Show Notes:
Get over 50% off your first year on artist website with FASO:
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On this episode we interviewed Sarah Sedwick, a prolific realist oil painter based in Eugene, Oregon who has a deep love of still life and portraiture, as well as teaching and mentoring. We discussed what really got her started as an artist, her incredibly informative book "Dynamic Still Life for Artists", and some useful thoughts on choosing the right pigments to help your painting look put together. Finally, we spoke about her marketing tips, social media tips, and her upcoming workshops!
Check out Sarah's FASO site:
https://www.sarahsedwick.com/
Follow Sarah on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/sedwickstudio/
Become Sarah's Mentee:
https://www.sarahsedwick.com/page/12354/online-mentorship-program
Buy Sarah's book "Dynamic Still Life for Artists":
https://a.co/d/6t8T15S
Use Sarah's special code to get a discount on Raymar Panels:
https://www.raymarart.com/
use code SEDWICK15
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Transcript:
Sarah Sedwick: 0:00
Momentum is really, really, I think the most important thing to an art practice whatever level you're at whether you never want anyone to see your work, or whether you want to end up in a museum someday, if you don't have momentum, you don't have anything. And so how to jumpstart and then maintain momentum is a critical aspect of our artistic practice. And how we each hack ourselves to have that momentum is really fascinating to me. And so I wrote about that in the book.
Laura Arango Baier: 0:38
Welcome to the BoldBrush show, where we believe that fortune favors the bold brush. My name is Laura Arango Baier, and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast. We are a podcast that covers art marketing techniques, and all sorts of business tips specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers as well as others who are in careers tied to the art world in order to hear their advice and insights. On this episode, we interviewed Sara Sedwick, a prolific realist oil painter based in Eugene, Oregon, who has a deep love of still life and portraiture, as well as teaching and mentoring. We discussed what really got her started as an artist, her incredibly informative book dynamic still life for artists, and some useful thoughts on choosing the right pigments to help your painting look put together. Finally, we spoke about her marketing tips, social media tips and her upcoming workshops. All right, well, welcome Sarah to the BoldBrush show. How are you today?
Sarah Sedwick: 1:35
I'm doing really well, Laura, thank you for having me. Of course,
Laura Arango Baier: 1:39
I'm so excited because I've been wanting to reach out to you for a while and then I especially wanted to reach out to you after I saw your Tarot painting series, which we chatted a bit about before we started recording. But before we jump into your awesome work, I would really love for you to tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Sarah Sedwick: 2:01
Great. I'm excited for the opportunity. So I have I'm Sarah Sedwick and you can find me on Instagram at Sedwick studio. I am an oil painter mostly still life. I love to paint portrait figure I do a little landscape here and there just to keep things spicy, but most of my teaching workshops is centered around still life painting. And I've been doing this for Well, I've been teaching workshops for 10 years, and I've been painting and selling paintings online for 1516 years since 2008. I think I've been an active Instagram users since maybe 2000. Sincerely Yeah. So since maybe await also around that time. I yeah, like I said, I'm a still life painter. But I'm a really passionate teacher. I teach one to two workshops a month and I go all over the country and hopefully Europe in 2024. So I just I really love it. You know what was? So super interesting was when I first started teaching, I kind of had no idea that I was going to be stumbling into my life passion, like my, my mission in life. I was having some local shows I was painting making my work, I was having little shows. And then people around town I live in Eugene, Oregon, by the way, which is a town where everybody already thinks they're an artist, and nobody needs to learn anything from me, trust me. But it's a sweet, it's a sweet town with a very, very bad art scene. Not as in all the artists are bad, just as in there are no galleries here. It's just not very cosmopolitan in that way. But so people around town started asking me well do you teach? And I would say, Well, no. Why do you ask kept happening to me enough that I thought maybe I should try teaching and God bless the owners of both my local art center, nonprofit and local art supply store locally owned family owned art supply store. It's like a unicorn in the world. Both gave me the opportunity to teach my first painting classes. And I did and this was just introduction to oil painting for anybody that wants to try to oil paint. And I had so much fun with it. It was great. And what ended up happening was I would post about those classes on Facebook. Because 10-15 years ago, Facebook was a really great way to promote yourself and get your name out there and have and get seen without having to pay. And so I started getting invitations from private studios around the US and like I always love to say I don't often say no to invitations, I like to go to new places. I like to go teach at new studios. And I started saying yes to things. And I started going all over the place. And since then I, I wish I could tell you, I wish I had a number of how many different places I've taught out. But I know that I've probably taught already at least 10 workshops this year, and I have two or three more on my books. I just got back from a fantastic weekend in Salt Lake City, great studio there. Workshop s LLC. And before that I was in the Hudson River Valley, at Hudson River Valley art workshops, it was a retreat style workshop, which is so different, I don't do enough of those, they are so fantastic. Five days, and all meals included, and everybody was staying there. And when everybody is staying in the place, there's just this kind of, I mean, if the group is weird, it turns into like a strange reality TV show. But the group was, they were amazing. So they were like taking their after dinner wine back into the studio and hanging out and I was in bed and I was hearing them like laughing down in the studio. It was so wonderful. And by the end of five days, we had we put up like our own little art show and had our own little opening. Because we made so many paintings and five days, we couldn't not do that. So it was just it was so fun. Anyway, I can't say enough about how when teaching came into my life, I realized that it was my calling. And you know, before that, I thought that, you know, just painting was my calling and painting is certainly something that I've been doing my entire life. I started drawing as early as you possibly could hold a pencil and was always obsessed with it. But But yeah, I didn't I never saw the teaching thing coming.
Laura Arango Baier: 6:54
Yeah, well, sometimes, you know, we choose our, our path and then a path chooses us. You know, that's the magic of life to where like you just do what you do. And then life gives you an opportunity to do something else that maybe you never imagined. But it turns out, it's freaking amazing. And that's the magic of life, we're
Sarah Sedwick: 7:13
able to say yes, when life comes along in that way. And I'm well aware that if you pack your life with so many things and you pack your life with so many yeses, you won't have the capacity to say Yes, next time life brings you something good. So um, I mean, I'm aware of that. I don't say yes to everything anymore. Yeah, it's really critical. Because you know, if you say yes to absolutely everything, when that perfect opportunity comes along, you won't be able to say yes, and that's a heartbreaker. I don't have a personal story about that. But I'm, I'm aware of it. So I, I do say no to some things now, but not too many things. Yeah,
Laura Arango Baier: 7:51
it's a it's a balance, um, gotta have a plate that isn't too full or too empty, I guess in our lives, if that makes sense. But what I find interesting, too, is you know, you you already knew, right? I had asked you or I sent you the questions ahead of time, of course. And in in one of the questions that I asked was, when did you decide that this was the path for you? Actually got when, when did you decide that? Hey, I'm just gonna go all in with painting.
