Nuanced. - 10. David Shearer: Artist, Creator & Entrepreneur

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

David Shearer is an artist and freelance Graphic Designer from Abbotsford, BC, Canada with over 30 years of experience. He's spent his life in the pursuit of drawing and in so developed a way for everyone to draw, the "reverse colouring book" - Köpialine. He lives with his fiancé and their 4-year-old daughter with a new baby girl expected within a month. David loves the expression of art and the never-ending mystery of its secrets.David and Aaron discuss a variety of topics. Topics include the commitment people have to their identities, the value in drawing and artistic endeavours, family life, responsibility and meaning and personal growth.Check out Köpialine by David:https://kopialine.com/Find Köpialine on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/kopialine/Find Köpialine on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/kopialine/Find Köpialine on Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCirpY9yPsvJtgLmC7Qn7xbQSend us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Hello friends, and thank you for listening. We have finally reached episode 10. We have heard from individuals, small business owners, lawyers, and professors. And we are just getting started. My guest today is the creator of Copia Line Publishing. He has created a one-of-a-kind book that allows people to practice drawing in an enjoyable way. Him and his partner both experienced a lot of instability growing up, and today they've created an amazing home for their daughter and they're soon to be newborn. In this podcast, we talk about creativity, art, meaning, responsibility, and so much more. Please give it up for my guest, David, the Artist.

And we're live. David Shira, how are you doing today? I think it'll do it pretty good. I'm having a pretty, pretty awesome day. We went to the, be my family, my fiancee and our daughter, we went to the corn maze in Chilliwack. And it was your first time, right? That's my first time. And it was, uh, it's pretty incredible.

I didn't, I thought it would just be like a maze of corn. It's not. They have like so much stuff for kids, like lots more than you would think. Absolutely. And they wrote something different this time, right? Yeah, they have a, they have a wall full of like the different murals, I guess they've done with the corn mazes. And this one is based on togetherness, which I guess is like the. 2020 pandemic.

We're in weird times. We need to start working together. Yeah, I guess they were debating if they were going to do it just because it was like when they were planting the corn, I think it was like right around the time the pandemic was at its peak. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess they ended up doing it and I think it's doing pretty well. Yeah, I suspect.

But yeah, they're taking precautions like everyone is. Yeah, and I guess you're kind of socially distanced in a corn maze anyways. Yeah. Well, so then we did that. We did the easy one because we have like a four-year-old with us and my fiance is pregnant and she's due in like a month. We got about a month left. So we don't want to take it too heavy, but I was like, I got to conserve my energy

because I'm going to talk to Aaron today. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, now I think I'm doing pretty good now. Yeah. Awesome. Well, let's get right into it then and start off just with a little bit about your family because I think that that's incredibly interesting just to get us started. Sure.

Yeah, well, so probably my immediate family, like Jenna. Yes. So Jen and I have been together for a couple of years now for two years and we got engaged on our two-year anniversary. She surprised me and took me camping, and she's really awesome. She got her bachelor's degree in social work, and she's going to end up doing that. And it's really interesting because she didn't get her hours before, you know, we got pregnant. So we're not having, like, that support from the government yet for something like that.

But so far we're doing great. I work from home, just doing freelance and supporting myself. I've been doing that for ages. So we're doing that together, and we've been doing that for quite a long time. Transition has been like with Megan, our four-year-old, taking her out of daycare and having her home full-time. Yeah. It's been challenging, but actually really awesome. I think it's like made us a better and stronger family.

That's awesome. She's awesome and she's growing so much. And I don't know if you know if we've had the experience with toddlers, but them going from like a point when they can't say much to like saying a lot and saying full sentences and really communicating and it feels so good. And, I don't know, just growing as a dad and a partner as well. And I know Gen X feels the same thing with her position, so. That's awesome. Can you tell us your relationship with Megan? Because I think that that's incredibly interesting right out of the gate.

Yeah, it's, you know, I'm, like, stepfather, essentially, came into her life when she was about two and a half. Yeah, it was like, there's just, she's just this little girl, and she's really cute. And for whatever reason, she just loves me. And we start having fun right away and, you know, through bonding. And it took us a little while to get to like maybe a parental role. Then that's a whole transition, right? Like becoming a little girl's dad and what that means to them. And really what it means to me too.

Because you start to like embody all those things that happened to when you were a kid. And your parents were raising you or, you know, whoever was taken care of you was raising you. And they were like doing those things. And you're like, I'm doing those things now. And so I found myself doing that. And the transition too from her. calling me, David to Dad, and that was such a trip. And then getting to potty train her and getting to, like, help her communicate and helping

her build confidence. And Jen and I went to parenting classes, you know, provided by the government. I think it was called the care program or something. It's super awesome. And it really taught us how to help her. And actually, each other, when we're, like, in stressful times, you can shoot down into, like, the way they describe it is, like, downstairs, stairs, and, like, your upstairs brain.

And so when you get stressed, you shoot right down to your downstairs brain, and that's like your fight or flight. And you're just like crying and you're inconsolable and you're freaking out. And the stairs represent love and safety. So if you can help a kid or even your partner feel loved and feel safe, because that's what sends them downstairs is they don't. They just don't feel that way. Then they go to their upstairs brain, which is their logical brain. And that little bit of information has just helped us to like be really good to each other. and to her.

So even if I'm, like, stressed and freaking out because she's having a moment, I can do that little trick, give her hug, help her feel safe. And then, like, immediately she comes back and she's like, she's with it. And those kind of experiences and doing that with Jenna, like going through that class. And it was something like five or six classes where they taught us just different things, like the kind of danger or how it feels to say no, for instance, to a kid versus saying yes. So she's like, I don't know if I want dinner. I want a cookie.

Instead of going, no, you go, yeah, cookie's a great idea. After dinner, though. Let's do it after dinner. That's brilliant. So those little things, like, to me, I was like, yes, this is awesome information. And Jen and I immediately became way better parents. It's wild that they don't teach us that because that does sound, like when you say it, it just sounds like we should have, I should have had that.

I think it's because we relate to it, right? Like, so we were taught a lot of, like, you're a bit younger, right? How old are you? 24. Yeah, so I'm almost 36. I know I was taught kind of wrong. It was wrong behaviors, right? So I was told no constantly.

I remember going to my friend's, my friend's house. His dad is like, loves drums. So I got the drum kits. And they were like, yeah, just play the drums. Go for it. And I was like, as soon as I get on it and I hit it, it was really loud. And like, I got this ringing in my brain of like my mom saying no, like to be quiet. Like, oh my lord.

So I had to like free that up. And that to me is what really resonated with me. I'm like, yeah, saying no can kill someone's like. like spirit of like creative creativity or exploration or just like fun it's okay to be allowed it's okay to do stuff maybe be mindful maybe respectful that makes sense let's do a little bit of background we kind of jumped in there so let's get a little bit of a general background on yeah on me yeah well i that's a i have a long history i suppose but we got lots of time i'm canadian and you know i ended up we ended up moving down to the states when i was about i guess seven

eight and i lived there for 10 years and i got a stepfather down there down the there similar to Megan, right? I was, but I was a little bit older than her. So we were together probably for four years and then we ended up moving back to Washington State and then back up to Canada and then back down and forth to Canada back and forth like a little bit and even across the states a couple times. I was really raised American in a lot of ways, but I think very much Canadian. Obviously I've been living here since I was like 2001, I think. That's lots the time. It was a weird time to move back to because it was like right before 9-11. Oh, wow.

