Q&A struggles as a full time small business & fav things
Hi everyone welcome back to another video so today we're going to do a Q&A I really want to say like welcome back to another studio vlog but it's a Q&A today. There are going to be some art related questions and some other like get to know me questions as well. I ask for questions on Instagram by the way so make sure you follow me on Instagram I actually have two I have we're getting off topic already but I have one Instagram for my illustration account another for my shop they'll be in the description. If you're new hI my name's Emma I’m an illustrator I also have an etsy shop and like I said I usually make studio vlogs where I show kind of like the behind the scenes of running a small business yeah so I’m going to get into the Q&A if you want to draw at the same time or do some cooking or cleaning or whatever you want to do then go ahead I’m not going to put anything on the screen so it's just going to be my face. So Bia who goes by Apenas illustrator said "what is your background regarding studies?" I always loved art and it was my favorite subject at school and I did art for like A levels as well. In the UK generally you do art until like
year nine and then you choose whether or not you want to like carry on for gcse and A level. I didn't actually do so well in my A level as I did in my gcse I think because by the time I got to sixth form we had a little bit more kind of freedom and we had quite a few free periods which was time that we probably were meant to be working on stuff and I don't feel that I was very disciplined with that and also I think I was just going through kind of stage where I was getting to like to the end of school and I was just kind of thinking oh I don't know what to do I don't know if I want to go to uni or not. I worked for a bit and then I decided that I did want to go to uni. So I went to uni a couple of years later. I did an art foundation course first, I think most courses you either do an art foundation or you do like a kind of year zero and then I did an illustration course after that so that was like four years at uni. I actually filmed a whole video that was about uni and the different projects that I did so I will leave that in the card is it there I think it's there. Bia also said "major struggles you faced since you went full time with art?" I feel like most of the struggles that I’ve had have kind of been the same struggles from when I was doing this and I had a part-time job and that's kind of just like all the self-doubts and the imposter syndrome and there being so many different things that you want to try and like so many different kind of decisions and just kind of thinking I don't know if I’m like going down the right path all the different sides to like running a business as well which like they're all things that I really enjoy. Sometimes I don't enjoy
writing the sort of captions and stuff for Instagram because sometimes I feel like I’m better visually than I am at like writing stuff down I don't know it kind of depends what sort of mood I'm in, but sometimes I feel like the kind of keeping on top of the social media is a bit of a challenge for me. I’d say one of the challenges is the fact that now I look at other people that are doing this part-time or like or they're doing it kind of full-time but they also have like another job as well and I’m thinking how do they get so much done and then I just kind of start comparing myself to them so that is kind of a struggle the fact that I should have more time now but I kind of feel like I always run out of time and there's always like so many different things that I want to do and just trying to like squeeze it all in but yeah part of that is also at the moment I don't want to work weekends I want to take my weekends with tom and I think I was working weekends a lot more and like holidays and stuff as well but yeah I really like having my weekends with Tom. (reading another question) "favorite part of what you do?" I really like making youtube videos I really like designing new products, packing is really fun, getting new products and seeing something that you've designed for the first time is really really exciting and then when other people like that thing and other people want that that's that's like really good and I’m also getting to know other artists as well like since I’ve done youtube I’ve like made lots more arty friends. I had lots of book related questions Leah Jesse Art says "what are
you reading any book suggestions?" dark bloom illustration says "what are some of your favorite books?" so I’m currently listening to the Midnight Library by Matt Haig and Matt Haig is one of my favorite authors, so yeah some of my favorite books are his books I love how to stop time which is I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before It's about a man who has this condition where he just ages really really slowly so he's kind of essentially immortal and it just kind of looks at his time kind of like throughout history I also really like The Human which is by Matt Haig as well and that's about an alien who comes down and he has like this mission to like bump this guy off and then ends up like taking over his identity but then kind of loves being a human. I also really love The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle which I kind of would describe this as like a cross between like a whodunit and Groundhog Day and it's kind of strange it's a little bit sci-fI a little bit kind of murder mystery and this guy he wakes up doesn't remember who he is and he has to solve this murder and every time he wakes up he's in like a different body of the different characters that are all there and he has to sort of work out like who did it. Growing up I loved Alice in wonderland and I loved the borrowers oh I loved Paul Jennings actually let me go and show you some of the Paul Jennings books because they had the best covers. So these are Paul Jennings books and I absolutely loved these and they were