Sarah Sedwick: 8:21
Ah, so I went to art school, and at Maryland Institute College of Art, which was a wonderful, beautiful art school to attend. graduated in 2001. And then I have what I consider my quarter life crisis, I really had a hard time beginning my art career after art school, because I just had a lot of bad ideas about you know, back then 25 years ago, it was like the traditional gallery system or bust. Facebook didn't exist, smartphones didn't exist. Digital cameras were barely accessible to art students during that time. And I had very little faith that I was going to make it either as an illustrator, which is what I was trained to do, or in this traditional gallery system, which would have been my dream because I wasn't very good at painting large. And I didn't really know what my subject would be outside of illustration. It was a really, really confusing time and I was the most challenging time of my life, my 20s my early 20s. What ended up happening was after a few years of kind of floundering around that I would have these like, bored of attempts to keep, you know, starting painting. I set the bar too high for myself every time you know, especially this big canvas and I'd spend all this time on it and then I sit there and just look at it. It was like I don't know I always intended to paint but I didn't and what really broke the dam and freed me up was when I discovered The Daily painting movement. So daily painting is movement of artists who are bloggers who got started about 20 years ago. And they painted small and often paint, paint small paint often paid daily. And it was mostly still life based. And when I discovered that the stakes could be lower, really freed me up. So I started doing that. And I had, I had been drawn to still life painting before. Because I think it's a great way to get symbolism into your work without having to over explain it. Abstract painters always have to explain, you know, they always have to say, well, I, this is about my mother and our fraught relationship. And this still, like paintings can say that on their own lot of times, and one of my favorite questions to ask people when they approach my work is, what does it remind you of, and a lot of times, even just the color scheme will be reminding someone of something. And that is another thing that I love about still life so much is that with color scheme, I have carte blanche, I am not sucked into the kind of traditional tans and browns and whatever clothing drapery you have and a portrait greens, and browns and blues and whatever whether you have in a landscape, but in still life, I can have any color combination I want. And I really take advantage of that. So I started doing daily painting, and it broke me out of my funk and set me off. It just freed me it it brought me back to myself. And my mission in life ever since that happened, has been has apparently been has been shown to me to be to help other people who've been away from painting for a long time come back to it. So people come to my workshops regularly, older women 60 ish retirement age, who say I haven't painted in 20 years, I haven't painted in 35 years, I raised a family I had a career, I was an engineer, I was a doctor, I did this. I mean, I meet amazing, amazing people who wanted to paint I loved painting when they were young and then left it behind. For the same reasons that I considered possibly not pursuing it when I was that age, and now they're ready to do it. But they're super intimidated and making them feel comfortable and easing their path. Back into the art making is like the most rewarding aspect of everything that I do.
Laura Arango Baier: 12:51
Wow. You're almost like a midwife that for painting.
Sarah Sedwick: 12:57
I consider myself an extremely unqualified art therapist. Hmm. And besides that my workshops are fun. I said, my workshops are for painters of all levels. And there's always someone that walks in on the first day and says, I don't belong here. I'm the one that doesn't belong here. And I say, good to know, okay, well, I am going to sit you guys all down. And we're going to introduce ourselves to each other. And I guarantee you that like there's like three or four other people in this room that feel the exact same way you do. And I'm going to reassure you that I don't believe in beginner's luck. I love to have early painters in every group, because early painters don't know they don't have bad programming to overcome. They don't have any idea how much oil paint costs yet. So they just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. And they're malleable. So I sit them all down, I find out who thinks they're a beginner, I find out who thinks they don't belong here. I find out who's never oil painted before. And then I've got painters who've been working for 30 years and they got their own issues. But by the end of the weekend, and then I forget it all I forget it all I write it all down and take little notes I forget at all. I treat everybody the same. I expect everybody to perform up to the same standard. And by the end of the weekend, the more experienced painters are always always jealous of what the people who came in afraid.
Laura Arango Baier: 14:26
Yes, yeah. It's happens
Sarah Sedwick: 14:29
in every one of my workshops. And that's that we'll never I'll never offer an advanced painting workshop. I don't want that I want all levels influencing each other, also so that these students can learn from one another. I firmly believe that in a workshop environment and I'm so glad that the in person workshop came back after COVID I was worried. You know the Zoom workshops. They were so convenient. They were so accessible. It was a great option for us during the pandemic. And then I started to worry, you know, what if people don't want to go back to what we were doing before? Yeah, but it's quite obvious that they really, really are hungry for it. And here comes another cat.
Laura Arango Baier: 15:20
You want that's okay. Oh,
Sarah Sedwick: 15:25
my desk is just the path. Um, I was worried that it wasn't going to come back. But it has absolutely come back. And the wonderful thing about it is it's group energy. It's like group exercise class, you could do yoga by yourself at your house. But how much better? Does it feel to go to the yoga studio and do yoga with the energy in the room? Exactly. Yeah, you learn more from the other students, and particularly in my workshops, because the way I like to set them up is I've got four or five artists around one still life stage, I set them up kind of like coffee, table height, and you've got a couple of different vignettes on the table. So you're not necessarily choosing what's right in front of you. But you've got options to pick from, but chances are someone across the table is also painting what you're painting. So during the critique, at the end of the day, you see how another artist handled with their own fingerprint, the thing that you were painting that day, and it's just, I don't know, I love I love it. I love what I do. Oh,
Laura Arango Baier: 16:29
I mean, it shows it comes through. And I love that there's nothing better than a teacher who actually loves teaching. I think it makes it so much better for everyone that's involved. So I appreciate you.
Sarah Sedwick: 16:44
Thank you. I don't even know that I like the word teacher anymore. I don't even know that I feel like that. I feel like I'm just sort of a sharer now I have all this information, and I just want to share it.
Laura Arango Baier: 17:01
Yeah, yeah. And you know, that's traditionally the way that it's done, you just pass it on, you pass on what you've learned to others who maybe need that information as well. So
Sarah Sedwick: 17:12
and I do mentoring, I do mentor artists online. And I have been since 2016. So way before the pandemic, I was doing art mentoring, I have openings in my program now as well. It's very individualized. But some of my mentees are teachers themselves, or they are beginning to dip their toes into teaching. And I encourage all my mentees if they want to, to put themselves out there in that way, because the truth is teaching is an entirely selfish act. You, you get what from here to here, really, by giving what's here to somebody else. And, and then it it's cemented inside you. So I don't encourage my mentees to become teachers, I encourage them to just dip a toe in the water, share what they know, teach a class, give it a try. Because there's nothing that is actually more selfish that you could ever do for yourself as a maker as far as learning about your own process and your own thinking than distilling it and giving it to someone else in a little package.
