0:04

You're listening to How to be Creative, a podcast

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about what it means to be creative across different

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disciplines, industries, life circumstances,

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and career structures. You'll learn

0:13

tips for fitting creativity into your daily

0:15

life and hear from a bunch of different

0:17

people about how being creative has helped them

0:20

reach goals, open doors, and

0:22

live a more rewarding, or at least more interesting,

0:24

life. I'm your host, Kat

0:26

O'Leary, and I'm excited to introduce

0:28

you to some of my favorite creatives, as

0:31

well as to the tools that helped me get my most

0:33

crucial work done.

0:37

Hi and welcome to How to be Creative.

0:40

So today I'm going to be talking

0:42

with artist Shama Hussain about her

0:45

Sketched by Shama project and

0:48

some other things about her creative process

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and motivation. Shama, thank you

0:53

so much for joining me today.

0:55

Thank you for having me. I' so excited

0:57

to be here in your new podcast

0:59

studio. [inaudible]

1:02

So that is true. So today's pretty exciting for me because

1:04

so far I've recorded a handful

1:06

of episodes and all of those have happened

1:08

in my apartment, whereas today

1:11

Shama and I are actually coming to you from

1:14

the podcast studio at the wing

1:16

in Dumbo and is my first time here and

1:18

I'm really enjoying it. Um, and it makes

1:20

me feel definitely more like a professional

1:23

versus someone who's just like hanging out in her PJ's

1:25

talking into a microphone.

1:27

It's an amazing setup .

1:28

Yeah, it's really cool. Um, so

1:31

again, thanks so much for joining me today

1:33

and I wanted to start talking by talking

1:35

a little bit about , um,

1:37

your Instagram, which is at @sketchedbyshama

1:40

and I'll obviously throw that in

1:42

the show notes as usual. Um,

1:45

and I wanted to talk about kind of where the idea came

1:47

from, how long you've been sketching,

1:50

and um, also talk a little

1:52

bit about a recent project you

1:54

did , um, where you

1:56

had people commissioned sketches with

1:59

the money going to relief for Yemen.

2:01

Yep .

2:02

So starting

2:05

from the beginning , um , I actually have

2:07

not been sketching that long. Interesting.

2:09

Yeah. I only started sketching

2:11

last year.

2:17

So I totally like self-taught? That's incredible. Because as somebody who has no visual, artistic

2:19

talent, I'm really in awe of that.

2:21

Oh, thank you. Well, so I've always

2:23

liked to doodle. Um , so like

2:26

from when I was a kid, I'd always be

2:28

like, you know, scribbling and drawing

2:30

like random pictures and my notebook. But

2:32

last year I had this

2:34

moment where I was like, I

2:37

want to stop consuming stuff and start

2:39

creating. And I'm

2:41

like, how can I do that? How can I just stop like

2:43

reading and watching TV and listening to music

2:45

and just like put something else out into the

2:47

universe. So I'm like, what

2:50

am I good at? And I'm like, okay,

2:52

why don't I try drawing? So I ordered

2:54

a sketchbook off of Amazon. I

2:56

had a picture in my phone that I looked

2:58

at and I'm like, I'm going to try sketching this. And

3:03

I loved it. Like I loved doing

3:05

it. And so

3:09

I, I kept doing that for a while

3:11

. I kept just looking at pictures in my phone

3:14

and sketching them and then I would send

3:16

them to the people. I would sketch it like I was

3:18

making the sketches up and they'd be like, these are amazing.

3:21

So I'm like, all right , I can sketch

3:23

people. So then I'm like, what can

3:25

I sketch besides people? So

3:27

that's when I'm like, I started thinking about

3:30

sketching feelings that I was

3:32

having. Um,

3:34

so like last year I

3:36

was going through a lot of like, relationship stuff. So

3:38

my sketches will reflect a lot of like

3:40

how I was feeling when I was in those relationships.

3:44

And then I started adding words to my

3:46

sketches. Um,

3:48

so they became like little stories,

3:49

like standalone stories.

3:52

I love that. Oh my God. That's so great. Yeah .

3:54

Yeah. So

3:56

that was pretty much how I got started

3:58

in this. Now it's been like a

4:01

little over a year that I've been sketching and it's become like

4:04

so therapeutic for me.

4:06

It's such an outlet. Um,

4:09

and it's just like, I , I

4:11

discovered something I love doing.

4:13

That's so great. So it sounds like you actually

4:15

use sketching as a means of

4:17

processing emotions while

4:19

you're actually going through them, which

4:22

I think is so cool. And interesting. I don't

4:24

know if you follow Mari. Andrew?

4:26

Yes. I'm obsessed

4:29

with her work . Completely obsessed with her work.

4:30

I saw her, it's funny, I kind of came to her

4:32

work kind of late, so I

4:34

saw her speak at a conference

4:37

a few months ago. It was actually the yellow

4:39

conference, which was awesome. I hope they come back

4:41

to New York next year as well.

4:44

I saw her speak and I was just in awe of her

4:47

and I recognized her work.

4:50

Um, once I looked at it, now I'm like completely obsessed

4:52

and, but during the

4:54

interview, one of the things that she said was she actually

4:57

gets her inspiration from going through

4:59

old journals.

5:02

So she always deals with

5:04

feelings that she's already processed

5:07

and put behind her. So she won't

5:09

draw anything that's related to something she's going

5:11

through right at that moment. And really , um,

5:13

and so I love hearing that your, your

5:16

process is kind of the opposite and I wonder

5:18

sort of what that means for her, like what the purpose

5:20

is behind some of her stuff. If it's,

5:22

if it's mostly dealing with, at least with when

5:25

it comes to like romantic relationships, let's say

5:27

if she's talking about a breakup, it's probably one

5:29

that happened three years ago that she just happened to read

5:32

the journal.