I moved back to Canada for like 11th grade and my birthday, September 14th, school started like, I don't know what it was, a couple days prior or something to September 11 and it was just like didn't go to school. I think it's just kind of like insane. It was something like that. But yeah, then I've lived in Canada since then. You know, I've been doing practicing art my whole life. Yeah.

And that really started when I was 10. But yeah, that interest really, really started when I was 10. And I just kept, like, building on it into essentially my career. Can you tell people a little bit about copeline? I think I said it correctly. Copialine is, yeah, so that's something I came up with. And it's really, so it's essentially it's a reverse coloring book, this idea. And I really, I've been trying to think of inventions for years.

It's just an interesting thing to try to ponder. And invention is really taking like two ideas that kind of already exist and putting them together plus solving a need that maybe people don't realize exists. So for me, copia line, it's just this name we came up with. I think it's a Norwegian word copia with two dots above it. It means cop. So it's the reverse of a coloring book. As simple as I can break it down. A coloring book has lines that you color, right? So the lines are pre-drawn. You just color whatever you want. Mine's exactly the opposite. They're colored shapes that you put lines to. And so the reason is, the reason I came up with this is when I was a kid, I actually didn't.

like coloring. I didn't really understand just jumping into a coloring book. I would say, why do that? Like, when you can draw a picture and color the picture. So that's, for me, that's one reason I made it. I was like, I loved drawing, but they didn't have drawing books for me that were easy, like, a coloring book. They're like, how

to draw books were like, you just want to quit. You just want to stop. It's like origami or something. Yeah. Well, it's complex. And they're like, you have to draw these circles and circles and lines and circles. And then just draw everything. And you're like, I just want to figure out how to draw a couple of eyes, I guess.

So that's one of the, like, the reasons that I came up with it. The other one really is because, as an artist, just as a regular everyday artist, but also as, like, a professional artist, I can't tell you how many times people have said to me, like, I was born with it, this talent that I just inherently have, they could never do it. They say, you should see me to draw a stick man. And I'm like, I was the same exact way. I wasn't special in third grade.

I drew like everyone else. I think the only thing I noticed was like everyone fell off. They quit over time and I just kept going. That's the difference. Because I kept going, I kept developing. So really, I made it for people who actually would like to have the experience of drawing, kind of wish they could, but don't have either the interest or something that would compel them to keep learning and have to develop the skill sets.

So I have these colored shapes and you can literally just, draw. You really just make all the lines you want to and you have fun with it. Kind of like a coloring book, right? You just color it however you want and you have fun. And that's kind of the simple, basic idea of it. Wow, that is so interesting because you're right. A lot of people in their elementary school years look at, like I would say before this podcast, I'm not much of a drawer. And I think I said that when you came in and I was just like, not a drawer. So could you explain this to me? And it's funny how we just loop ourselves into that mindset where I've also said, I'm not much of a reader, but now I read all the time because it's just something

I've put myself into the circumstance of saying, well, you need to be able to read. These are important books. You can't just, like, avoid it. So tell us a little bit more about. Well, it's so true. Like, that's, I think that's very true. I think it's an identity thing that people do to themselves. Like, I remember one time, this guy, well, I was friends with my mom, he was playing a guitar. And it was beautiful. He was making awesome music. I was like, oh, do you, do you have any, do you have any songs that you made? He's like, oh, no, I don't really do that. I'm like, oh, okay, but you're a musician, right?

And he's like, no, I'm not a musician. And I was like, you're playing guitar, though. And he was like, oh, yeah, but that's different. I'm like, do musicians play guitar? And he's like, yeah. And it's the same thing with being an artist. And that was something I had to struggle with personally as I developed as an artist. And it's weird.

I think it's a label thing, like to apply the artist label to myself. I have to have X, Y, and Z qualifications. otherwise I'm not that but that's just not true and I guess I realize that with myself I am a musician I am a reader I'm a writer I'm I'm all of it I'm a comedian I'm an actor I do it all but I don't do it all like not a master of all of it but I have it in me to do it where it's all the spectrum so I think that's a big part of of what it takes for people to pick something like that up is they have to face their like identity who they are to just sit down and draw a picture

even if it's like kind of spelled out. That's so crazy because I did the exact same thing about three weeks into the podcast. I'd recorded a few episodes and I was feeling good about it and then I thought, well, am I a podcaster? Yeah. And it's like that's not me. I'm not that person.

And once you do something for a certain amount of time, you start to accept the label and that's interesting that you have to grapple with that and that people picking up these books or are starting to read when they're not readers do have to grapple with that part of them that has always just identified as a person with a certain quality that's incapable of doing that. Yeah, or like, because I see my limitations or I see the experts out there. And I think that's what people say to me because they see me and they see like these really

like complicated pictures that I've made. And it's just like to them, they're not an artist. They're like a caveman drawing stick figures on a cave wall. And I'm like Rembrandt. And it's like, yeah, but they're both artists. Like, artists, the word, I think, really has to do with human expression, right? So, but that's funny with the podcast thing. That's very true.

Like, as soon as you make it one podcast, you're a podcast. Yeah. And when you start to grapple with how you're going to be identified in the world, because a lot of, I think throughout the last 100 years, most people have identified with their career as who they are. And they say, well, I'm a lawyer or I'm one thing. And it's like I am, I have a partner, I am lots of different things, I have an education, I have a work, I'm not one thing, I'm dynamic and fluid, and I choose different interests over time. That's so true.

Yeah, I wonder, there's got to be like inherently, like, of course we have very, we do have limitations at some point. Like some people can't carry a beat to save their life. They're probably still a musician. on some level, you know, but yeah, maybe they're not like the same level as everybody. Maybe it's not that. But yeah, my book was essentially, and all the drawings that we produced after, like, it's meant to enable people. So I think the reason it needs to exist, the reason it's kind of this powerful thing is because there's this gap of supporting people's interest in art. Because, like, as soon as you decide that you're done drawing, and can I ask you, did you ever draw on?

Did you draw when you were a kid? Yes. Yes. Did you stop drawing? Yeah. So that's most people. Most people actually do draw and they quit for one reason or the other. Either it becomes too hard or it's like just not interesting. And I think that's kind of tragic because, so I've said it this way once.

I was like, you know, drawing literacy is probably at a all-time low. So reading literacy is pretty high. That's pretty important to our culture. Drawing literacy isn't. So drawing is actually important to artists and it's relegated. to like the artistic world, but not like the every person world. So that's something that we kind of realize just trying to move forward with our company and producing these things is that idea that like really everyone could encourage their

own expression through art. And this might be a good way to do it. They're like, all I got to do is sit down and I can play with different lines. I can try different textures. And you do have to go through the basic fundamental problems that drawers go. through. How do I hold my pencil? What kind of pencil do I use? What kind of shapes can I even make? How do I make texture? What is shading? Like, how do I do that? So those are like very fundamentals that this helps you start to explore. And then you realize, oh, I actually

kind of, you might. I'm not going to say definitely you're going to enjoy it. But some people really do find like, oh, I actually like expressing myself this way. And I can express myself this way in ways. I can't other ways. That's so true because people have been using meditation to calm themselves and connect and be more in the moment. And I imagine drawing has some of those similar attributes. It does. You do have a connection with you are in a moment and you're connected with this piece of paper

and you're focused on whatever the autistic expression you're trying to make is. And you're right. People are disconnected to that. Can you tell us a little bit about the relationship between everyone knows why reading is important because we think of, you need to be able to read the book, so you can answer the question, so you can do the test. What would you say to that person who's bringing up those points? Sorry, for reading and for drawing?

