assuming they have the ability to teach not all artists do. But these days, there are so many options online for learning more about making a particular kind of art. So I would say start with yourself, what do you like, what, what's peeking your interest? And then give yourself permission to make some space for that in your life.

Hilary Adams: 38:20

Thank you. Speaking of teachers and artists, if people would like to reach you, how can they do that?

Unknown: 38:26

You can head to Fionavalentine.com. And I have a free guide there that you can download called How to start selling your art if you're a maker who's thinking about making living doing what you love. And I also have links there to my Facebook group for confident artist that's there to support people wanting to build a creative habit, make beautiful art and learn the art of selling art. So there's quite a lot of resources there on my website, and even more in the Facebook group. Fiona valentine.com.

Hilary Adams: 38:56

Thank you. Yeah. Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up you'd like to share?

Fiona Valentine: 39:02

I just like to encourage your audience that as you're finding your own creative, authentic selves and continuing to enjoy that journey. In whatever aspect your story is unfolding. That I hope that you just thoroughly enjoy your creativity in whatever expression it takes in your life. And if you're looking for support and encouragement, I'd love to hear from you.

Hilary Adams: 39:26

Thank thank you for your under so much for joining me here today. It's been a delight talking with you.

Fiona Valentine: 39:32

And with you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been great fun. You're obviously a multi passionate person and I love that reflected in your conversations.

Outro: 39:40

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