5:32

Well, the way I see, I mean that's

5:35

pretty awesome that that's her process. Cause like

5:37

it, it gives her more

5:39

clarity into how she felt.

5:41

That's, that's true. Yeah.

5:43

For me it's like my emotions

5:45

are so raw at the moment,

5:47

so I'm like, this is my outlet for

5:49

expressing that.

5:50

Right. And you're probably going to be, you'll probably

5:52

get the most honest interpretation

5:54

of what you're feeling when you haven't already

5:56

intellectualized it and packaged

5:59

it up neatly and like found a purpose that it

6:01

serves in your life. Or maybe that's just me.

6:03

No, I agree. I'm also like,

6:05

I realized like when I feel more,

6:08

my sketches come out better.

6:09

Wow, that's awesome. I love it.

6:19

It's, this is like really sad to say, but it's like when I'm more sad, the better my sketches. Um , and I get comments from people saying like,

6:22

I love your sketch but I can tell you're really sad.

6:26

Um, so like, yeah, it's definitely more like the

6:29

whole, I guess the whole

6:32

tortured artists where like,

6:34

I am really putting all my emotions

6:36

into my art.

6:37

That's amazing. I love that. And

6:39

it's interesting because I think the first sketch

6:42

of yours that I remember seeing

6:44

, um, was right

6:46

after you'd gone through a breakup.

6:49

And that's how I found out

6:51

that you and your now

6:53

ex-boyfriend had broken up. I think I sent

6:55

you a message and it was like, I really hope this doesn't mean

6:57

what I think it means.

6:58

And it meant exactly what you thought.

7:00

Oh yeah. And I don't think, I'm

7:02

pretty sure that was

7:04

on your private Instagram.

7:07

So it was a sketch of, it was a

7:09

two-part sketch. It was , um,

7:11

a girl and a guy laying

7:13

together in bed. And then

7:15

the next one was just the girl laying in

7:17

bed by herself. And I had

7:19

written, you can't make homes

7:22

out of human beings, which I did not

7:24

come up with that saying that's like from a poem. Yeah.

7:27

Um, but like I just remember I couldn't, I

7:30

kept remembering that quote. And

7:33

so sometimes this is

7:35

how my thought process works too. I'll remember something

7:38

that I heard that really touched me

7:40

and then I need to sketch it.

7:41

Yeah. Oh, that makes a lot of sense to me.

7:44

Yeah. I mean I, it's funny I do that, but I think,

7:46

I think I usually just turn them into like Instagram

7:48

caption. That's my

7:52

shallow version of art.

7:55

Um, I mean it's

7:58

for sure. Like I sometimes I'll, I'll

8:00

like read a poem or see a quote on

8:02

Instagram. Um, cause we,

8:05

we read so many, like I follow

8:07

a lot of accounts at least about like about like positivity

8:10

and like female empowerment. And sometimes

8:12

I see something amazing and I'm like, wow, I really want

8:14

to create like an illustration to go with this. So

8:18

sometimes that's like where my inspiration comes

8:20

from too.

8:20

Very cool. Yeah , I love that. Um,

8:23

yeah. And so , um, so what

8:27

drew you to create

8:29

the Instagram account? Like what, at what point in sketching

8:31

did you decide that you wanted to share

8:33

things with the universe?

8:34

You know, I just created it last month. Um,

8:37

so I had been posting like my personal,

8:40

my sketches on my personal account on

8:42

like just my stories, not even as

8:44

posts cause I'm like, you know,

8:47

it's something that's like a doodle I made and

8:49

I just want to like share it. But

8:51

then I get it started getting so much feedback

8:53

from people saying I would love

8:56

to see your work in one place. You should

8:58

create a separate account. And I was like, ah, I don't know

9:00

how I feel about that because my

9:02

sketches are so personal.

9:03

I was going to say, your work is so personal. That's

9:06

a lot to have out there.

9:07

It's like these are like my

9:09

feelings to have it public.

9:12

It felt very like, I don't know

9:14

, it made me feel a little uncomfortable". But

9:17

I started doing it more and more

9:19

and I loved like hearing

9:21

people's thoughts on like, "Oh, I could really relate

9:23

to this" or "This really reminded me

9:25

of my last breakup" and I would hear a lot of that.

9:27

And it made me feel good. It was like, I'm

9:30

not alone in this. And my

9:32

sketches are making other people

9:34

like, you know, they're invoking

9:36

emotions in other people, which I love. So

9:40

, um, after , uh , like a

9:42

little over a year of sketching and I was like, okay, fine, I'm going to

9:44

create a separate Instagram and just see

9:46

what kind of responses it gets. And

9:49

it felt very weird at first cause like

9:51

I had some strangers following

9:53

me and liking my posts and I was like,

9:56

this is weird. It's not my

9:58

friend saying, Oh, I relate to this. This is just somebody

10:00

like liking my photo

10:02

or commenting.

10:02

Or empathizing with you

10:05

as a friend or a family member or whatever

10:07

it is. Yeah.

10:08

So it felt like a little bit like baring my

10:10

soul in public.

10:11

Um , it's like invasive, but like an invasion

10:14

that you've invited. Does that make sense?

10:17

That does make sense. It's a

10:19

lot like that. But now, now

10:21

I've kind of built like a

10:24

following on this account and

10:27

um, I love, I actually

10:29

do really like sharing my work work

10:31

, um, and

10:34

like getting feedback from other artists.