So for drawing, what would the qualities, the benefits that you would see be? I think it is, like what you're saying, it's a little bit of meditation. So meditation, one form of it is at least focusing attention on something for like an extended period of time. And your mind wanders and your mind moves around. But really, it's allowing your meditation to go back to that place. And okay, so I'm going to focus here, focus here.

So I'm controlling that meditation. I think additionally, though, it's creativity, power of, like, having some place to express yourself creatively and touch the force of, like, what that is inside of you. Like, I get to make whatever lines I want. So I have to figure out what that is. And then at some point, I get to decide which ones I really like, which ones do I really care about that means something to me. And then I think, you know, one thing that's really stood out to me with, through making

this to what drawing did for me growing up was this thing called self-regulation, which is a part of emotional intelligence. So by drawing, when I was growing up during difficult times, which is mostly when I drew, I would draw during school, I would draw during arguments, like family arguments. I would draw in like high stress periods. I would draw. And apparently, I was self-regulated. So I was helping my emotional parts kind of like be focused and balanced.

So that actually happens with drawing in a copia book too. Because you're drawing, you get to self-regulate. So that's a pretty powerful piece. I had another thing I wanted to mention. I lost it for a sec. Okay. So what I really find interesting about this whole process is that you do have to be more connected with what's going on in a way that's different than reading because reading you're just

relying on somebody else telling you the story. And I think people struggle with thinking that they could write just as much as they think they could draw. Yeah. And so I think that that's really interesting that we've stumbled upon something where mindfulness and paying attention is so important. And I also know a lot of people who the future is just a big question mark. And that thing you said where it's you have to put the pen to paper, you have to commit to the lines you're going to draw. There's a lot of people who are like, something's going to happen to me in the future and there's going to be this thing and they're not willing to figure out how to move forward. Yeah, you're talking about confidence almost, I think. Exactly. And having the confidence to commit to one line or the

other. Yeah. Or, yeah, being brave enough to say, I'm going to do this thing. But, yeah, even like when a situation arises, I can handle it because I can make a decision and I can develop some confidence in my decision making it. Exactly. Because that's true. Like, you're going to, when you start drawing or when you start doing anything, you're going to make mistakes. you're going to mess up and I think developing a tolerance for that like an understanding in yourself about like the mistakes you make yeah that's great yeah find more ways to like do that well and the only way forward is to make a few mistakes along the way because you're going to have to figure out where you're going to go and I know a lot of people who've just never developed that ability to say I'm going to take the right and whatever happens after that is going to happen that's a fair point actually that because that's that's true a lot of a lot of people in and I feel like I've been there many times it's like we're passive

we've become like waiting like we're waiting and we're reactive at that point I think we're just reacting to the things happening rather than kind of like picking something and saying this is the thing I'm going to like rally behind or this is the direction I'm just going to commit to

and yeah like you said let the cards fall where they may yeah those people they can't seem to hear me when I tell them like hey you're going down this path and in six months you've bought a car that you hypothetically can't afford and in six months you're not going to make those payments anymore because you're not going to have the money and for some reason it's like I'll deal with that when it comes and it's like how how am I telling you warning you and you still can't hear me that's wisdom though you have the wisdom and you know they maybe haven't had those mistakes yet right they haven't taken like made enough mistakes to hear a reason and go like interesting yeah I'm going to digest that and maybe correct my course yeah I can avoid that exactly Instead, they're going, whatever, I'll just do what I want, and really, without knowing it, maybe going headlong into it. Well, and I think that that's an arm of the whole happiness movement of believing that the best way forward is to do whatever makes you happy. And it's like, that should be tied in with some sort of meaning and responsibility and role in the community.

And so, like, I think with your role, you love drawing, but you're also finding a way to make that accessible to people, which is, I think, an arm of being an artist is to share that. Well, it's true. I mean, like, people see my work and they go, oh, man, you love what you do. You make pictures because that's what you love to do. And it's like, almost? Like, almost. I, sure, I definitely love drawing. You know, I became a professional artist. But it wasn't because I had some abnormal amount of love for it. I actually love it as much as I ever have. I would say it's, what's probably more accurate is that I didn't love anything else more than drawing. So I wasn't willing to do anything else because there wasn't anything else that was as interesting to me. I got so many benefits from it, and I still get benefits from it. Like, I got to process my feelings. I got to process my life. I got to deal with my problems through drawing. It was always there for me. It was like during really unstable times, and I had lots of them.

I only had a couple things that were stable. One of them was my brother, and one of them was drawing. And so drawing was there for me all through the turmoil, kind of of my youth, right? Moving around and, like, dealing with, like, traumatic events. It's like, I could always count on this thing to go to and stay there and play for a little bit. And it was like always there for me. And a lot of people that have been using it get similar experiences. I'm actually blown away at some of the stuff that comes in.

We posted to our Instagram a lot, which is some of the drawings that people are making, that being way more creative with it than I thought. You know, like kids will follow the lines, which is really great. Like, they get to like develop some of their motor skills. And, like, so Megan, my four-year-old, she went from, like, scribbling giant shapes to lines. It's like her brain, something clicked in her brain that you could draw lines. And so she really developed as an artist as well. Now she draws, like, creatures, animals.

It's like, she draws me and Jenna, which is such a trip. Anyway, I lost track. No worries. Let's get right into the family side of things again and really go through that. Because I think the dynamics you guys have, and if anybody follows you on Facebook, sees the passion you have also for family. And that is something I've really wanted to get into with a guest and really go through the family dynamics. So if we could talk about that. Sure.

Happy to, yeah. Well, I know, I can speak for Jenna a little bit. But, you know, so Jenna and I have had similar experiences. So we were both in foster care. We both kind of were raised by different people. And so I think, you know, my family structure, like my dad wasn't part of my life. I got a stepdad at some point. And that was, like, really beneficial to me.

He was such a good guy. I unfortunately passed away from cancer when I was like, I think it was 10 or 11, maybe 12. But he was in my life for four years. And that his family was really tight. I think there were Puerto Rican, half Puerto Rican, something like that. And we lived in Maryland on the east coast of the States. So we were there. And I had a really strong kind of like big family, actually.

It wasn't just our small family. It was his mom and all her family and their extended family. And they have huge parties and, like, cookouts in the parks. So that was a great, like, time to experience what family life might be like. Otherwise, Andrew and I, my older brother, so we were in foster care for a number of years because there was some, like, allegations of abuse. And then we were actually, like, getting fought over in court, but who would have custody? My mom ended up getting it.

But we got to experience different kinds of family in those different foster homes. and then when we live with my mom it was similar she moved us around a lot um she struggled with different mental illnesses physical ailments so we ended up living with different family like my aunt mary down in the states and that was awesome it was really really quite fun living living there and then we lived over in maryland which when you go from Canada and you're saying like hey can i have some pop hey and then you go down to the states and they're like you go over to maryland And they're like, what's pop? And you're like, I don't know, you drink it?

And to them it's soda and they're y'all this and y'all that. So we were there long enough that I got a little country accent. And we moved around a bunch. Like I said, he passed away. And my stepfather, we ended up moving back to, sorry, the West Coast with my aunt and back and forth to Canada and whatnot. So I think my older brother and I, we kind of missed out on having that traditional family. we were always like having these makeshift families or it was just dysfunctional. It was broken.

And I think the real benefit was like him and I got to stick together through all of it. So and that's where my mom did a really brilliant thing. She said, you know, she always wanted us to just be together wherever we were, whether it was a foster home or whether it was with, you know, staying with this person or living with those people. It's like at least where we were together. And that really was good. It was good for us. That makes sense. And so it was brilliant.