Laura Arango Baier: 18:23
Theory. Holy crap. That's so true. And I have experience with that as well. Because when I was in school, I was a, an algebra tutor for like four or five years. And it was exactly that it's like you have to know the thing. Better than then you think, right? You have to really know it. And by teaching someone, it forces you to actually learn it deeply. And then to top it off, you know, when that person is succeeding and doing great. You feel great. It's so it is I agree, it's totally selfish.
Sarah Sedwick: 18:58
And you only really need to be one step ahead of your students.
Laura Arango Baier: 19:04
Yeah, I mean, I was a kid teaching them so. So I mean, I was barely like, passed Algebra Two. And I was like, okay, okay, I can teach, I can do this. And, thankfully, it's cemented algebra pretty well into my head. So I'm still quite good at algebra, which can be useful when you're stretching canvases and reside, resizing stuff so
Sarah Sedwick: 19:29
amazing. I should have thought of that, then I'm terrible at math to this day.
Laura Arango Baier: 19:35
Okay, I mean, you really only need the basics anyway.
Sarah Sedwick: 19:37
I don't scratch my own canvases. And I have lots of tables and charts that tell me how to size up from an eight by 10 to a nine by 12 in sand format, but no, I bought all my own canvases. Make thing that's really when you pay more. It's just not worth the time. True. I don't have a woodshop if I Did I don't think I'd have 10 fingers anymore? Yeah, it wouldn't be it wouldn't be a smart idea to unleash me on any kind of saw. So no, I don't make panels. I am sponsored by Raymar panels. Yes, a woman
Laura Arango Baier: 20:18
owned
Sarah Sedwick: 20:18
women owned family owned business made in the USA out of Phoenix. You cannot get any better than that. And as many of you know, who have ordered from Raymar when you order from Emily, you get a handwritten thank you note in every box. It's beautiful. Yeah, um, I will offer your listeners right now. If you would like to try ordering from Raymar if you use the code Sedwick 15. That's my last names SEDWICK 15 in all caps, you will get 15% off your whole order.
Laura Arango Baier: 20:52
I wish I could do that. If I was in the United States. I would totally do it.
Sarah Sedwick: 20:56
Yeah, I don't I don't know about Europe. Shipping is so crazy. But what I use from them are, I paint on canvas. I'm not a limited painter. I don't like panel and I don't like linen. I like tooth. I paint on arches oil paper and Raymar makes a panel that's comes coated with artists oil paper already, which is just fantastic. And I paint on that and I paint on their smooth and medium textured cotton canvases. But I don't paint on linen. Just
Laura Arango Baier: 21:26
interesting. This guy right here. This little guy right here. That's a that's a Raymar but it's it's an oil primed, like it's double oil, primed linen. And I understand why you wouldn't like it. I mean, I personally didn't like it when I started using it because it's so slippery. Yeah, it's so slippery. Exactly. But when you get used to it, it's very It's very nice for very delicate detail if that's like what you're after. If you're not then I agree cotton and the Arsh paper super great. Super great for texture.
Sarah Sedwick: 22:00
Yeah, and I use the artist paper artist oil paper. Not volunteered for a lot of my workshop studies a lot of what you see on my Instagram is workshop demonstrations. And we do a lot of 20 minute paintings in my workshops which scare the hell out of some people and really you know push some people to the next level but the point is it's a warm up and it's a the timer is just a wonderful way to access the happy accident factory. So we do it and I use artist oil paper when I paint on those kinds of things. But so we were talking about product so I guess I love a love Raymar those particularly they're 23 S S C smooth cotton panels are my favorite and I also paint with em Graham oils, they're my preferred oils of choice. I don't think I've heard of them. Am gram
Laura Arango Baier: 23:09
Yeah, no I only i mean i honestly I only because I studied at academic schools usually stick to like Windsor Newton Michael Harding or old Holland because they're like they have like those classic colors in there and the very I mean not so much Windsor Newton anymore because they they got bought off so the quality is questionable now I guess. But yeah, but Michael Harding and old Holland at least have very good quality and stills classical colors. So
Sarah Sedwick: 23:43
definitely the earth tones the really is really well made earth tones. I think that's fantastic. I actually don't paint with tube brown myself at all. Interested I sometimes I'll use some raw sienna, I do like Yellow Ochre. But aside from that, I am not painting with brown. I I mentioned to you that limited palette I did with the the raw number that was different. That was me using a brown as a red in a limited palette. And that was the only thing when I paint with my full palette. I don't use to Brown I think it's just bringing an unnecessary pigment to the party. It's like inviting someone to the party that nobody else knows. And it's not there's no point. Who are they going to talk to? What I always say is families need or I'm sorry, humans need two parents and rainbows need three parents. And that's a red, yellow and a blue. And as close knit as you can keep the family have your palette when you're painting the better off you are. So I paint with a split primary palette, two reds to yellows, two blues plus two bonus colors, which is an extra blue and an extra yellow and then Mmm, maybe a couple of other things to spice it up I'm a little bit addicted to radiant violet by gambling and I'm a little bit addicted to warm white that gambling makes also, but I don't I mean they're they're nice to have they're not need to have and so I've got two yellows, two reds, two blues, my bonus colors are yellow ochre and ivory black, that's my extra yellow and my extra blue. You don't have to have them, you can certainly mix them. I take a little bit of every one of those pigments except white, and I mix a brown. And so I have a brown eye palette but my brown is related to everyone Brown is like everyone's favorite uncle then not an interloper. The palette has got to be unified. And for me this is insurance against mud. It's it's important to me, I and especially because the brown pigments you know, they're earthtones Earth pigments. They're grainy, they've all got their own texture they are individual to deal with and across brands. They can be quite different. I got tired of dealing with that. And so I stopped using tube Brown. I make my own
Laura Arango Baier: 26:11
That's understandable. Yeah, I'm personally unlimited palettes. I literally only use four pigments. That's it. And I'm happy with that. Well I use right now I'm like kind of shifting around but typically I would use C for million extra yellow brown from where are they from old Holland. I use titanium white, even though I know some people think it's very chalky, but honestly, if someone can give me like a really nice white that isn't toxic. I'll take it. And if you know any, please let me know. And then my black is actually Mars Black, which is a warm blue. I might switch it out though because I really like vandyke brown, which some people think is brown but it's actually more like a neutral sort of blue. It's very interesting. But I'm definitely a for pigment. limited palette verson which you can play around with it's so much more than people think like you can switch out like the Vermillion for a cat red if you want like a really powerful like, right red and then add cat yellow if you want. So you have your two cards for those bright Poppy yellows and then you have like if you want like a deep deep like blue then for sure you can get every black which is I mean that makes sense it would fit in perfectly to especially because no lizard in the cabins are such slow dryers as well as the ivory black like they're all still dryers so they might get along.