10:36

So I have like a lot of spoken

10:38

word artists following me.

10:41

Yeah. They do like poetry and they'll

10:43

come and um,

10:45

so it's, it's just nice to like

10:48

be part of an artist community.

10:50

So cool. I love that so much. And

10:52

also I feel like there's potential

10:55

for some kind of collaboration too

10:58

.

10:58

Yeah. I've actually, like, I've had

11:00

some people reach out and say like, you know, we should

11:02

think about working together and I love

11:05

opening the door to that. I have, I don't have anything

11:07

just yet because I'm just

11:09

so new to this.

11:10

But, okay. But

11:12

literally you started this a month ago and they're

11:14

already making these connections, which I

11:16

think is really incredible. That's

11:19

awesome. And as a side note, I recently asked

11:22

you to do some sketches of

11:24

our upcoming guests, including yourself.

11:26

Is that weird? Have you ever

11:29

done a sketch of yourself?

11:30

I have. And those are the ones that always come up the worst.

11:32

I like cannot draw myself. I

11:36

don't know what it is, but

11:38

like I can't look at my face and get

11:40

it correct, but I can draw other people.

11:42

So, we'll see what happens. But

11:46

I'm so excited about this because one

11:49

having projects is so fun cause I'm

11:51

not just drawing for myself. It gives me like

11:54

accountability. It gives me a challenge.

11:57

Um, so like it's like, it gives me a

11:59

purpose for my work. Yeah. And I think

12:01

that'll be really good .

12:02

That's awesome. Yeah. And it's so

12:04

funny cause my thought process was like,

12:07

it would be awesome if I could hire someone

12:10

to do sketches of the guests.

12:12

And I was like, it has to be someone

12:15

who, I mean most of my guests will be

12:17

women, I'm assuming. Um, and

12:21

in particular, I was like, it has to be someone who

12:23

will be able to capably draw women

12:25

of color. Um, and I like,

12:27

I I know from just kind of

12:30

almost eavesdropping in different communities

12:32

online that like , um,

12:34

you know, white artists don't always get it right.

12:37

And so I'm sitting there thinking about

12:39

this and I was like, I feel like I know the exact person

12:41

that I want to do this for me.

12:43

And then I was like, duh. I need to ask Shama. I've been meaning to commission her for something anyway, like,

12:49

why am I so stupid?

12:50

I'm so excited you came to me,

12:52

you know , speaking of like sketching women of color,

12:55

I am like, I

12:57

actively try to like draw different

13:00

kinds of people .

13:00

Right. And so when I had seen recently,

13:03

I'm trying to remember who , um,

13:05

there was a particular quote and I

13:08

that, that you had , um,

13:11

Oh, it's Nayyirah Waheed.

13:12

Yes , yes. She has , um,

13:15

amazing poetry and yeah , but

13:17

like, you know, she writes her poetry

13:19

for women of color and I was

13:21

like, the

13:25

illustration I draw with this has to be someone

13:27

of color obviously, or even

13:30

like , um , I want to draw people of

13:32

like different body types. I don't want to always

13:34

just draw like the same standard

13:37

attractive women . Um, so that's been

13:39

something I've been thinking about.

13:41

I love that. That's great. Yeah. And so as soon as

13:43

it occurred to me, I was like, duh , that's the only person I

13:45

couldn't have do this. Um , so

13:48

yes, I'm really excited about that. So then

13:50

I guess it makes sense to talk next about

13:53

your recent project where you had people commission

13:56

you to do sketches and donated

13:58

the money to Yemen relief.

14:00

It was such a fun project. So I

14:02

just wrapped it up. Um, basically

14:04

earlier this summer , um, I had been sketching

14:07

more and more and I got like some random

14:09

requests saying like, Oh, can I commission you

14:11

and like pay you to draw something.

14:14

Um , and I had never sketched for money before.

14:17

Um , and so I was a little hesitant about

14:19

it, but then I thought, what

14:21

if, like what

14:23

if I asked people to,

14:25

what if I said I could draw people and then

14:28

used that money for a good cause?

14:30

And that way I don't feel bad about taking money

14:32

from someone. And so I like

14:35

put it out there. I was like, you know, what

14:37

is, what's the cause that I'm really passionate about?

14:40

And so , um , just on

14:42

August 19th, it was world humanitarian days,

14:44

so I was thinking like the

14:47

crisis in Yemen, it's now like the world's

14:49

worst humanitarian crisis.

14:52

So the situation's really bad. Um,

14:54

and I thought, okay , like this is

14:56

like a small contribution I can make to it.

14:58

Yeah. So I posted on

15:01

my personal account just saying like,

15:03

Hey guys, I want to like draw for a cause

15:05

, um, and I will draw whatever

15:07

you want. So I get a lot of like

15:10

random requests saying like, "Oh, draw

15:12

like my favorite like sports team,

15:14

or draw like me at my wedding."

15:17

And so I was like, okay , I will draw whatever you

15:19

want. Um, and then

15:21

I , uh , I was like, it's, it's at

15:24

a suggested donation of $30.

15:26

I'll draw whatever you want and then

15:29

donate it all towards the

15:31

, um, IRC, which is the International

15:34

Refugee Committee.

15:38

I'll put that in the show notes.

15:40

And so , um, and

15:42

I was so surprised by how many people

15:46

have signed up to do it. So

15:48

like I ended up doing 14

15:51

commissions in total. Awesome. Yeah.

15:53

So we raised $500

15:55

in total. Um,

15:57

and it was very fun just getting all

15:59

these different requests. So I had some

16:02

really fun challenges.

