1: Welcome to a Blank Canvas

Well hey there, my name is Eric Doggett and welcome to something new. I am an artist based in Orlando, Florida and I wanted to create a new podcast, a new show about building a creative life. Sort of a in the trenches kind of show. I'm gonna call it the creative doghouse and I'm looking forward to a lot of fun episodes kind of talking about different challenges I've faced in creating artwork and and kind of generally being in the creative field for the last 20 years or so. So first I thought I'd start a little bit about me. As I mentioned, I'm an acrylic painter. I've been doing that for maybe eight or 10 years or so. I like paintings with lots of bright colors and just kind of funny stories. That's sort of my jam. So I like to do that and I've been enjoying that for quite a while. About two years ago, I became one of the licensed artists with Disney Fine Art. So that allows me to do paintings of different characters and rides and attractions kind of all the sort of Disney stuff that you might see in the parks. And then to sell those two collectors at various art events that Disney Fine Art puts on throughout the year. Additionally, a couple years ago, I was the first artist and residents at Skywalker Ranch. So if you've ever heard of of Skywalker Ranch, this is the famous place where a lot of the work was done for Star Wars back in the day and it's still a fully functioning ranch and still has production work happening there. They also have a really amazing winery. And so they asked me to do a painting to kind of commemorate all of the different wines they have. And that was a lot of fun to do a couple of years ago. So when I look back over the last couple years, I've, you know, I've definitely had some successes, but I've had a lot more failures to go along with it. And that's kind of the purpose of this podcast is to discuss a lot of those. I am not some sort of art guru. No, I have no, no courses, no online mentorships or anything like that. This is just me talking about things I've kind of dealt with in the creation of this work and the challenges I faced and you might be able to relate to some of those hopefully. And some of the tips I've learned along the way might help you as well. If you think like let's say you have a cool idea for an art project, this podcast to me is sort of like that messy middle. So if you've read that book by Seth Godin called the dip, he talks about how when you're starting a project, you have this incredible kind of upsurge in the beginning as you're excited about it and you're learning about things. And then you kind of go over this crest and you start to go down into the dip where, you know, it's full with, with doubt and and you're not really sure if the project's going to work. But if you can make it through that, on the other side, you start to get upward momentum again. And that continues until the completion of the project where you look back and you know, you feel with pride and all that. So I really consider this podcast down in that sort of messy middle dip area, if you will. Right. So let's talk about the schedule in terms of how these podcasts are going to go. I think each episode I would like to talk a little bit about what I'm kind of currently working on and some of the challenges and the, you know, lessons learned associated with that, maybe some useful takeaways or tips or techniques that have kind of, I've come across in that time. And I'd also like to talk about something that's, you know, maybe interesting. I'll call it like an interesting spark for the, for the episode that is motivating me and it might be something that also helps motivate you for, for your work. All right. So let's talk about what I'm currently working on, which goes along with the title of this episode. Welcome to a blank canvas. So I'm currently starting on a brand new painting for Disney Fine Art and I'm, I'm staring at a blank canvas in a way. It's digital, but it's, but it's still blank. I've done about 19 original paintings for them so far. And it's been all the characters, you know, in different locations and different rides. What I haven't done yet is people in that environment. And I thought it might be fun to do a painting of, of the band. So if you're ever like walking down Main Street at Magic Kingdom, every so often you'll see like a little marching band come by and it's got a, you know, couple trumpets, couple of trombones, the tuba and a little percussion session or section. And they just kind of come down Main Street playing their music and that's a lot of fun. They get a lot of cheers and it's just really cool thing to see. And I have, I get to see a painting that features those musicians. So I thought it'd be really cool to do that. The challenge with this that has a taste that I'm facing is I don't draw people that often. And so I found myself kind of doing multiple versions of, of people trying to figure out proportions and heads and how I want the bodies to look. It's almost like I'm trying to force a style upon it. Like I want to know what this style is so that going forward every future painting involving people for the rest of time has this