Sarah Sedwick: 27:45
I love ivory black. I always have it on my palette. I don't use it a ton depending on what the subject is that I'm painting. But if I'm painting the subject of green heavy, like let's say I'm painting a house plant, which I love to do, I love my house plants. My favorite recipe for dark green is IV black and yellow. And I really would like to use Hansa yellow, they're anti yellow is a super transparent yellow. That's pretty close to like a cad yellow light and hue but it's completely transparent. So it'll make really dark mixtures.
Laura Arango Baier: 28:22
Oh, I love that. Oh, love to try that out. I love that too. Awesome.
Sarah Sedwick: 28:27
No, I actually don't paint with CAD lemon. And I get this question a lot. I think you know, CAD lemon is so opaque and I've already got cad yellow and Cad Red Light, generally kept red light on my palette. I don't need another bruiser in the opacity department over there sitting sitting with the yellows, I need some access to dark yellow, or dark, dark green, dark. Whatever yellow is going to do neutralize my purples mixed greens for me. I need a transparent yellow.
Laura Arango Baier: 29:02
Make sense? Yeah. Yeah, does and I
Sarah Sedwick: 29:05
think a lot of it's a difficult concept and it's not one. So I do introduce the concept of opacity and transparency in paint in my workshops, but I recognize that this is like a next level thing. This isn't what you need to go to a workshop to learn. But I introduced it using the yellows because the difference between the two yellows that I use cadmium yellow medium, and hence the yellow is so vast when it comes to opacity transparency. So what I do to demonstrate this is I'm holding up my demo palette. When I would take some Hansa and I take some CAD and I mix Ultramarine into both of them. You mix Ultramarine into your CAD you get a nice olive army green. You mix that Ultramarine into your Hansa, you get a beautiful sea green, dark bear because ultimately as transparent but I love doing that demonstration and beyond that I don't get a whole whole lot more into the chemistry of paints and I, I would go recommend that anybody that's interested really interested in these kinds of topics like the Dorking out on the chemistry of paint to read my good friend Todd and Casey's books. He's got two books, art of still life and the oil painters color handbook. And they're both phenomenal when it comes to those kinds of topics.
Laura Arango Baier: 30:32
Yeah, yeah. BoldBrush We inspire artists to inspire the world. Because creating art creates magic. And the world is currently in desperate need of magic. BoldBrush provides artists with free art marketing, creativity, and business ideas and information. This show is an example. We also offer written resources, articles and a free monthly art contest open to all visual artists. We believe that fortune favors the bold brush. And if you believe that to sign up completely free, a BoldBrush show.com. That's B OLDBRUSH show.com. The BoldBrush Show is sponsored by FASO. Now more than ever, it's crucial to have a website when you're an artist, especially if you want to be a professional in your career. Thankfully, with our special link faso.com forward slash podcast, you can make that come true. And also get over 50% off your first year on your artists website. Yes, that's basically the price of 12 lattes in one year, which I think is a really great deal considering that you get sleek and beautiful website templates that are also mobile friendly e commerce print on demand in certain countries, as well as access to our marketing center that has our brand new art marketing calendar. And the art marketing calendar is something that you won't get with our competitor. The art marketing calendar gives you day by day step by step guides on what you should be doing today, right now in order to get your artwork out there and seen by the right eyes so that you can make more sales this year. So if you want to change your life and actually meet your sales goal this year, then start now by going to our special link FASO.com forward slash podcast. That's s a s o.com forward slash podcast. That's awesome. And actually one more brand that I do because I just remembered one more brand that I do use and have tried out is Cranfield. And so far it's been it's been really good there. What I like about it is that I am the type of person who doesn't like to use a lot of medium in my paintings because there's that whole dilemma of fat over lean and then also the dilemma of like, if you use too much medium, then your painting can't take any more mediums. So I'm very minimalist when it comes to medium, the less is better. And I noticed that the Cranfield paint, I literally have to use almost zero medium at all the entire time, which is very nice. It's very loose. It's very creamy, like the consistency is like tight enough for like, you can use spread it out nicely without it like being liquid, which is nice. But at the same time, it's still manageable enough for like you don't need
Sarah Sedwick: 33:08
to try em gram.
Laura Arango Baier: 33:11
I'll see. I'll try them. gram
Sarah Sedwick: 33:13
is made with walnut oil, that's their distinction walnut oil instead of linseed oil. And they are it is also a really loose paint without sacrificing any opacity, where it's you know where it's necessary. Cranfield never heard of it, I will check it out
Laura Arango Baier: 33:30
there. They're British. I actually interviewed them on the podcast couple years ago to talk about their paint. And I tried out their paint and it's, I definitely love it. I still have an I have it for like my future stuff too. Because I'm like, ooh, they gave me like the limited palette version of like what I was using. And it was very nice. I liked it. And then you mentioned books, and I actually wanted to talk to you about your book, because you had a book come out last year. Right. So that's the dynamics to life for artists. And for our listeners. She's grabbing a copy of it right now.
Sarah Sedwick: 34:10
Life for artists.
Laura Arango Baier: 34:12
Mm hmm. What which it looks amazing. And you're welcome. I think it's, you know, one of the other topics that I think isn't mentioned enough. Oh, I love that. Want to get a copy of it?
Sarah Sedwick: 34:29
On Amazon all over the world.
Laura Arango Baier: 34:31
Yeah. And it's reasonably priced, which I love. And it seems like it's packed with a ton of information, which makes it awesome. But the one thing I love about it also is it's it's on a topic that isn't really discussed enough I think in painting which is like composition, essentially, the C the C word composition, which not many people you know, discuss enough in my opinion in the art world I'm so I appreciate it. Do you mind telling us what inspired you to write this book?