16:04

Like one person was like,

16:06

"Oh, I want a celebration of friendship

16:09

." So a very general topic. One

16:11

person said, "I want you to draw me and my son

16:13

dancing at his wedding." And

16:15

then I had a friend who was like, I want

16:17

you to draw me how Game of Thrones should

16:20

have ended."

16:21

That's so that's like, that's perfect for

16:23

you, too. What a fun project.

16:29

Such a fun projects, and you can see the variety of requests too.And it gave me like, you know,

16:31

it gave me, it like opened

16:33

a new door to my sketchings so

16:35

I loved it. I like discovered

16:38

so much and um

16:41

, just like really homed in on my

16:43

skills and had

16:45

to like force myself to be even more creative.

16:48

Cause I thought for every person

16:50

who requested a sketch, I want that sketch to

16:52

be very tailored

16:54

to them. Right. Um, so I don't

16:56

want to just create like something random for

16:58

them. I want it to be like, so, you

17:00

know, if a friend asks me for something, I

17:02

thought, "What do I think when I think about

17:05

her, what does she remind me of? Um,

17:07

like what has she gone through in her life? And

17:10

then I would draw that.

17:11

I love that so much.

17:12

Yeah. So put in a lot of , um

17:14

, time into creating

17:16

something custom for them.

17:18

Very cool. And then , um,

17:20

so how many of the commissioned

17:22

pieces did you end up sharing on

17:25

your Instagram? So I saw one

17:27

from our mutual friend Chris Saunders who

17:29

is a musician and you had done

17:32

I think his favorite, his favorite lyric

17:34

from Bob Marley.

17:36

So he sent me his favorite lyric to sketch.

17:38

It was a Bob Marley quote. So I, and he, you know,

17:40

he's all about his music. So of

17:42

course his sketch had to be music related.

17:44

Yeah , of course. Um, I've posted a few

17:46

of them, so definitely haven't gotten around to posting

17:49

of them on my Instagram. Um,

17:52

because so I

17:54

also want my Instagram

17:57

at sketch by Shauna to be like

17:59

more , um,

18:01

more like on-brand for what I

18:03

create. Um, so a lot of the

18:05

sketches were very specific

18:07

requests that I don't think would be something I

18:09

would always, I

18:12

would consider as part

18:14

of like what I do. So again, like

18:16

I said, I want to create stories and feelings

18:19

and some of these were like, draw me at

18:21

my like wedding.

18:22

Right. Which is not, yeah, that

18:24

makes sense. And that was actually a question I had about kind of

18:26

where do you, how do you find that balance between

18:29

you and your work and your kind of

18:32

brand, for lack of a better

18:34

term, versus trying

18:36

to deliver on that very specific request

18:38

and make it feel like it was meant for that

18:40

person.

18:41

Yeah. Um, so that's, that's something

18:43

I've been trying to figure out myself. I want my

18:46

sketches to like, I want people to

18:48

look at them and be like, Oh, Shama created this.

18:50

Right? Um , it's

18:52

hard with commissions cause sometimes people have

18:54

very specific things in mind and I'm

18:56

happy to draw that for them. Uh , but

18:59

if I love when people give me requests

19:01

that aren't so specific, they're like,

19:03

Oh, just draw me. Like I had the friend

19:05

who said, "Draw me a celebration of friendship." And

19:08

so I had like the room to

19:10

be creative and add my

19:12

own touch into it and add my own

19:14

words. Um,

19:16

so like it's again, really

19:18

it's trying to find a way to,

19:22

to tailor their,

19:24

what they want to like what I

19:26

usually do. Yeah . Yeah. Makes total

19:28

sense. Yeah. But it was really fun

19:31

just coming up with that. I had

19:33

one request from somebody who

19:36

she wanted a sketch for somebody as a gift

19:39

and she wanted to gift it to her friend who's

19:41

in an abusive marriage. And

19:44

she said, "Can you please create something

19:46

really uplifting for her and

19:48

incorporate religion into it?" And

19:50

I was like, that is such a meaningful

19:52

request. So of course I

19:55

thought a lot about it. Like I spent a

19:57

lot of time just thinking, what can I create

19:59

for this person? Um,

20:01

and I, I , uh,

20:04

ended up drawing her this

20:06

girl praying and it says

20:08

, "God will

20:11

give you something better than what's been taken

20:13

from you." Yeah.

20:16

I think it's one of the most meaningful sketches that

20:18

so much.

20:21

Okay. I saw that one. I love that one so much. And the other thing of just thinking

20:23

about it from the perspective of , um, you know, I spent

20:25

I guess five years as an advocate

20:28

for survivors of sexual assault and domestic

20:30

violence. And so where

20:33

my brain went first was like also

20:35

when you're good , when you're producing something

20:38

like that to be given to someone who's in an abusive situation,

20:41

you also kind of have to walk that line of like making

20:43

sure that whatever it is isn't going to like

20:45

endanger them further. And so

20:47

that's a very, that's a very safe

20:50

image for that person to be quote unquote

20:52

caught with.

20:53

Yeah . Her spouse. Yeah.

20:55

I had to also, I had to really

20:57

think about that sketch cause I'm like, I don't want

21:00

her to look at it and feel sad

21:02

or triggered ,

21:03

judged or like that. Like preachy

21:05

or like here's a solution. And it's like,

21:08

So I I that's why

21:10

I said it was one of the more meaningful ones. I really

21:12

spent a lot of time coming up with a concept

21:14

for it.