look. This is kind of what's going on in my head. I'm annoyed a little bit by this fact that I have that I have this this thing going on. And what it causes me to do is it causes me to continually kind of work on it and then leave it for a day or two and then come back to it. And then I'm making all of these adjustments as if everything I've done up to that point is incorrect. And I'm fixing things and this process has been continuing often on for a while while working on this. And this is not new for me. I mean, it's like every time I start something with figures, which I've done multiple times, multiple starts in a way over the last several years. I find that I'm my brain kind of like stops and turns into like a committee meeting where these competing sides that all want to say in it. And I'm back and forth, back and forth trying to figure out the direction of this. So that's what I'm currently working on that struggles. I'm having with it. I think the interest I have in it is for multiple reasons. I mean, of course it's Disney number one. So those are fun to paint also as my interest in music. So I played a lot of instruments growing up and my grandfather actually had like a I guess you call it like a big band orchestra back in the 40s or so. So music's always been a part of the family. And and this is a I guess in a way a picture that kind of brings all of that together. So I'm going to keep moving forward on it. So let's talk about a useful thing or like a takeaway that that's happened during this process of the last week or two. I found myself going through a lot of art books that cover that mid-century style and and finding a lot of inspiring images that can kind of help, you know, direct me and to have a look like that. Because that's kind of really my I guess if I were to draw people that that's really hard want it to look to have that sort of mid-century vibe. So a book I'm looking at right now or I've looked at a lot. It's almost actually like the Bible for me on this in some ways is called cartoon modern style and design and 50s animations. And it's written by someone named a mead a meadie which I might be pronouncing that wrong. A mead a meadie a meadie. And the last name last name is a meadie. It's just a great book that has a lot of history in terms of different productions that happened during the 50s and how those art pieces came about. And if that's the kind of style you like like I do it's a great reference for that. So I would encourage you to look at different books to help you get out of a rut if you're looking at trying to create something new and you kind of need like a style reference for that. There's always something to be learned from art books to kind of go along with that. Something I've been doing on this is I will take photos of those pages from the book and bring him into Photoshop and I'll just trace right over them for a while. All sorts of different photos from different artists in that book. And I know there's probably a group out there that's like, oh, tracing is, you know, it's bad. It's horrible. You shouldn't do it. But for me, it really helps get my mind in the mode that I need to be in. I feel like to create that type of work. So even though I'm not going to use those, you know, those drawings exactly it's still helping me understand proportions and style for, you know, that timeframe of artwork. So it's very beneficial to do that. Let's talk about I don't call it like an interesting spark, you know, something that's kind of inspiring for me. So of course, if you happen to be in more than the Orlando area. So I can, I can be at Magic Kingdom pretty, you know, pretty often. And if you happen to be there, be there. And you see the band coming by. That was an inspiration for me for creating this. So definitely if you're at that park, you know, keep an eye out for them. Also, if you're in, if you're in the area, Epcot is having their festival of the arts, starting shortly. And this is an art festival that runs for several weeks, actually, and they basically align the entire park with artists all the way around. And it's just a great place to see a lot of different styles, styles, a lot of different types of work. And kind of see what motivates people, what, what films or what characters inspire them. So this will be the first year that I have a booth there. And my days there are February 4 through 9th. So if you happen to be in the park during that time, feel free to swing on by it. I will probably be over in the Mexico Pavilion area with the, with the Disney fine art booth there. All right. So that pretty much wraps up this quick first episode next episode. I'm going to talk about whether or not, you know, the painting actually broke through the break, the blank canvas phase or not, if I'm still, you know, negotiating with it. We'll see. But I will definitely have an update for you on that episode. In the meantime, if you have a question on anything or you have some ideas of something you'd like me to cover for a future episode, feel free to email me at podcast at the creative doghouse.com. That's podcast at the creative doghouse.com. All right, thank you so much. Take care.