Sarah Sedwick: 35:06
My workshops 100%. In my workshops, we talk about composition. I have students do thumbnails in almost all of my workshops, thumbnail sketches, I teach them what thumbnail sketches are, I teach them why they need to do them. I teach them several ways to make them. But look, my I know that a lot of people roll their eyes and really get resistance when people bring up thumbnail sketches. Because the way that they may have been taught to us previously, it just wasn't that fun. And it didn't seem useful. It seemed like either tedious busy work or not, not helpful, or, or something. You know, for example, if someone had told me that the only way that I could ever do thumbnail sketches was in vine, charcoal, I would never have made another thumbnail sketch again. I hate buying charcoal, you know, you you need to be able to do your preparatory sketches in a medium that you personally enjoy. And you can do it in anything. I've got a mentee, she does her thumbnail sketches on a whiteboard, photograph them and then raises. It's like a beautiful thing. I think it's so inspiring. But composition is really simple. Okay, composition. What is it? What makes a composition good. So imagine you walk into a gallery and you see a painting all the way across the room, 30 feet away, and you want to go look at it, you're drawn to it, why you don't even know what it's painting of yet necessarily. It's that abstract combination of value shapes, that makes you want to go and look at it. And then you get closer and closer and closer, you realize maybe what it's a painting of, and then you get close enough to see and your eye gets drawn into the canvas somewhere in a certain spot. And that's the focal point. The focal point is not the subject of the painting by default, everybody thinks, oh, okay, I'm gonna make a painting of some lemons in a bowl, and then that's going to be my focal point. And I'm like, Yeah, that's really nice. But unless you create a whole lot of contrast around your lemons in the bowl, they will not be the focal point, the focal point is an effect of contrast. So absolutely, you can manipulate the viewer to focus first enter your painting, wherever you want them to, but you're not doing it with the subject of the painting, you're doing it with contrast. So what we do, and then there's this thing that's called the rule of thirds, where you have a grid thirds grid on your painting. This is very, very basic, and a lot of people disagree with it. But I think as far as a teaching tool, it's useful. You place your focal point in one of those spots where the rule of thirds lines intersect each other. And you can't really go wrong. You're well enough inside the canvas, that you're not leading the viewer out my my screen right now is doing lots of bad things. compositionally, I have these lines going right out of the corners. Hopefully, I'm intriguing enough to keep your attention in the screen. But I should keep my face right here in the one point Yeah, and have high contrast, which I hope I do to put on lipstick. The point is, the subject of your painting will not be the focal point by default. And the as that person is coming across the gallery from 30 feet away, closer and closer, they get to your painting. That's what their eyes are going to zero in on and then you move them around, or at least you attempt to manipulate them just a little bit. And the entire point of all of this is that they stay on your painting and take it home with them instead of somebody else's. Yeah, I mean, it's not about selling necessarily. It's about obsession. It's about love. And it's about what I call long likability which is the only reason that I ever buy any painting is because it has long look ability. Something you know, that isn't just a one off beautiful thing and a painting but that there are these other little easter eggs to find as you're moving around and looking later on, though that's you know, that's what I want in a piece of art that I want to buy.
Laura Arango Baier: 39:51
Very good point. And that's all composition and it's very funny because I feel like it does No matter if you have the right colors, if you have the right this if you have the right thought it doesn't matter how accurate the painting is, if, if it's not working compositionally speaking, it's not going to work. You know? Yes, it's not going to have that likability. So, you know, composition.
Sarah Sedwick: 40:18
Yeah. So it will be, it'll be boring. It'll be basic. Yeah. And there are definitely rules of composition, that we can break on purpose. And pull it off with panache. You see it all the time and your favorite artists, you'll see if you know the rules of composition, and you'll see your favorite artists breaking them on purpose flagrantly all the time. But the one thing I don't think that you can ever escape really is the value contrast issue. You You have got to have value contrast in your work. It's gotta be somewhere or the thing just won't have well presents.
Laura Arango Baier: 41:02
Very good point. We'll have to do that.
Sarah Sedwick: 41:07
I think you've done it. I'm looking at your beautiful soul painting and it's hopping often. It is I don't have any work behind me. This is a relatively new studio and I don't have much don't have much. Yet.
Laura Arango Baier: 41:22
That's all right. I mean, if if you do mention some paintings, I'm happy to put them in the video as well. Which actually speaking of your paintings, and this is something that I was going to ask you before we started the interview, but then, you know, I decided okay, no, we should keep this in the interview. Because I think this will be fascinating. Since your work, you know, it's small and relatively quick, right? I was curious, because you know, how artists we tend to go through like, these sort of phases in our work, right? We tend to go through like maybe stylistic changes or subject or theme changes, do you feel like your work has evolved at a very rapid pace because of painting so quickly?
Sarah Sedwick: 42:04
I suppose so. I mean, if you call 10 years a rapid pace, then I guess so. But my work is always evolving. And now that I have a little bit kind of higher of a perspective over what is actually happening with me, I guess I can see it. I can kind of see it before, whereas, you know, the work I was doing 10 years ago, I have to look back on now. I wasn't thinking about it in the same way. I look back on it now and kind of say, oh, yeah, okay. There's there's a stylistic shift, there's a stylistic shift. I don't really feel stylistic shifts come on me, they just happen to me. But I can become aware of them much sooner just by having, you know, presence and you know, kind of kind of being there with the work and being aware that that kind of thing is coming. It's hard to explain. I think. I don't concern myself with actively changing my style. I don't think any artists does, I think we just do it, we just do it. Because we are either not satisfied anymore working the same way that we've used to have been, we've been exposed to a new technique that we find really energizing and intriguing. And so we want to kind of go with that. Or who knows, but. But yes, if you if you're talking about Darwin, and the evolution of the species, the more generations you have, meaning, if you're doing daily painting, if you're painting every day, your style will evolve faster than if you're making one painting a month. Absolutely. And that's why doing things like 30 day challenges is huge. Challenge, you know, painting every day is hard. It's not for the faint of heart. It really, especially if you've got to post it online, which is the really the bummer part about it. But yeah, I think daily painting separated from the need to post is probably the most important thing you could do for yourself if you want to really explode your art practice. Because you rack up a lot of work in a short period of time and then you get to step back from it and kind of say, Okay, what did I do? Where did I start? Where did I finish? It's phenomenal. It is. Yeah, it is? Yeah, I get asked a lot. And you can listen to some of my other podcasts like I've been on the learn to paint podcast, which is an amazing podcast, learn to paint podcast three or four times and one of the big questions that she asks her guests all the time is what What is one thing that you could do? What if someone asked you? How do I get really good at painting? What's one thing I could do? And everybody says, paint a lot. That's like everybody's answer. My answer is paint in black and white, black and white oil paint. Mix up five values, mix up seven values between white and black, and paint colored subjects in black and white for as long as you possibly can. I recommend six months, no one can do anything for six months. But three weeks, 10 days of only black and white painting, you will learn more about values and value relationships, and you will also improve every other aspect of painting that doesn't have to do with color, brushwork paint handling, loading the brush, what consistency of paint do I need to have? You know, how much medium do I need to add by paint? All these kinds of really important technical things get worked on then and don't know the people who've taken me up on it. Know that that's the best way to improve your painting.