21:17

Right. Um, yeah I'll link to that. Um, there , there

21:19

are a couple of sketches that we've talked about that I'll link

21:21

to individually in the show notes in addition

21:23

to linking to the Instagram

21:25

account. Um, wow, that's

21:27

amazing. Cause I haven't seen that with no context

21:30

for it. I already thought it was like

21:32

this really meaningful , um,

21:34

piece of art and was it, you know, that

21:36

something that drew a visceral reaction for me and

21:38

, and also, you know, really lines up

21:41

with kind of how I think about life

21:43

now. And yeah , there

21:45

was this entire other dimension that no one

21:47

who was seeing your account could actually see. That's

21:50

amazing. I love that. I feel like that's true of

21:52

a lot of your sketches where like we're seeing

21:54

kind of, and also it's open

21:57

to interpretation, right? Like everyone's gonna see

21:59

it and get something out of it. And it probably

22:01

looks a little bit different depending on whose

22:03

perspective it is .

22:04

For sure. And even like some

22:06

of my sketches are, that's why I said

22:08

they're so personal. It's like I

22:11

could have been in a really bad place when I drew that.

22:14

Um, and so you'll see some of the emotion, but you won't

22:16

know like a lot of this, this, a lot

22:18

of what, what detail drew me to like

22:20

draw that or um, even

22:23

just drawing it for somebody else to , yeah.

22:25

So that's, I think that's like the beauty of art

22:28

too . So I, as

22:30

long as it invokes emotion in somebody,

22:32

I think I'm, I'm getting,

22:34

I'm doing what I want with my art.

22:35

Yeah. That's

22:37

fantastic. And I also think it kind of serves

22:41

combining things that you're doing for yourself and

22:43

things you're doing for others in one place

22:45

kind of serves as like a protective layer for you

22:48

almost. Because if I'm looking at something

22:50

I don't necessarily know, is this something

22:52

Shama drew , um, about

22:54

a situation that she's dealing with personally

22:57

or is it something that someone else asked her to

22:59

draw? So , um, you know,

23:01

I think when you're, when you're putting something out there that's so

23:03

personal to you , um,

23:05

as we talked about earlier, it can feel

23:08

very , uh , vulnerable,

23:10

but maybe this like if

23:13

not like subtracts a layer of vulnerability.

23:15

Vulnerability like allows you a little

23:17

bit of space.

23:22

Yeah. It'll, it gives me a little bit of like protection. Cause I, you know, you don't, nobody ever wants to

23:24

like share everything that's going

23:27

on in your soul , um,

23:29

for, so for sure it does that. Um,

23:32

it just , it's been really fun, like

23:34

drawing cause I've just been drawing

23:36

for myself, so it has been really fun to like

23:39

draw for other people too and try to like

23:41

incorporate their lives

23:43

into these drawings.

23:46

I love that. And I think , um, I think this across

23:48

like a broad range of mediums like , um,

23:51

and not just necessarily what we think of as art,

23:53

but I think empathy is such a powerful

23:56

tool for doing

23:58

great work. And I think this is a

24:00

perfect example of that. Yeah.

24:03

Yeah. I hope so.

24:05

Yeah. No, that's amazing. I love that.

24:08

Um , and it's , it's also like really fun

24:10

to like, since I do did this commissioning

24:13

project, I get people like

24:15

sending me pictures of how they framed

24:17

their sketches and put it up in their homes

24:19

that I'm like, that that like is

24:21

so meaningful to me. I'm like, that's

24:24

really amazing. Love it. You liked

24:26

the sketch enough to like hang it

24:28

somewhere or frame it somewhere or

24:30

like frame it and gift it to somebody. So

24:33

like, that's just, it's been a really special

24:35

project.

24:35

I love it. Yeah. That's so great.

24:37

It made me really happy.

24:39

Yeah. Um, and actually this is a sidebar but

24:41

that just occurred to me. So you and I have both been

24:43

kind of dabbling in these alcohol ink

24:45

painting recently, which is

24:47

so cool. And I feel like if you're a way better

24:50

than, I know I talked about it on every episode

24:52

, just like obsessed. I'm like

24:54

starting an alcohol ink cult. So

24:56

props to yang from tailor made

24:59

shop. I'll throw that in the show notes cause she's the one who taught

25:01

both of us and I am now

25:03

like I've had so many friends reach out and be like,

25:05

what is this? How do I purchase it? I want

25:07

to learn more about that. Um,

25:10

but I, it just occurred to me like that

25:12

could be kind of cool in terms

25:14

of like using an

25:16

alcohol ink piece as a base layer

25:19

and then once it dries doing like a sketch

25:21

over that,

25:22

Oh, I actually thought about it, but I am not

25:24

good. I'm not nowhere near as good as you've become with these.

25:24

I don't

25:26

think it's a talent . I

25:28

think it's like I, it is like a

25:30

bit random. It's completely random.

25:32

I don't know if it'll turn out good or not. And

25:35

honestly the best one I've done so far I think

25:37

ended up kind of looking like a skull. Like

25:39

they send out my Instagram. I think that's

25:41

the best one I've done. Like I had someone reach out and

25:43

tried to commission a piece. Wow. For me

25:45

after seeing it I was like, Oh no,

25:47

I'm sorry it wasn't that one. It was a different one I

25:49

had done and the one actually the

25:52

one I, the one I did where , um,

25:54

where someone reached out for a commissioned piece

25:56

was like the photo

25:58

paper I bought wasn't working. I found a piece of glossy

26:01

cardboard on my floor and used that instead

26:03

and just like threw some stuff together accidentally

26:05

made rainbow colors and like it came out

26:07

beautiful. It's like on my, over my desk at work

26:10

now. But um, no,

26:12

but I think, Oh my God, no, you're totally talented

26:14

enough with those to to do something and I think it'd be

26:16

really cool.