all like short stories but they were kind of like really kind of quirky weird stories so some of the covers were really cool because they had two covers this one's a little bit freaky but yeah I I loved these stories so much and he actually came to my primary school once as well so we've got to meet him and that yeah that was really cool yeah let me know if you've read any of these books or if you watched Round the Twist because they made like a tv show that was based off loads of his stories. So I have a question here that says "I get creative anxiety and find it hard to practice any tips on how to structure practice time?" I don't feel that I am actually naturally very organized or very structured at all I feel that it's something I really want to be good at and I sometimes go through stages where I’ll be like okay let's set myself like a plan and on Monday I’ll do this like and I have like a couple of structures in place like for example usually my packing days are on Monday and Thursday and I’ve just recently started drawing in my sketchbook every Friday as well so that's kind of a recent thing so yeah I guess structures like that you could pick a day of the week or you could pick like a time to do it yeah I’m not sure if I’ve experienced creative anxiety but I’ve definitely you know had the kind of fear of the blank page particularly if I’m drawing something and I’m planning on showing it to people or if I’m just recording it for youtube even though I know I’ve got the control on editing whether you see it or not that kind of puts a bit more pressure yeah I guess kind of take the pressure off yourself like maybe draw something and you know say oh I’m not actually going to like post this or anything I’m just going to draw something for fun you could maybe give yourself like a shorter amount of time because I found that like when I’ve been to like life drawing classes and stuff they always kind of gave us some like warm-up exercises we started off with like quicker ones and like quicker poses and then towards the end of the class we'd do like a longer one and that was really good because I find that when you're given a shorter amount of time you kind of you don't have time to sort of question what you're doing you're just kind of trying to get like the shape down as quickly as possible I know some people really like to have an 'ugly sketchbook' so that's something you could try again takes the pressure off sort of thinking of this has to be good yeah I guess just practicing more which is something that I’m trying to do like do more stuff in my sketchbook and like I mentioned in my last studio vlog where my owl painting didn't come out quite how I wanted it to I’ve been trying to remember that a sketchbook is a place where like it doesn't need to go right first time and the whole idea is that it is a practice I think Yoga with Adriene was saying this the other day she was saying that you don't have to do a move right the first time the whole idea is you are doing a practice and you're kind of working towards something ‘Sorry it's Gabe’ said "what's your favorite plant that you own?" so I really love all those little tiny plants and I’ll try and work out what video it was that I unpacked them and I will put it in the cards and also in the description. They've all been growing lots as well I really love we've got like a tiny monstera plant and that has just been growing so well and it keeps getting new leaves and I really like watching them like uncurl we've also got like a huge pothos as well I think it's a Devil's Ivy that we've got and when we first got it I thought that we were going to kill it because some of the leaves were going yellow and then we realized that actually it doesn't like too much daylight and we were over watering it as well I tried to be a good plant occasionally I water too much or I don't water enough we have a couple of sad looking plants but we have lots that we've managed to keep alive as well so we're doing better yeah a couple of people ask me how I am so yeah I’m I think generally I’m doing well I have sort of moments where I kind of think about the whole like COVID situation that we're all in and I kind of in some ways can't believe how long it's been. I try and keep myself busy and we have
like lots of zoom calls like with my family and stuff as well but yeah generally I’d say that I’m feeling really happy at the moment it's just been snowing lots which has been really nice and a really nice like change and me and Tom had a lovely like late night walk in the snow recently and that felt like really nice and magical and yeah it's kind of a nice change especially when every day does feel a little bit like groundhog day it's kind of nice to mix it up a little bit. artyarty_liza says "who would your top five dream dinner guests be living or historically allowed?" I have no idea who would I want, well right now we can't have any dinner guests so I think I think if I could magically have any dinner guests right now I probably have my parents if I’m only allowed five do I count as one? what like five extra ones so extra than me and Tom I’m guessing, so I’d have my parents and then I guess we'd have Tom's parents and then one more person I quite like my sister. If we're not talking about who would you actually like to see and think about some famous people I don't know how to pronounce this guy's name but if you've ever watched the it crowd the guy who plays Moss, Richard I don't know how to pronounce his surname Ayoade I think I’m saying that very wrong. I think he's really really funny so I’d like him I’m kind of thinking about like some youtubers that I like. I really like Rachel Maksy who does