Laura Arango Baier: 46:20
Hmm, actually, yeah, I mean, even in academic schools, they they have a Sony painting black and white for quite a while. I mean, it depends on the school. But for that same exact purpose, you know, it's to learn to see without immediately assuming that a brightly colored object is white, when in reality, you know, if you look at a ceiling of very red ball, you put it in black and white, that red is probably gonna be very, very dark.
Sarah Sedwick: 46:48
Exactly. It's like the lipstick on the starlets in the old black and white movie. They were all wearing fire engine red lipstick and their lips were black.
Laura Arango Baier: 46:56
Yes, yeah. Contrast,
Sarah Sedwick: 46:59
the dark value color. But that Chroma feels like light to us.
Laura Arango Baier: 47:04
Hmm, yeah, it feels like oh, it's bright. Therefore I must be really really light. Which is, you know, obviously a lie that are isometric
Sarah Sedwick: 47:11
and saturated. Therefore, it must be really, really light.
Laura Arango Baier: 47:15
Yes. Which is phenomenally interesting. Like the the world of painting is such a challenge. So I think that is really great advice. Yeah, black and white, just pure, you know, only two colors are black and white. Just
Sarah Sedwick: 47:28
drawing, I mean, actually painting, black and white paint, mix up five to seven values between white and black paint and pay with that.
Laura Arango Baier: 47:40
Yeah. 100%. I hope our listeners take that. Take that on. And also actually, I meant to ask you, what is the one thing that you would want readers to take away from your book?
Sarah Sedwick: 47:55
So good question. I do talk about black and white painting. In my book. I talk about it as a kind of preparatory step, I think for making paintings. Firstly, I would like readers to take away from my books that there was a black and white, next black away value study next to color. I would like them to take away an appreciation for the beautiful 17 Other artists contributors that I got to to put work into my book. So it's not just my work in there. It's like if there's a bunch of my friends and beautiful painters that I admire who contributed work to my books, I want people to know those artists too. But the biggest takeaway, I think, the last chapter, which is my favorite chapter that I wrote on momentum starting, I've got a section called Comparison is the thief of joy. I've got a section called finding friends and mentors. I've got a section called jump starting momentum. These are, yeah, momentum is really, really, I think the most important thing to an art practice whatever level you're at whether you never want anyone to see your work, or whether you want to end up in a museum someday. If you don't have momentum, you don't have anything. And so how to jumpstart and then maintain momentum is a critical aspect of our artistic practice. And how we each hack ourselves to have that momentum is really fascinating to me. And so I wrote about that in the book. And so that's, and that's the last chapter so you have to read the entire book to get there. But that was my favorite. My favorite part to write and I I know in my second book, I'll expound on it even more because it's a subject that I can't stop thinking about
Laura Arango Baier: 49:59
it Great subject, especially since you mentioned at the beginning, how you specifically, the people who go to your workshops, for example, or people who have that lack of momentum, right, who have stopped for a long, long time, and then it's, it must be hard for them to restart their momentum. And even for, you know, artists today, or maybe facing artists blog or on pause, um, it's, it's a really great topic. So yeah,
Sarah Sedwick: 50:25
and my second book is going to be all about loosening up your painting, but it will also have lots of exercises, specifically geared at how do I get back into the studio with, with something to do when I don't know what to do? That's a huge problem, you know, we get out of the, we haven't painted in three weeks or 30 years, and we get back into the painting space. And it's very difficult to know how to start. So I have the answer.
Laura Arango Baier: 51:01
Oh, I guess you're gonna have to get your book to get the answer.
Sarah Sedwick: 51:04
Well, I haven't even started writing the book yet. So don't get too excited. But these things do tend to go pretty fast once they get rolling. But come take a workshop from me and you will learn I will give you all of the tools that I use for breaking myself out of personal ruts loosening up my own brushwork when I feel that I'm getting too tight, because that's, you know, loose realism. My style does not come from nowhere. And it certainly didn't come out of art school painting this way I was tight. I can do photo realism, believe it or not, I think you know, I collect my pearls, but I can paint photo realism. It's and I am impressed by photo realism. It's the amount of patience that's required. It's extremely impressive. But that's pretty much where the the admiration ends. I think it's much harder to paint loosely than it is to paint. Tie tightly. And there, I have spent the last eight to 10 years, just exploring how to hack myself to get myself to put something down and just leave it alone, to leave the door open for happy accidents to let things not be finished. And it's hard, so hard not to go back in and fix and finish and finesse things. But is it really necessary if we have good instincts? If we pre mix our paint, you know, if we start with if we start with a thumbnail sketch, so we have a compositional intention? Do we really need to do that much fixing? Hmm. So it's, it's something that we all love about painting all of us that love painting, we know that it's special, because it's never ending.
Laura Arango Baier: 53:05
Exactly. It's a never ending series of problem solving have I, I mean, I have a I have two online students and I, whenever I talk to them, I always remind them like, you know, when you're painting, when you're learning to paint, which of course, you can't really worry too much about loose or not. Because at first you're just worried about accuracy. I was telling I was like you're gonna have to face your demons, you're gonna have to face the reality of things, and your own unconscious and subconscious demons that are hiding from you. And you're going to make them conscious, it's going to hurt, but it'll be worth it because it'll improve your work. And then as time goes on, you know, you'll get better and better, but it won't get easier, but you'll just get better and better at dealing with it. You know?
Sarah Sedwick: 53:55
I don't know about demons.
Laura Arango Baier: 53:56
Oh, I have saved some some demons.
Sarah Sedwick: 54:02
I'm a still life painter. We don't have too many demons. I think that's good. easier way. It's the easy side of the street paints to life I can get as demonic as I want in my symbolism. And someone will come along and say that's just lemon. Like, no, it's the devil
Laura Arango Baier: 54:23
when life gives you lemons, um, but I mean, in the sense of like, you know, you have to you have to like, face the fact that, you know, you're learning a skill, and it's not easy. And and if you can't accept that it takes learning. Hmm.
Sarah Sedwick: 54:40
Yeah, you're gonna have struggle days and you're gonna have every painting goes through the awkward stage. Every painting looks like it's never gonna be finished. Yeah, like it's never going to work
Laura Arango Baier: 54:52
or feels that way. Yeah.
Sarah Sedwick: 54:54
And I say the difference between You know, people who keep painting as an active part of their life, I don't want to say winners and losers, because I don't think of it as winners and losers. I work with a lot of adult amateurs who aren't trying to win anything. They just want to paint. And so I say the difference between people who quit painting and people who keep painting or those who can recognize that every painting is going to have that awkward stage. And what they need to do is just acknowledge that and work through it, push through it.