I think at some point, when we were older, I think it was a little bit older than you probably. I was like 26 or so. And him and I are living together and we're like, I was like, you know, if you're staying here because he seemed kind of miserable, he seemed just a little bit like we weren't having that much fun anymore. It was kind of stagnant. I was like, if you're staying here just to keep me safe, don't worry about that. I think I'll be okay. We moved out from each other pretty soon after that. And I think at that point, I started living on my own.

And I think after maybe one or two roommates, I started living on my own. And then my makeshift families started happening where, you know, you have some friends and those become like your kind of like your parents, like one of my best friends. She was like a second mom to me. And, you know, other friends become your brothers and sisters. and sisters or even grandparents, you know, friends, parents become your aunts and uncles and stuff. So that becomes very normal, especially at their life of shifting around and kind of looking

to strangers as parents and stuff. Yeah, and just looking for a little bit of stability. I definitely know what you're talking about because growing up I had lots of people come in and out of my life that were just kind of treated like a second mom. And like everybody in the group kind of knew that we would go over to this person's house. And they were like, they would make sure we were fed and we had snacks. That's awesome. Those types of relationships build over time.

Yeah. And then you have a little bit more confidence going out into the world. It's important. I think, well, I think it's pretty natural in a way, like human tribes and getting adopted, you know, for one reason or the other, like, you can adopt someone to be your grandmother that just needs family. Like, it's not always about us too, right? Like, so, yeah, but I think that's brilliant. It's awesome that that happens. Because yeah, it is, those are important things to have moving forward and have those kind of relationships at least built in with you a little bit.

Yeah, and it's just crazy to think about the ramifications because I haven't talked about this yet, but my mother was adopted through the 60s scoop. I may have mentioned that part, but what I don't mention is that my grandmother is one of my strongest role models because she was working at Kokelice Hospital as a nurse. Wow. And it was an only Indian hospital at the time, so that's why my mother was there. And she was working with my mom and decided to bring her into her home and she tried to adopt and that didn't work. So she took her in as a foster child and raised her. And obviously she grew up and then she ended up having me. And so I'm only here because of the decision she made. And that has had implications for anyone who's listening to this podcast. And the effects are so far reaching when somebody is willing to lend a hand and help someone. You don't know how far that level of that level of. generosity can go totally yeah well we think especially like if it happens to you like like you said like you have a bit of an understanding like so with roy my stepfather who passed away i think about that with megan all the time that i'm this little girl's dad i'm her version of what

dad is and what it means um so yeah that's that's interesting that's awesome i'm really happy that you had that though yeah so let's get a little bit more into the current relationship of your dynamics with your partner and your child, what does that look like now? Well, right now, you know, Jenna is pregnant, third trimester, almost finished. You know, we're going to have supposedly a baby girl where we've been told, and so her name's going to be Claire. So we've been slowly getting Megan to understand the reality of that. And I still don't know how real that is to her.

I keep telling her, I'm like, there's going to be a real baby here soon. And it'll be real. But she, like, you know, loves to kiss Jenna's tummy and say, you know, baby Claire. And she understands she's going to be the big sister and all that. You know, and our challenge through the pandemic has just been really trying to give Megan as much attention, healthy attention as we can, right? And really managing her in a way that's, like, beneficial. But it really sucks. It's like a really hard time because she was, she went to daycare.

and an awesome daycare really close to us. They shut down permanently. And Megan doesn't really have a lot of kid friends to be playing with. So that's actually really, really tough for us to see. So when we see her around other kids, she's brilliant. She's like super awesome. Well, and at least you'll have somebody coming and joining her permanently. We'll have that part.

We're pretty happy with that. They're going to be about four years apart, which maybe is or is an ideal, but she's going to love being a big sister. I know that. that's the part I wanted to ask about is because I had Brett Kintella on I don't know if you heard that one I didn't but he went through something similar where he is now a stepfather and he came in when I think the child was really really young I think he was only a year old and he took on that role and he talked a lot about that experience and I think it's so interesting and so sorry how old is his uh sorry is it a daughter a son and I believe three or four okay something like that now and they're it's just amazing to see people take on that role because it is such a responsibility and there's people at the bars avoiding it at all costs just trying to make meaningless relationships that never commit and then you have other people who are taking on the responsibility and the role and the idea of what a father is and they're going into it so careful and so both of you talk about how careful and how responsible you were about it and that's so interesting so can I get your thoughts on that well I mean yeah So when you get into a relationship with a woman who has a child, you're getting into two relationships. And so to me, that was like, I walked into that very carefully because I was very mindful of that.

Yeah, I'm going to have a relationship with Jenna, and that's great. And I know a lot of guys, they'll go try to date someone with a child or a couple kids. And it's like, they don't want anything to do with the kids. they're jealous of the mom's attention and then there's that weird dynamic it's like you can't have that that's wild you can't yeah you can't think that way if you're going to date a single mom or whatever you have to go into it really realizing that you have to like kind of stand up and be ready to have a friendship with a child and a friendship with a woman or man or whatever And so when I did that, that's exactly what I did.

It was like, I wrote Megan a book. I brought her this little, like, Star Wars book. It was like a, they have little pictures of Star Wars characters made with, made with, like, knitting. And it was just cute. It's really silly, but it was just like, it just has, like, a Star Wars picture and it just says, like, fight. So we would read that together, and Jenna tells me she was super impressed. That's when she was, like, kind of realized that maybe I'm. I'm half decent was I brought Megan a little book.

And then, so Megan and I started forming a bond, and it was really fun. It was such a trip to meet a kid at that age when she can't really, like, formulate sentences. She can communicate a little bit, but a lot of it was like physical communication, right? And so, like, trying to demand a bit more of that from her was really fun. Actually, I love the experience. I can't wait to do it with Claire, really, because, which will be my new baby. That one's going to be new for me.

So I haven't had a baby in my life. So I'm looking forward to bonding with Claire as well and moving forward navigating the dynamic of having a four-year-old and a baby and giving them both healthy attention. But back to, I would say, the other thing, she's like, yeah, I don't understand necessarily the thinking of men who would rather, I suppose stay young or or not take on that responsibility or have those kind of relationships. I think there's fear involved. Of course, there's there's greed or selfishness or something involved.

I don't think I've ever thought that way necessarily. I've just always wanted a family and I kind of idealized it ever since I was a kid. So I think it's been an ideal in my head and the different people I've been with, I've, I've gauged it. based on like that ideal so when I met Jenna um you know I went through some traumatic relationships when I met Jenna it was like I felt comfortable with Jenna I felt like myself I felt like she accepts me for who I am she loves me for who I am we have so much fun together and that's kind of what I knew I was like this woman is definitely like my partner she is my other half yeah that's that's another wild thing and we should talk about it because I know a lot of people who do have subpar relationships with their partner and they do kind of level off and they

say, well, I treated you really well the first five years or whatever it is. And then they stopped doing the Sunflower Festival. They stopped doing the walks. They stop doing the talks. And then the relationship starts to suffer. And then it's all of a sudden like that's the standard. And that's the place you get to when you know that you've been together for a while. And I had people for like four years telling me I'm still in the honeymoon period and it's like okay you're running out of time to make me believe that there is a honeymoon period that lasts that long because we still do all of those things and it's about keeping up with it so could we talk a little bit about your relationship with her definitely well you know to that like I think I'd have to theorize too

sorry I crack my knuckles but like so I've been with her for two years that's my longest relationship I'd say other than like regular you know friend relationships so yeah I definitely to theorize about stuff like that, but we're very mindful, I think, going forward of that kind of thing. You know, you talk about the seven-year hump and those kind of things. And I just try to stay grounded. I try to keep things like realistic. I think we do fall into patterns of comfort. You know, I do this. This is what I like doing right now. I'm comfortable there. And I guess each of us do that. We have to adapt to each other all the time. I think what's important is, is learning from each other and really being a partner to each other.