26:17

I would love to try that actually. Now

26:20

that you mention it, I think it'd be really

26:22

fun cause I'm always thinking about like what's the

26:24

next step for the sketching? Right. Um,

26:27

and I'm thinking how

26:29

can I add color to these sketches?

26:32

How can I like add more

26:34

dimension to them? So alcohol inks

26:36

is definitely one. Another thing I really

26:38

want to do is , um, I

26:40

sketch on hand. So just using a sketchbook

26:42

and a pen. Yeah. But I'd love to try

26:45

it digitally. Cool. And start illustrating.

26:47

Yeah . And coloring them. I think people

26:50

would like to see more of that. So

26:53

it like gives me a , it opens the

26:55

door to a lot of creative pursuits.

26:57

I love

27:01

that. And like one of the things I've been thinking about with the alcohol

27:03

ink stuff, and it's funny, he's like, as I was saying, like I have

27:05

no visual, artistic ability. Like

27:07

this is the first thing where I create where I'm actually

27:09

creating things and I think they look good afterwards.

27:12

So that's a new , uh

27:14

, feeling for me. But I've been thinking

27:16

about turning alcohol ink

27:18

work into like kind of more multimedia

27:20

stuff. Like whether it's um, you

27:23

know, like , uh , adding yarn

27:25

or embroidery floss or something and doing some kind

27:27

of like embroidery onto

27:30

, um, an alcohol ink piece that I've

27:32

done. I'm going to start exploring

27:34

that. I haven't, I, it's something I want to strategize

27:37

about a little bit more. But I

27:40

love like mixed media work is like always

27:42

so fascinating to me. Um, and I kind

27:44

of want to, it's funny . So

27:46

I , I there's this , um, there's this comic

27:49

that I discovered

27:51

, um, a while back. I totally

27:53

going to not remember who made it, but I'll put

27:55

it in the show notes. But it's about

27:58

how it takes like seven

28:00

years to master something. And so if you

28:02

start this process when you are

28:05

, um, I don't remember how old, but

28:07

basically there's this idea of like, you

28:09

can have like 11 lives

28:11

within your one life. And

28:13

so I've been thinking a lot lately about like, well,

28:16

within however many seven year blocks I

28:18

have left in my life, what are the

28:20

other identities or lives

28:22

that I want to have during that time? And

28:25

so , um, one of them is like mixed

28:27

media artist. And so I'm trying to start thinking about

28:29

like, well, what does that look like for me? And like another

28:31

is , um, like I've always, I wanted

28:33

to go to fashion school in high school

28:36

and I didn't obviously. Um,

28:38

and so like at

28:40

some point I want to be like an avant garde fashion designer

28:43

for like seven years. Um,

28:45

so it's a lot about like how to blend all

28:47

of these things together.

28:47

It's like you want to discover what's,

28:50

what talents you have in you.

28:52

That you don't know about.

28:53

Yeah. Cause you really don't

28:56

know unless you've tried any of these things. Like

28:58

I , uh , two years ago I wasn't sketching,

29:00

so , um , and suddenly I'm

29:02

doing it all the time. Um , and

29:04

we've never tried alcohol inks until

29:06

this summer.

29:09

And now we're obsessed.

29:09

So yes. It's like , like

29:11

try all of the things. Yeah

29:13

. And then the ones that you love

29:16

and like you're saying, mix

29:18

them to create something really, truly

29:20

unique just to you. I love it.

29:22

Yeah, that's totally where I'm at. And, and

29:25

I think as adults, and I talk about

29:27

this a little bit on one of my solo episodes,

29:29

but I think as adults it's very easy to

29:32

, uh, conform to old ideas

29:35

we have about ourselves or identities that we

29:37

have formed for ourselves where you're

29:39

just thinking, well, I'm a person who does this, not

29:41

a person who does that. I'm good at this. I'm not

29:43

good at that. I like this. I like that. And I, I've

29:45

really tried over the past few years to just kind of throw

29:48

that out completely. And, and

29:50

um, you know, growth is a

29:53

very big thing in my life and

29:55

part of that is not holding onto

29:57

things that are no longer serving me. And

30:00

I try to incorporate that mindset in,

30:02

in things like art, which

30:04

is, you know, as I seen , like visual arts really

30:06

new to me, but I, yeah . And it

30:08

would be easy to kind of have like imposter syndrome

30:11

and think like, Oh, I'm not good at this, or I don't do this.

30:13

I'm not a person who does this. And instead I'm just

30:15

kind of trying to explore it and play with

30:17

it and see what happens.

30:18

It's so important for creativity

30:21

because I think our minds are way too

30:23

rigid and it's

30:25

like our minds are way too organized. We put

30:27

ourselves in a box. And

30:29

say, you know, this is who I am

30:31

and this is what I do and I don't do any

30:33

of the other things. But like , like

30:36

you're saying, throw that box

30:38

away, and just try

30:40

it.

30:41

I love it. Throw the box away. Um,

30:43

that's awesome.

30:44

Yeah. So , uh

30:46

, that's, that's really what the creative process

30:48

is. It's like nobody has to

30:51

teach you that you're good at something. You kind

30:53

of just have to figure it out for yourself.

30:54

For yourself.

30:56

Yeah. And so I want us to talk a little bit about what

30:58

kind of, what it looks like for you to carve out time

31:01

for sketching and

31:03

if that's even the right way to ask it, because

31:05

it might just be more like you feel inspired

31:07

and you just drop things and do it. Within reason.

31:10

Like we both have full time jobs, like not always

31:12

do that.