Laura Arango Baier: 55:30
Exactly. Yes. And it's kind of
Sarah Sedwick: 55:34
one of my paintings has an awkward stage where I just go, Oh, my God, Sarah.
Laura Arango Baier: 55:42
Oh, man, I love I love the third person. It's like, what are you doing? To myself to?
Sarah Sedwick: 55:50
In almost every one of my workshops, people asked me, Do you talk to yourself when you paint alone? Because when I'm demoing in my workshops, I'm always talking, I talk through the whole demo, or explain what I'm doing. I say I just turn on my internal monologue, I just turn up the volume and you're hearing what's in my head. And sometimes the inner critic slips out just a little bit. And I try not to let that but do I talk to myself out loud when I paint alone? A little bit, sometimes, but it's only the inner critic, but when I'm teaching is what I love, the inner critic away. And I just talked to the students and, you know, I talk them through my entire process. Here's why I'm doing this and this, encouraging them to interrupt me at every point. But I, I have, I seem to have a unique ability, I've been told anyway, that it's a unique ability to talk the entire time that I am painting. Knew that would be my superpower.
Laura Arango Baier: 56:57
It's useful. It's useful. I mean, I personally talk to myself, especially when I'm alone. At home. I just talked to myself, I like narrate what I'm going to do or like I pep talk myself, you know, I don't know if you pep talk yourself. There's no one there. It's like, personal. Yeah, yeah.
Sarah Sedwick: 57:16
It's more like we got to do this. Yeah,
Laura Arango Baier: 57:18
like during a painting as well. It's like what's going on to the song? Weird? We should we should do something about arm
Sarah Sedwick: 57:24
maybe a certain moment. That awkward stage. You know, there have been moments where I've had to say to myself, Sarah, this is just the awkward stage. You're gonna get through this. Or you could just quit or you could scrape and go back in. I mean, I have lots of ideas for myself. I don't like my I don't always like my ideas, but I have them. So yeah, I love that.
Laura Arango Baier: 57:52
Yes, self talk is so you know, some people might say it's crazy. actually Googled it. It's perfectly normal to talk to yourself.
Sarah Sedwick: 58:03
Highly Sensitive, highly intelligent, artistic people we can get away with so much.
Laura Arango Baier: 58:09
Yes. People just say we're crazy. It's like, No, I'm an artist. Oh. Oh, man. But I'm to continue on because I really want to ask you about some marketing stuff. Because I think you're extremely successful. I mean, if you've been selling for as long because I already knew is like, okay, she's been selling online for a while, but this is like, a long time. So you've been longer. Yeah, he'd been out the game. Since before it was a game basically, for people. You know, like the Instagram game, the website selling all of this. So it's really old, huh? No, you're making me feel really old. Tension. The intention is experience. You have so much experience. So it's like oh, man,
Sarah Sedwick: 58:56
like yeah, when I first started selling my daily paintings, it was on eBay. And I still know some people who are still selling on eBay and liking it. Why not? I started on Ebay. I did a little bit of eBay and then I moved to Etsy. I am sorry, Etsy. You have become the man you are now evil. When Etsy went public, they became evil. I would not recommend anybody sell any independent artists sell on Etsy. Stay away from Etsy.
Laura Arango Baier: 59:31
Okay, what why is that?
Sarah Sedwick: 59:34
They've implemented a lot of really punitive measures against their sellers. Putting holds on your money forcing you to not charge shipping, or you won't show up in their organic search. I can go on, but I won't stay away from Etsy. Got it? Shopify, no, make a Shopify website. I love selling through my FAFSA website. I Um, you know, I still have an Etsy shop. So people will be like, Oh, she's a hypocrite. The only reason that I still have an Etsy shop is because I've had one since 2008. And there is almost nothing that I have had that long that I still have. But what I use my Etsy shop for is it's like my garage sale. It's all have like, some sketches and some studio seconds in there. And, you know, maybe there'll be 75 bucks, maybe there'll be 200 bucks or something like just my my sort of things I wouldn't put on my FAFSA website, go on and got it. But but the main, if I'm selling something myself, that's studio quality piece, then usually I sell it either through Instagram, or I post it on my FASO website, Sarah sedwick.com. And then it's up for sale there. I love the selling tools that FASO has. Yeah, just very easily right through PayPal.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:00:53
Yeah. And I think they have striped to just nice. few options. Yeah. Yeah. And then also, you have so many followers on Instagram, I think it's like 155,000, which is like, No,
Sarah Sedwick: 1:01:08
it's 100. Really 122
Laura Arango Baier: 1:01:12
Oh, my God, maybe it's my dyslexia. It's still over 100,000, which is amazing. Um, so I was wondering, do you have any advice or any tips? And also, do you think social media is even important at all for artists?