So, like, I'm really here in Jenna's life to support her and just be there through her growth. You know, she doesn't have to become something I need her to become necessarily. Like, I don't need her to, you know, do this, this, or this. But it's like, I know she's going through this because she's facing something new. So how can I figure out how to support her and accept where she's at? And so we talk about that stuff. We try to be very open and just be very, I think, very mindful of the experiences we're both going through and allowing ourselves to change and be patient. It's like all those fundamental, virtuous things that we all have to work on, I think, are something that Jen and I, we do try.

And I think that's a big, important factor. you know and I think some people they do get they just get bored maybe you you stop learning from your partner or maybe it just you know whatever that relationship is um was founded on something that wasn't wasn't as healthy or as strong or you know as they might wish yeah I think I see a lot of that happen when people are having important conversations and then one side just decides I think probably usually males are that I'm right you're wrong you can't see you're wrong So we're just going to move on and you're going to figure out how to catch up with me who is right I think men have a bad tendency of just getting into that like once you've kind of figured out how the nail goes into the wall you're good to go and anyone else who can't figure it out still is is too far behind and then you start to build that in and that is that resentment of that's an interesting point I've heard it been said to me so I'm totally paraphrasing whoever told me but it was like that that men might even lead a relationship right so there might be in, like, leading where that relationship goes. So, yeah, they're doing that thing, like you said, if they're like, I figured it out, now you go figure it out on your own, what kind of, what are they leading their partner toward? Yeah, exactly. So it's like, yeah, you have to, like, with me, it's the same with a child.

I think that's the thing you learn with it when you have a child. You're like, I can't be cruel. I can't. I'm going to hurt this kid permanently. I can't be obnoxious or whatever. I can't do some things that maybe were a part of who I was. I just can't do it anymore because you see the ramifications of pretty quickly. So I think it's like with Megan, I have to lead her.

So I have to be an example for her. I have to lead by example. And I think it's the same with our partner. I haven't heard that in a while. I do not hear people talking about leading by example anymore. If you think of our politicians, nobody's worth like bigger named politicians, not the local ones. but more popular people are not known for leading by example. I don't think you can say that about any of the nominees for president in the states.

It's so confusing. It's such a mess down there. Yeah, yeah, it's very true. But it is the best way to lead, I think. Exactly. And I think just show me how to do it and I'll do it. Well, and I think one theme that you've kind of shown is through the drawing book and through your relationship with Megan, is that a lot of you has to disappear and you have to let go of a lot of a lot of

the things that you are in your day if you want things to get better. You have to admit to yourself, well, I say I'm not a drawing person, but I could pick up the book and I could get started tomorrow. And there's no excuse as to you physically can't do it. And when you have a child, you can still bring that mindset of there are parts of me that are going to infuriate this child and I should stop doing those things. And you have to let go of that part of yourself. And I think that that's a humble part to just try and keep in your everyday life. Yeah, well, it's, It's like you were saying before, I can make a change in my life and commit to it. If I see I'm doing something wrong, I need to correct course.

Find some humility. Like, be humble enough to change course and say, I'm sorry. I was the one that messed up. Not you. I was doing something wrong there by getting way too angry or by just treating you poorly. I didn't think about it. Now I know better. So then you make amends and that kind of a thing.

Yeah, it's crazy to think. how often we'll be like driving the car and then saying you're going to like the lake and then you end up at your office or you took the wrong road because you were heading towards your office and you go oh yeah like I just kind of zoned out there how often are we doing that when we're making our coffee doing our toast or whatever exactly yeah we're not good at taking responsibility and being like hey I was just I was just making my bagel and I wasn't thinking like I didn't mean the thing I said under my breath I was just being an idiot like I wasn't I think I do it the most of paying attention to people.

And I think that's what that is. That's like being mindful in the moment. That's all it is. Like someone will be explaining something to me because I'm being selfish and I'm deciding something that I'm thinking is more valuable than the person in front of me. That sometimes I have to stop myself and just be like, sorry, I was so out of left field. I am paying attention now. Can you repeat yourself?

And it's, I think, yeah. So this book certainly is helpful for that. But I, you know, I'm certainly not saying that copi is the only way to be mindful either. And I think people should try other things to be mindful. But hopefully they try this. And I would say, too, cost-wise, the book is like a premium item, but we do, we make, like, individual pages as well. Yeah. And we do try to offer some freebies so that we can just get people drawing.

Because the thing that's exciting to me, like when I'm designing a page and then I'm converting it so it can be like a copiographic page. other people are going to draw it and they get to have the same experiences I have. So draw some silly characters. Experience these different expressions that those characters make. Experience different places and different interactions of shapes.

Right, because this is something where people don't have to follow whatever the guideline is or write because there is a certain way you're supposed to write. And I'm sure there's a way you're supposed to draw, but when you get to do different things and you get to have a different relationship,

it's South Park. that has characters where they just kill them off just randomly and in random moments because we have a different relationship with that than we do with like a main character Avengers person who you really recognize and you know you're okay with that character dying or this person saying that off color thing yeah and so what what are you looking for when you're making a book because they're very nice but what are you thinking of what's in your mind so when I whenever I draw a page I'm just having fun for the most part I'm come up with I'm come up with characters that I think are really interesting, expressive, and a lot of it is

composition, so where the background elements are arranged and, you know, kind of opposed to the characters or the foreground kind of parts. So I think that's another benefit actually of the book is you get to have experiences you wouldn't have if you just started drawing. You know, like, and I listen is a little bit off question there, but like when I started drawing, I would only draw characters or I'd only draw heads, you know? It took me a long time to realize, like, I need to draw backgrounds to these things. And so when you draw one of my pages, you end up having to have that experience. Well, in that imagination, because some of the things I'm sure that are in the book aren't things that you think of just when you're walking down the road.

You're used to seeing the same 10 things. Yeah, I think there's a few things we could go into, too, with the book, because it's definitely special in different ways. So one that we've identified is called shape familiarity. So when you start drawing, you have to kind of draw familiar shapes, like a circle, right? So not only do you have to like experience drawing that and what that feels like, but also you start to realize when you start looking around the world, which happens when you start drawing. You start seeing shapes everywhere.

You start going, oh, there's circles everywhere. So a circle is, once you know how to draw a circle, you start to know how to draw lots of it, or you have like a piece of that puzzle. And so the shape of familiarity thing is pretty important, actually, because then you have like sharp angles and curves and so that kind of thing you start to learn how you can build I think shapes what was the other one I've lost track already okay that's wild though because Rebecca and I do that a lot where we'll be walking and we'll try and just stop for a second and try and imagine having to be in the position of drawing it because you'll see like a beautiful landscape and most people's thought is not I need to draw that and it's definitely not mine but putting it to your mind of how many different colors are there how many different things that are just minuscule that you don't notice. Yeah.

And then imagining trying to draw it, it's like, I'd never thought of trying to draw the thing that people blow on and then it blows everywhere. I don't know how I would draw that. But seeing it, you kind of go, well, that would be something someone would be able to draw if they were to draw this. Definitely. Well, and you're touching on, you're like, you're realizing there's probably fundamentals, probably.