31:13

Yeah. Um, I no , I don't

31:15

really need to like force myself to carve out time

31:17

cause it's really like whenever

31:19

I'm feeling something and I have

31:22

this idea that I need to sketch

31:24

this feeling into a drawing

31:26

, um, that's

31:28

when that's when the sketch will come out good. And

31:31

I can't like wait to get to my sketchbook.

31:33

Yup. So that's kind of writing to , I completely

31:36

understand that.

31:37

So even just like last

31:39

week I had this, I was

31:41

like, I was somewhere surrounded

31:44

by people and I'm like, even

31:47

surrounded by people I feel so like alone

31:50

in this situation. And I'm like,

31:52

I want to sketch this. So I went

31:54

home and I like sketched a girl at

31:57

a party and I remembered this

31:59

Drake lyric where he was like

32:01

, um , I never actually

32:03

am alone. I just always feel alone.

32:06

Like emo, Drake lyrics.

32:12

So I used it for a sketch, but again, like when I have moments like that

32:14

and I'm like, I need to sketch this, but sometimes

32:16

I won't, you know, I'll go like a couple of weeks and I

32:18

don't feel like inspired to draw anything.

32:21

So it's really like waiting for

32:23

that inspiration to come. But that's

32:25

why I like commission sketches also helps because

32:27

people are giving me,

32:29

Yeah, it's like forced inspiration, slmost. Yes,

32:32

that's exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

32:35

And then I think we kind of already touched

32:37

upon like the motivation. It sounds

32:39

like when you, when you get the idea or the inspiration,

32:42

like you have to do it. So it seems

32:44

like motivation isn't really an issue for you.

32:46

But I do think it's probably an issue for some

32:48

people listening. So I don't know if you have any, any

32:50

tips ?

32:52

Um , well, I've had a really

32:54

tough year, so I've had a lot of motivation this

32:56

year. But I think when,

32:59

whenever you're like, whenever

33:02

you're in a situation where you're feeling an emotion

33:04

more strongly, ask yourself,

33:06

how can I translate this

33:08

into whatever creative field I'm in.

33:11

Yeah.

33:12

Versus like numbing out with Netflix,

33:14

which I think is very common . It's like, I don't want to feel

33:16

this way, so I'm just gonna like

33:19

trying to shut it, shut it off.

33:20

Exactly . Instead of avoiding that feeling, ask

33:23

yourself, how can I use that feeling to like

33:26

, um, be more

33:28

creative.

33:29

I love that. That's great. Um,

33:32

so another thing I wanted to talk about is

33:34

kind of what your process has been

33:37

for growing your

33:39

, um, audience on

33:41

Instagram.

33:43

Um , I'm so new, so I just

33:45

started my Instagram account last month, so

33:47

I'm still like, I'm still figuring it out,

33:50

but I did find that

33:52

one starting it, it's like , um,

33:55

your friends and family who

33:57

have liked your work will probably want

33:59

to follow you wherever you're putting

34:01

that work. So I've had people who have been

34:03

really like great about that. Um,

34:06

and then it's also like finding

34:08

people who do similar

34:10

things to what you do. So like I went out and

34:12

followed a lot of artists whose work I

34:14

like and a lot of like,

34:17

you know, people who are putting out poetry

34:19

and quotes , um,

34:22

similar things to that and

34:24

you'll find that they start reciprocating

34:27

because they're doing something similar. So they'll probably, you

34:29

know , be interested in seeing what you're putting

34:31

out too . So that's my recommendation

34:33

for building your

34:36

audience. It's like, look to

34:38

see who else is in that space

34:40

and then , um, support,

34:43

support them so, and they'll support you.

34:45

Yeah, that makes total sense. And

34:48

it's interesting, like, so we met at work

34:50

, um, working in social media. And

34:53

so I'm wondering like how much of that

34:56

background, and you have like a really, you

34:58

have definitely a deeper social background than

35:00

I do. You've worked for some pretty big brands

35:02

and I'm wondering like how much that experience

35:05

comes into this or if it's just a completely separate

35:08

thing.

35:09

It's, it plays a little bit

35:11

into like promoting your work. Right?

35:13

So like, I guess now I,

35:15

that I started on Instagram, it is like,

35:17

okay, thinking about like, okay, what's

35:19

my brand? Um,

35:22

which is such a funny thing to say for something.

35:24

I'm, I'm in the same process. Like I'm like, how

35:26

do I make a brand? That's basically me.

35:29

Yeah. But that,

35:30

Exactly. It's like, that's where

35:32

like my PR and social background

35:34

come into. Like, it

35:37

absolutely does play a role. You know, I,

35:39

I've noticed when working

35:41

with a lot of brands first on social,

35:44

they, they all , they always

35:46

have to have a feel of this came from that

35:48

one brand. So like if I'm doing

35:50

something for , um,

35:53

a media outlet, it has to look like it

35:55

came from that media outlet. Like what does, what

35:57

differentiates them? Um, why

35:59

couldn't it be any other outlet that put out that

36:02

one thing. So that's

36:04

why it's like when you're thinking about , um,

36:06

when I'm thinking about my art, it's like I want

36:09

it to look like it came from me. So

36:11

that was , that's where like the branding came

36:13

in. I was like, what should, like I don't what,

36:15

what kind of branding should I add to my sketches? And that's

36:17

when I thought of like Sketched by Shama

36:19

. And so now I've started adding that

36:22

to all my sketches so that I have

36:25

like my logo

36:27

And when the internet steals

36:29

it and like , like someone can say

36:31

can look at it and see, Oh this is who

36:33

it was stolen from. Let me go check that person out.