Sarah Sedwick: 1:01:32
Yes, I do. And yes, I do. Social media is very important for artists, I think one of the biggest things is it builds community amongst us. And we are the ones who are going to give each other chances. You know, you network with someone who's about to open a gallery in a city you don't live in, you don't even know that person's about to open a gallery, but then they become your best selling representative. That happens online. You just taught your first local workshop, you weren't even really that sure how it went, but you posted pictures from it on your Instagram, and then someone contacts you through that. And the next thing you know, you're teaching 10 workshops out of town a year. You are just making friends with other artists. A lot of us don't have artists, friends who are in our local sphere. We don't have other people and then so you know, maybe you guys start a zoom group where you get together once a month, and you just paint and then you throw them all up on a Dropbox board and look at them and have a group critique. I mean, there the possibilities are endless. We can still use social media for the good. Me having a lot of followers right now look, my follower count has been stagnant for two or three years has not changed. It was really fun watching the numbers go up. I think I had 3000 follower I hit 3000 followers. That was my big one in 2017. And then everything went exponentially. So for me, hitting 3000 was the slingshot and then it just went exponentially very quickly up to 100,000. I have not paid for followers. I think that the secret to me getting a lot of followers has been a I follow a lot of people I interact with Instagram, I interact with the people that I follow I follow some 5000 people I post I posted a lot I haven't been posting as much lately I've been a little bit over it I but the way to get more followers on Instagram is a to be there all the time interacting, interacting every comment that you get on your post and then post a lot not four times a day, but once a day for years and that's what I've been doing. And now I'm kind of backing off of that and like I said my follower count has not changed for a couple years. What does it do for me marketing wise so I I do sell work on Instagram sometimes. You know like I would give my Instagram followers a chance to buy my newest right off the easel work before I would put it on my FAFSA website before I would send it to a gallery but because of the way the algorithm is I don't think people are really seeing those opportunities so it's not working as well anymore unfortunately because it really is a good opportunity for my my best collectors to get my freshest work right off the easel. So I've some so I do still do that. But now I've somewhat reverted to just like posting photos from workshops which are really fun and love posting my students work on Instagram. Like, you can just swipe through and see like 10 Student paintings. I think it's really people love that. And then you know, I, I have links to my upcoming workshops. It's really good for that. But the only real advantage of having a large number of Instagram followers is that it's like it's like street cred for galleries. You know, galleries See, galleries see what they want to see, what does everybody say that a gallery wants to see from prospective represented artist? Consistency, production over time. What does a workshop then you want to see from a potential instructor that they're going to invite from all the way across the country that they've never met before. They want to see consistency, productivity over time. And having 100,000 followers on Instagram shows that I have been at it for a long time. And that's really all it is. It's all that's the only advantage that it gives me and I like it, because that's the truth. I have been at it consistently for a long time. Yeah.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:06:21
Yeah. But have you noticed any other benefits to it? Like, for example, if you do a studio sale? Or if you say that you have a piece for sale to start having a lot of followers help that or
Sarah Sedwick: 1:06:33
maybe a year ago, I would have said absolutely. But now, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I think I don't I don't know who's seeing what and why. And I don't pay to promote a lot of my posts. And I don't want to get into that thing. Because I think once you start paying meta to promote your stuff, then they never will show it organically to anybody again, once once they realize you'll pay. It's just a theory. But um, no, I look, I have some some followers and some collectors who really want to see what I do. And so they're, they're searching me out so that they can see if I have any new posts, which is great. But am I going to organically show up in their news feed? I don't know, if I don't. If I don't pay for those eyeballs. I don't know what I'm gonna get. And so it used to be like a year or two ago, I could throw up a new painting on Instagram. And I would say $300 Here's my brand new painting. Free Shipping. DM me, and chances are I would sell it. And that was great. But it doesn't seem like the worlds like that anymore. And I I guess we'll just have to regroup. I'm selling most of my work through galleries these days.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:07:53
Hmm, interesting. Yeah. Who knows, maybe enough artists and enough people will complain about it that the algorithm will get re scrambled. You never know. Oh, it's definitely a challenge. I personally have been on hiatus from my page for God. I don't even remember. I think Bryce is like, January, because I'm not
Sarah Sedwick: 1:08:18
on hiatus from my page. I really enjoy interacting with my followers. I I love keeping in touch with my mentees that way. I love seeing what the people I love are doing. And of course, then there is knitting. My second addiction, which Instagram feeds for sure.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:08:41
You have touched one of my favorite topics. And actually, I think you just answered one of the questions that I was gonna ask you, which is, you know, aside from painting, do you have any other hobbies? I'm safe to assume it's knitting this. I was gonna ask you. Yeah. Yeah. For our listeners. She's wearing a gorgeous teal scarf. Whitney has like variations of it's a
Sarah Sedwick: 1:09:04
beautiful teal shawl. I'd be happy to give you the pattern information after we hang up. But yes, I know, I've been. I've been knitting in the last I learned how to knit about four or five years ago, but I didn't really get into it until about a year ago, been going through some tough emotional stuff. And I find that it's extremely anxiety relieving, but also here's the thing. You know, it occurred to me that it had probably been years since I really learned anything new. Now art is this great rabbit hole where we can always be learning something new. And at the same time, when was the last time that I went out and learned how to do something completely new I cannot remember. And so knitting has really filled that that hole in my in my in my world It's been very, very interesting. Now the only negative is that it takes away from my painting time, but it has been really kind of like expanding my mind.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:10:11
Yeah, I mean, knitting is is also one of my passion, hobbies on the side. I'm literally in the middle of three projects. Because I just can't get it up. And I literally borrowed spirits, aren't we? Yeah, for sure. kindred spirits. Oh, I love it. Because like, I saw this shawl. And I was like, I think I think she I think she knits. Although I actually have been crocheting a bit now. Because it's like, it's much faster. But also, it's a little bit like I described it to my friend as like, it's like Legos. But with yarn. And you just putting one after the other instead of like with knitting, right? With knitting, it's a little bit more like, you have everything laid out in front of you. And you have to make it like work back and forth, which it's enjoyable. It has a different effect than crochet. So I mean, both are fun. Both are mind, mind bending,
Sarah Sedwick: 1:11:11
I'll learn how to crochet next. Yes, I'll share this pattern with you after we get off because I think you would enjoy knitting it. It was super fun in it.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:11:19
It's beautiful. So I would I would love that. Yeah. Well, yeah, do you have any upcoming workshops that you want to
Sarah Sedwick: 1:11:30
have all your workshops, and I would love to talk about them. So as we're coming, we are talking to each other in August the end of August 2023. And as far as the rest of my year, I've got a workshop in October 2023, in Michigan at the Franciscan life Process Center, which is an art Retreat Center in Grand Rapids. And that is in October, and that's got openings, and you can all these are on my website. And then in December of 2023, I'm teaching at the Sedona art center, which is a really special place. It's my friends, one of my favorite actual studio spaces to teach in the country, they've just got such a good space. But Sedona itself is amazing. And then moving into 2024 I have a six seven day retreat workshop in southern Italy in Tuscany. And may I think it's May 18, through the 24th. And it's all inclusive food, wine, lodging, field trips, we're gonna be painting still life. But if the weather's nice, maybe we'll be outside maybe doing some outside still life maybe maybe even doing a little plein air. Who knows? I don't know what we're gonna do. But that is that that link is also on my website as well, Sarah sedwick.com/workshops. And I'm really looking forward to that. And then rumor has it. I've got a lot of other workshops in the states in 2024. But rumor also has it that I'll be teaching with David shove lino at workshops in France in October next year. Fighting so lots of fun things on my horizon. And I do hope that anybody that is interested in taking a workshop with me will check it out. There are you know, all kinds of easy options and some more exciting ones. Sarah sedwick.com on FAFSA,
Laura Arango Baier: 1:13:35
yeah. Awesome, and I was actually gonna ask you where else people can find your work, but there you go. You answered it.
Sarah Sedwick: 1:13:40
There is I believe.com and Instagram at Sedwick studio, and my book of course, dynamics still life for artists. Amazon.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:13:50
Perfect. Yes. And we will have all of your links as well in the show notes. So everyone can go find those there. So thank you so much, Sarah.
Sarah Sedwick: 1:13:59
Laura. It was super fun. Thank you very much.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:14:02
Yes, it was very fun. You're always welcome.
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