But it's like you look at a master's painting, right? Even myself, I have artists that I love. I don't know how they do it. like I but but they're doing it on they're doing things on levels that I I haven't touched on like I don't understand it maybe I could and that's that's how it's been for me always moving forward was like I have to find the next thing that's beyond me and try to like glean little secrets that are in there and pull them out extract them and use them in my own work but like the basic fundamentals to look at a at a scene that you look you have like lines

you have form you have lighting uh you have shadows you have like lines you have lines you have edges, what line quality is one of them, you have negative space and pattern and these are like fundamentals. So if you start to look at these as like tools, a big tool set, then you can start to actually depict things. But you got to start somewhere. And yeah, you have to like kind of build up that interest or those those tools, those little sets of tools. I remember one thing I did want to talk about too with the book was not only with shape familiarity, but I also build in icons, which is similar to what I was just talking about. So like an eye, you could say, has this like shape like this. It comes has two points on the end and two curves, right? Curve on

top, curve on the bottom, circle in the center. That curve with two points on the end, it's the same as a leaf, right? So that shape applies in lots of interesting areas. Like, that's how I would draw like an ear on a deer, which is the first page of the book. So that's one thing. But there's also iconic shapes, which then I would get into like the library of shapes that you might be able to build up if you're interested. Yeah. So like a cactus shape, right? Right.

You might know what that looks like. But it's a basic kind of cartoon shape, you could say. It has like the circle, pillar, and then the two kind of arms. So you draw those however you want. You just have to have that kind of formula. And that's a, that's an icon. So you can do different icons like that, like a bubble, for instance, like a soap bubble. it's a circle with like another highlight in it so a little white dot in it that's all a bubble really

needs to be yeah to be for you to understand it's a bubble glasses are that way it's like you know this line these two squares and arms yeah so i think about that stuff when i'm building books i think but those fundamentals i try to i try to provide so much opportunity with those pages and i think that's that's really what i'm doing is i'm providing opportunity i'm giving you a basic guide so you go in there and I can put lines down and I can explore these different things and hopefully have realizations and my hope is that it's education through immersion so like it's education through doing it not through study which is how I had I had to learn by drawing poorly and then trying to learn a trick here and there and over time getting so many of those that I started developing an understanding right so we talked about mindfulness for the book, but what other benefits have you come across because it seems like this would really help people grapple with stress. It could be useful for a lot of things. I think that's the self-regulation thing. So self-regulation, it's a piece of emotional intelligence. So some people

have really low emotional intelligence and they don't like understand themselves because of it. So I think if you're someone who maybe just can't handle stress or struggles with your emotions, Then it's probably a real benefit to sit down and have something that you can regulate yourself with. So that's when your emotions are flying around. So then you start drawing. And it doesn't seem to connect. Like there's no, it doesn't, when I say it, I guess it doesn't sound like there's some direct connection. But when you're drawing, you're expressing yourself.

So you're expressing emotions. You're navigating with a pencil. And you're trying to move around. But your feelings aren't stopping. So you're not. You're, like, whenever I did as a kid, I'd be full of emotion and just drawing. I would draw angry things if I was angry. I would draw sad things if I was sad.

I would like, so I was expressing the things I was feeling and I use it often like a journal. So I think that's a big part of it is probably one of the biggest. Yeah, that makes sense because you are just in that moment and it doesn't sound like it's a bottle cap where you cut off the emotions and you move on and you deal with it and you just get away from it. It's like, how do I develop a relationship with this emotion and understand what it's trying to do and what its motives are and have more of a dialogue with yourself? Very, very well put. I totally agree. You know, you don't want to run away from those things. That's like the worst thing you can do.

That's like what addictions really are. That's what a lot of that stuff is. I want to get away from this because it's painful. It's like, no, you want to run toward it, actually. You want to sit with it and feel it and be okay with it being there. And you become a different person because if you're the person who runs away from things, you're a person who's afraid of things and you're not the person who's brave. You're not the person who's courageous. And I think that happens a lot in trusting relationships because you could tell Megan, like, well, why do you trust someone if someone can betray you? And it's like you're having the courage to trust them despite the fact you know that they could. That's courageous. And it's naive to think that everyone's just trustworthy, reliable people and we'll just be fine. That's naive. Yeah, be mindful of their potential to do right or wrong and give them a certain amount of that trust.

But I totally agree. That's a very good point. Yeah, that care approach is what comes back to mind. That like people go downstairs when they react. So if I'm reacting, I want to run, fight or flight. So I can stand and fight, but I'm just fighting based on my reaction or I'm running based on my reaction. So where is that other one? And I think feeling safe is important.

Those stairs going up, that's pretty important. And perhaps that's part of what self-regulation really provides is safe. And then love. That's kind of self-love is taking time to express yourself and value something you're doing. You're loving what you're doing. You're loving yourself enough to give yourself the space anyway. So I think that's partly where that comes in. And then you can get to your higher brain.

And now, yeah, maybe you're not like running around. and just reacting, but you're sitting with it and processing things a little bit and you're available now, like your mentality is available so that maybe that that function, that internal kind of structure is built. And so even without drawing, maybe you have the ability to self-regulate a little more. Yeah. Which is probably something people don't develop as much as it is because we do live in like an instant gratification culture. Like I'm guilty of that myself. I'd love to play video games. I have like one game I play. But I love to play it when I'm like, I need to self-regulate.

Yeah. But a lot of it is like, you know, instant gratification. You know, it's, I process things way better when I draw. Like, I've gone through periods where I just haven't done much art other than like my commercial freelance art. But when I, and so that'll be a rough time. But when I get back to drawing, like personally for fun, like life just gets better. I just improve.

I think because I'm processing my emotions better. I'm processing my thinking and my feelings better. Wow, that is so interesting, and it kind of leads into one of my questions and a topic I wanted to get into, which is flow states. Oh, interesting. Because that is something that artists interact with way more than normal people. People get that when they're running, and it's a real thing. And I was listening to Stephen Kettle, author, director of Research Flow, Geneme Project, Genome Project, sorry, and I was trying to get a better understanding of how. artists work within their flow states.

And one interesting thing that arises is that once you train your ability to draw to a certain extent, then you're just doing it automatically and you're taking less and you're just kind of watching yourself do it. So I thought I'd get your thoughts on that. Oh, yeah. I'd love to talk about it. That's totally true. I don't think about it often, I think.

I think I just do it. But, you know, so I think I trained myself without realizing it growing up. up to draw and watch movies or watch TV. So I actually draw the most and do the most artwork, but when I'm doing that, because I have to kind of distract part of my brain and then allow my other part to just kind of like flow, like you said. But I can't do it when I have to design. When I have to design like this, like a scene, like if I have to draw a picture, I'm making

very conscious choices that are like composition or style or like feeling. So I have to be like in touch with that. And then when I get into like, let's say I have a drawing, design, now I'm going to paint it. I might not need to do that. I might just need to be in a flow state, like you said, and watch the paint and colors and everything form because it's more like a rendering that has to happen. So I'll watch something and I'll just like kind of have pay attention to that and watch and like also watch myself create form, focus on lighting.

I'm still making conscious choices when I'm doing it, but it's more just flowing out of me, I suppose. Yeah. Well, and that's so true because what this person was saying was that you can't be conscious and focused on it in order to get to that place because that is your prefrontal cortex. And he had a very specific word, exercise induced transient hypofrontality, which was the word he used to explain what you do after what people should do after they've done their work and they've put in a good day is to go get some exercise after because that will refuel your ability to go back to that flow state after. I might have to think about that one or try that, I think. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, because I'll do that. I'll work for, I usually work for hour blocks. I can sit down and I can do a lot of work for like one hour.