36:36

Cause how many times do you come across something amazing on

36:38

it , on the internet and you're like, I don't know which artists

36:40

created this.

36:41

It makes me really mad. Especially when I see

36:43

something and I'm like, I know who created that and

36:46

it's gross that you're stealing it and passing it off as

36:48

your own. And that happens so much lately

36:50

and it's , I don't know, like how do you not

36:52

feel gross about that?

36:53

Like that was one of the things

36:55

that when I started my Instagram we kinda , I saw like

36:58

people posting it and I , I thought like

37:00

it's great that they're posting my work. It means they liked

37:02

it. They did

37:05

give credit, but I still felt protective of it.

37:09

So you have to like learn to be comfortable

37:11

with just realizing that that's

37:13

what the internet is. That's the blessing and the curse.

37:16

Your work will reach so

37:18

many more people, but you're going

37:20

to have to give up a little bit of that , um,

37:22

ownership of it. Yeah, no,

37:24

that makes a lot of sense.

37:26

Um , so we talked a little bit about kind of what

37:28

you're thinking in, in terms of

37:31

potentially adding color to your sketches

37:33

or exploring kind of multimedia

37:36

, um, opportunities. Um,

37:38

is there anything else you kind of have in the pipeline

37:40

that you wanted to talk about?

37:42

Um, well, I definitely

37:45

want to buy an iPad and

37:47

start digital sketches now. So

37:50

that's my next step and I'm really excited

37:52

for it cause I, it'll be something

37:54

totally new for me. Um

37:56

, so it'll actually end up being a totally different product

37:59

that I'm creating. So we'll see how that goes.

38:01

That's really cool. And I like that because

38:03

it then makes it, I feel like it makes it

38:05

so much easier for you to then just share

38:07

a digital copy, turn

38:10

it into like if you want to do, if

38:12

you're , if you ended up wanting to do work for a brand,

38:14

let's say you could, that

38:16

makes it so much easier to like turn into various

38:19

like social sizes and stuff like that.

38:22

Um, it seems , and also probably makes it easier

38:24

to add color within the sketches

38:27

themselves.

38:28

That's the hope. It's like I'm at

38:31

once I start doing it all , see how

38:33

it opens more doors and

38:36

um , like even lets me

38:38

try newer things. So I'm

38:40

like excited. I love it. Yeah .

38:42

No, and I think that's kind of, I think that's kind

38:44

of what the heart of it, right? Where you

38:47

can have all these ideas of like, Oh, I think I'm going

38:49

to do this thing and then I'm going to do this thing. And then after

38:51

that I'm going to do this thing. And then a lot of the time

38:53

that doesn't, it doesn't happen quite

38:55

how you expect. But yeah, at

38:57

least in my case, I find

39:00

that a lot of the time the things that I

39:02

did not imagine doing ended

39:04

up being some of the best things.

39:05

Yeah, I absolutely agree. You

39:08

again, that's us putting ourselves in those

39:10

boxes. So I

39:12

started sketching and I'm like, I'm , you know, I think I'm good at

39:15

sketching. So I was like, I must be good at painting,

39:17

and I got all these paint supplies and I realized like

39:19

I'm not going to paint it at all. I

39:22

tried acrylics and it just, it

39:24

didn't look as like, you know, this is

39:26

nice, but clearly my talent

39:28

is in drawing and not painting.

39:31

Or maybe it's something like you

39:33

can do some kind of abstract sort

39:35

of thing with the acrylics and then draw over

39:37

them when they're dried or something. I don't

39:40

know.

39:40

Again, it's trying, trying every

39:42

outlet open to you, but dabbling

39:45

in all of those things is what's fun and

39:47

like you're saying, coming to realize

39:50

what you are good at, what you,

39:53

you know, what you're not so great at

39:55

. Yeah.

39:55

And the , the other thing is we don't have to

39:57

be good at everything either. And

40:00

that's something that I'm, I've gotten more

40:02

comfortable. I then continued to try to get more comfortable

40:04

with as an adult.

40:05

Absolutely. It's like , um,

40:08

try all the things. You don't have to love

40:10

all the things.

40:11

Yeah. And you didn't have to be able to monetize things.

40:14

That's so important. Companies are great. We

40:17

should like, you should be able to have hobbies.

40:19

You don't need to be great at anything. I mean, yeah.

40:22

If it's bringing you joy, then it's already adding

40:24

value to life.

40:26

Oh, that's great.

40:26

Yeah. Like , um,

40:28

I don't need people to pay me for my sketches.

40:31

I'm happy just doing it because yeah . It's

40:33

therapeutic.

40:34

Yeah. I really do think that like creative

40:36

work has intrinsic value and it's

40:38

very easy, I think, especially under capitalism.

40:41

And I feel like I like talking about capitalism

40:43

a lot apparently, but , um,

40:45

I think it's very easy to get into that mindset of

40:47

like, Oh, this has to serve X,

40:49

Y, or Z purpose, or it's not worth doing. And

40:52

I find that to be highly untrue.

40:54

I think that's a really bad way

40:56

of thinking because it prohibits you from

40:58

exploring how creative you can be. Yeah,

41:01

yeah. Sure .

41:02

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining me.

41:04

I feel like this has been an amazing conversation

41:06

and I'm really excited to bring it to

41:08

our listeners. Um, Shama

41:10

, thanks so much for joining me.

41:11

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited

41:13

to work together on our , on

41:16

the sketches for your podcasts.

41:19

Agreed.

41:24

so that's this week's episode of how to be creative.

41:27

As always, you can find show notes, including

41:29

a complete episode transcript and links

41:31

to everything discussed at howtobecreative.org