all the like vintage and cosplay things I think she's lovely and also really really funny oh maybe David Attenborough that would be really cool I really like Sarah Michelle Gellar as well because then I could talk to her about Buffy. Tabitha Brown because she is just the loveliest person I love following her on Instagram and her food looks amazing so maybe she could come and bring something to like add to like the dinner spread as well that would be good I’ve got a couple of youtube questions so Lorettabellart says "how long did it did it take you for your channel to start growing?" and Liz V Art says "how do you handle self-doubt when it comes to youtube?" so I think it took a really really long time for my channel to start growing have I been doing it two years or maybe even coming up for three years I think yeah it was only last year that I actually monetized my channel and started earning some money through youtube which has been very lovely like it's not megabucks but yeah I really really appreciate it but yeah and obviously I’m not like the biggest channel ever I’m still like a very tiny fish but yeah it's nice to see like a little bit of growth the main thing that I really like is just having people like comment on my videos and ah okay my alarm is going I have I’ve got like a little art date with my friend in 10 minutes yeah so the main thing that I really like is yeah just getting like comments and seeing the same people come in you kind of yeah just like get a connection with that person but yeah I do remember the first the first hundred was a struggle the first thousand was another struggle it's not like this channel has skyrocketed at all in any way but it you know I’m going I’m growing yeah I don't think you're really here for like youtube tips exactly although we did make I made a video about how to make studio vlogs so if you want to learn how to how I suggest making studio vlogs you can watch that video, but this channel the whole point isn't about like how to grow really quickly yeah and then Liz was saying "how do you handle self-doubt when it comes to youtube?" yes so this is something that I definitely felt at the beginning starting out because I thought who's going to want to like listen to me who cares what I have to say yeah I think for a long time because I was like watching other youtubers sometimes you can kind of like idolize them and then you sort of think oh would I have like anything to offer I think like we can all learn sort of different things from different people and like knowledge that I have is going to be different to knowledge that somebody else has so like we can kind of all teach each other different skills and yeah there's so many things I’m still learning yeah I kind of feel that I am on like this kind of journey and so I’m always like learning new things and I want to kind of like pass them on and so that's the kind of approach that I took with it if I kind of felt that I had to be somebody that had all the answers and stuff I think that would give me kind of more self-doubt because I don't have the answers so that's kind of how I deal with that is by just saying I don't know entirely what I’m doing but the things that I’ve worked out that I will like pass on to you and also like most of my content is studio vlogs so I kind of you know share the highs share the lows it's not necessarily like a tutorial or a how-to it's just kind of like this is what I got up to I hope that makes sense okay I think we have time for one more question because I really need to go because I have an art date with my friend in a minute so I will answer one more question Rozie from pin and inkco says "would you like to do art for a board game and what theme would you do?" so yeah I think that actually does sound really cool and if you don't know me and Tom have a huge board game collection with like geeky board game fans I really love the game Dixit which already has like beautiful artwork but yeah I think I’d quite like to do a sort of game along those themes or like if they wanted any like new artwork for that if you've never played Dixit and you're a fan of arts or like games I would definitely recommend it because yeah the cards are just beautiful and I haven't played it for ages because you can't actually play it with two people so I would recommend if you have more than two people in your house me and Tom actually did try to play Dixit just the two of us we did a video where we like it was the beginning of lockdown and we were playing some different games again I will leave that in the cards and in the description if you want to go and watch that it's kind of amusing well I think it's amusing anyway. Maybe I could do a tea themed I don't know maybe you're a waitress and you're serving lots of different tea or maybe you have to collect different types of tea maybe it could be an Alice in Wonderland themed game that would be kind of cool I don't think I’m actually clever enough to come up with a game like with all the kind of mechanics of the game I if I did come up with a game it would basically just be ripping off another game or like a snakes and ladders type thing I don't think I’m clever enough to come up with the game but doing the artwork for somebody else's like cool idea would be quite cool. maybe in the future I could take a game and do some artwork for it that might actually be kind of a cool thing to put in my portfolio or to just do for fun maybe you'll see that in a video in the future but yeah I have been rambling on yeah I’m going to stop this video here but I hope you've enjoyed this Q&A if you have any other questions please leave them in the comments and then yeah maybe I’ll do another q a in the future and I hope you've had a wonderful day and a wonderful week and I will see you next Wednesday for another studio vlog okay bye. *Bloopers* just clicked my shoulder really loudly. oh my god okay I’m so rambley
what do I want to say how can I say in a concise way yeah I also really love the humans which is also by Matt Haig and no it's not the humans... is it just human? is it 'the humans' 'human' ... there's 'humans' the tv show which is about robots, that's something else I think it's The Humans. Oh I can't do it it's stuck. put them in the comments in blah blah blah camera stopped recording just when I was kind of getting into the swing of things
2021-02-20 16:03