Then I do need a break. And that's probably what that is. I can sit in a flow state for a while. And then it's like, it's all used up and I have to go away. So exercise recharges it. That's really interesting. Yeah, and I experienced that a lot because if I could do this podcast walking, it would probably be so much better on terms of my content and ability to remember things.

Yeah. Because when Rebecca and I are on walks, I'm bringing up scientist this and this person said this, and I have all the names memorized. That's a good point. Yeah, Einstein came up with, I think, the theory of relativity. Is that it? Or equals MC Squire? One of those things he came up with on a walk with his buddy.

Yeah. It just like occurred to him and he ran away and brought it down. There was another scientist who would have a bowling ball or something in his lap. Very, very famous scientist. I'm just not smart enough to remember. name but he would sit and he would balance and like let him go into like a sleeping state and when the bowling ball fell he would wake up and write down whatever he was thinking of in that moment that's pretty neat and so that's why I thought I'd talk about flow states is because it's so interesting how people find their way there I know that when I'm writing a paper when I'm doing the research it's completely focused but when I'm trying to come up with how to put things together and ideas that's when I need suits on in the background or some sort of distraction to take charge of that part of my brain. Yeah, I know you mentioned to me before the podcast to watch that documentary.

Yes. I looked for it on Netflix. It's not on there. I'll have to find it. But I did watch a guy reviewing it. It sounds really great. Yeah, the creative brain was what I was mentioning too. And, yeah, he goes through different circumstances in which creativity exists.

And that creativity really does just come down to putting two different ideas together, like you said at the beginning. Right. And figuring out how to make them work together. together in an elegant way is creativity, but often people say we're not creative or we say everybody's creative and that's not always the case either. Some people are hyper creative and that's when you see really big artistic names. So could we talk a little bit about who your favorite artists are? Oh, definitely. You know, there was a point when I had no favorite

artists and I and the only reason was because I hadn't identified them. I didn't know I should. I was just like liking everything and saving everything. And at some point, it was like, I think I heard it somewhere. Someone said it that it's important to identify them. And I was like, well, who would they be? So I definitely have a few that are my absolute favorites. I'll just start where I started realizing who they might be. You know, and the first one was Michelangelo.

That was like one of the, well, I shouldn't say Michelangelo. The first one was actually, I think his name is Greg Capella. And he was the anchor for Spawn Comics. when I was a kid. So he was the guy doing all the little detailed inked line work in those comics. And that's what really, like, got me interested in art. Because his lines are so good. And they're still, they're unbelievably good still.

I still don't get how he has so much style in his lines. And he's amazing. And anyway, the detail, I would take a comic sheet and I would put a piece of paper next to it. And I would draw every single detail that I could. I would like. And I had ADD as a kid. I'm pretty sure I still have some form of it, but it like really helped me focus. It was like all of a sudden I sat down and I was just like hyper-focusing on this thing.

And probably, yeah, with my flow state, like just really like utilizing it. So he's one artist that really, really drove me. And then eventually I discovered like Michelangelo was one. Well, what was it about them too? So Michelangelo, the thing with him was it's his form. So his ability to draw humans in these really attractive ways. But I don't know, he drew really powerful-looking. characters. And there's something about

his paintings that just really were really profound. I think partly it was because he was like part of the whole Renaissance thing. I don't even know if that's true, but I know he painted the Sistine Chapel and he did it with like the worst kind of paints possible. But he was actually a really wealthy artist.

But in the end it's his it's his ability to draw humans really well. So after that I think it was Alex Ross I would say and he's a comic artist. But they call him the Michelangelo. of comic book artists because he does like watercolor paintings or gouache paintings

he does mostly cover art but they're like they're breathtaking and so he draws uh he does it all he paints every character you can think of and but his passion for it's awesome but his ability to render with watercolors just unbelievable so there's

aspects of like style but probably at the core it's like just resonates with me and it's hard to identify but by viewing their work it's starts to come into my work. And I think my work became so much stronger. My other two, sorry, other three. So Norman Rockwell, he was one that, and you might have seen, you probably have seen Norman Rockwell paintings. He was like back in the 1920s doing Saturday

evening posts. I have a couple of those old magazines, but it was like he rendered America, really, the way they saw themselves. So he has these like iconic paintings. But they're realistic, just super well illustrated. They tell a story. Like it'll be like one scene, you know a policeman giving like a little boy a ticket and a soapbox soapbox car it's just this little like eloquent funny little scene but just depicted really well and also his inspiration and they worked at the same time is j c liondecker he's less known but absolutely probably my favorite artist i i have one that contends with him but his artwork is what i would love to be able to do. It's so good. I can't even put it into words. Because I still look at it. I'm like,

I think it's just his ability to feel and render at the same time. So he feels everything deeper, I think. So he depicts it with feeling. And that's really what style kind of comes down to, I think, is it's something like that. The last one I'll mention, because I know I'm just kind of like throwing names at you, is Drew Sturzen. So he does, he's the most famous poster artist. like in the world and he did everything from like back to the future to Indiana Jones and Star Wars and Harry Potter he did the first Harry Potter one and he's just an unbelievable poster artist I like that because it really wakes people up to the fact that they're interacting with this art that because like even committing to doing this podcast do you think that art is

outside of the realm and when I started doing research it was like art is right beyond what I know when I look at the poster when I look at the back to the future poster yeah It's right there and you don't connect with it. And you're like, that's a great poster. You don't think of who and how it got there and the background. And you're able to see that way more than the rest of us because you're paying attention. Yeah. I think people feel it.

Like I used to have a friend quoting how it. And he would be like, he would see some graphic design thing because I'm a graphic designer by trade. And he would say, listen, I know that's bad. Like, I can tell. I can feel like that's bad. But why? So I could sit there and break down exactly why what he's seeing doesn't feel good to him. And that's exactly right.

It's like you can tell. Like you know when someone draws a person kind of poorly, not to judge them. But when they do it inaccurately or in, let's say, a way that's like feels bad. Like maybe they're just like a nasty character or something. But there's reasons for it. There's a reason. Like so we're so used to people, for instance, that if you draw, if you get anything kind of wrong with a person, And you know, you don't have to be an artist to know that.

So, yeah, there's like, there's that kind of a thing. But you're right. I think people do wander around and they don't necessarily pay attention to the art of things. And that's what's wild as an illustrator is you pay attention to everything. I feel like I couldn't never tell if being an artist is what made me sensitive or being sensitive is what made me an artist. I still don't know the answer to that. Yeah.

Because I walk around and I'm like, I look, I'm looking at lighting. I'm looking at your cloth texture. I'm looking at the material of it and how the light bounces off of it. How does the shadow, like, interact with that? Does it give off, like, that one's red? The curtains are kind of red. Do they give off red light? Is anything around them kind of red?

I'm looking at, like, the light interactions. Because that's actually my interest nowadays is light and how it interacts with materials and form and how that creates mood. So it's deep. It's a lot of deep stuff, but it's absolutely fun. One, I think that's important for people to start to adopt into their own life because that's so common where people will miss out on the beauty of the world and travel all the way to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower and not realize that we have beautiful mountains right here that you have not explored at all. And don't even know the name of.

I can't tell you how many people will be like, I wonder what the mountains called. And I'm like, it's McGuire. It's McGuire Mountain. It's right there. It's like three blocks from you. Like, we need to start. I do feel like a hundred years ago, or probably even this like 40 years, everyone would have known that around here.

Exactly, because they wouldn't have been able to get around. And we were on. We're hyper saturated with way more. So, like, we not only have the news, but we have, like, world news. We have, like, events going on in our phones constantly. There have nothing to do with, like, Chilliwack or Navitzford or whatever, the lower mainland. That's why I'd started this is because it was crazy to me how disconnected people were from, like, oh, do you know the professor at the university?

No. Do you know this person down the block? No. And it's like, I think it's brilliant. Like, I do listen to some podcasts and the amount of knowledge everyone's carrying around with them based on their experiences and the things they've been interested in or the things have been forced upon them. It's profound.

I think, I think it's pretty awesome. I agree. And I think that it's important to make sure that there's always a diverse group of people coming on because I have, and I mean divers as in diversity of ideas. Because I think it's important to hear from people with wild amounts of education. Like Zina Lee had a PhD and a postdoctrine, a lot of education. And I understand that some people aren't going to resonate with that. That's going to be way too intimidating.

Somebody who doesn't see themselves as going to university or a small business owner, they're just never going to connect with that idea. So we need to get people who have the artistic side, who have different backgrounds to make sure that there is a role model for each type of person. And I know artists out there who can feel complete. alone and they sit down by themselves and try and work it out on a piece of paper and it's like we need to connect them with a community. I totally agree. I do get a chance to talk to like newer artists or young artists sometimes. It's fascinating because yeah, it's funny enough.

It's hard to connect. You know, when I was growing up, like I said, people kind of dropped off drawing. So I kind of became the artist, but it was only because everyone stopped being the artist. So you kind of find yourself kind of alone anyway. And then that's where it, I mean, go back to the book, it was like, it bothers that drawing is regulated, or, sorry, it's, yeah, regulated to the artists. Like, that really shouldn't be just the case, I think. So I had, like, in high school, I had, like, two friends that were artists. We were in advanced placement art together. And that was it. That was my art. Wow. That was my whole circle. And if I wanted anything else, I went on the internet. I did. I definitely developed.

developed my art skills through the internet, you know, like building modified games or like just art projects, but always with the mindset they try to improve. But yeah, expanding that circle, I had to do it through the internet. And I, to this day, I probably, I still wish I had like an art friend I could hang out with and talk with things about. And I just don't. It's funny how it just doesn't seem to happen. That's wild. That seems like perfect for a Facebook group where you can all be focused on one. thing. It's an interesting artist

I've found to be very interesting. They're very nice, very sensitive, and very kind when it comes to like you expressing yourself and sharing your artwork. It's rare to find an artist I feel like that's really judgmental and like will shoot you down. Which is weird because that's

what we think of when I've watched movies is always the high end people picking out the most expensive piece of art in the room. Well, in that case that might be true. That's the world of fine art. right big money and big big uh snobbishness maybe when it comes to like doing stuff like like doing copia page some people are afraid to show me what they draw because they know i think inherently i'm going to see i don't know how to say it politely i guess the maybe where it doesn't

measure up to like hitting the marks of fundamentals maybe but i'm not even i really don't feel that way i feel like i love to see people's expressions like i want to see your drawing not because I know you're like not going to be the greatest artist in the world and understand everything I understand because you're you and you're going to express yourself and the only way like as only you can. So I think that's what's like fascinating about art. I draw me. When I draw people, I tend to draw the things I'm familiar with. Most of that is me. So everyone would always look through my sketchbooks and be like, this is you. I'm like, that's not me. I didn't draw me. They'd be like, no, that looks a lot like you. And I'll be like, oh. So, uh, so, uh,

I started realizing that's what people draw. They draw themselves in one way or the other. So I always encourage people to draw it. And I think that's part of my motivation was like, okay, I do want people to draw it. This is, it's a bit of a gamble, I feel like, because I'm like, are people going to be brave enough to like, like, we were talking about earlier, go against their identity and find this part of themselves? Yeah. And realize, all I got to do is move this pencil and face the things that come up. That's so wild, though, about people being ashamed to put their drawing out there.

And I completely get it. If you had me drawing something, I would be like, let's not show anyone on the podcast my first drawing. But that is that sense of you are going to see through all of their inadequacies. And I think that's where a lot of academics start to struggle is because for a lot of them, it becomes this mindset of I'm so smart. I cannot spend times with the person on the downtown east side because I'm so smart. And that's the wrong outlook. And we can't do that with people. So you shouldn't do that with drawings.

It's that it's not going to be good. It's going to be tough. And you're not sitting there going, I'm going to mark it over like a teacher and checkmark, you did this line properly, you did this. It's not about that. So there's, yeah, and then you can talk about criticism and feedback with two different things. You know, I feel like I have to, I have to be mindful of this stuff with, with Megan, you know, my four-year-old because she doesn't do anything like an adult, right? She's like a little girl just trying to figure out the basics. she's trying to figure out how to climb a tree or like move her body or or say a sentence that

makes sense sometimes and it's just like you have to be very mindful and just be like yes it's hard it is and it's hard to learn how to do it that's an important distinction for people as well because there's lots of people who will just kind of say their thought and it's kind of in a like that's not good enough kind of way and it does mess with the person because they'll put one idea out there of like oh like you could really improve this And then you're like, oh, like, so nothing else was good. And then they're like, well, I was just trying to help you. Take it personal.

Exactly. Because you want a more holistic understanding. If somebody's going to criticize the podcast, I want to hear, what am I doing right? What do I need to continue? And what do I need to start to get rid of? Well, and humility. That's what's required. Yeah.

I think it's required so much more than people give it maybe credit for. Like, allow yourself to be bad, to not be good at things. Yeah. Like, be humble enough to be okay with not being the best of everything in your life. Yeah. And find the people that are way better than you that you can learn from. Yeah. Like, if you want to be successful, do that.

That one thing. Successful people in whatever area they're successful in are happy to share that with. That's been my experience. I absolutely agree. You want to start a small business? Find someone with a small business and ask them questions. Say, hey, I don't know what I'm doing it all in my life. I don't know how to do this whatsoever.

What do you think I should do? What did you do? And so that's why I think the podcast is awesome. You get to ask those questions and kind of represent that. Exactly. I think one big thing is that adult coloring books have come about and they've kind of exploded a little bit. And so what I'll say about those is it's really interesting because I've met a lot of people

who looked at them like, why is that adult coloring over there? They're grown up. Let's go to your job, go make your money and pay your taxes. Stop coloring books. Yeah. Yeah. Stop it. And so what are your thoughts on those types of people because they are very

confined individuals. I mean, I got, I got no problem if they don't, if they don't want to participate in something that is creative and fun, that is their business. That's the follow, follow your compass, you know. But I feel like there is a, because some people are naturally closed off. Like, that's, that is natural. They're openness level on like the big five personality. They're, they're not very open.

So their creativity is low. But I say challenge that. Like, you know, those big five things, they're not like, set in stone. 100% set in stone. Yeah, you're meant to kind of challenge that. Like, if you're aware, like, sorry, what is it? It's if your agreeableness, for instance, is so high that you're like a super

codependent person, maybe go against that grain a little bit and start being less agreeable, just a little bit. It feels bad. It's not fun, but try that. And I think it's the same with that kind of a thing, but, I mean, to say it more practically, yeah, sometimes people need to unwind. And you can do that many, many different ways. You can, I mean, shoot, you can do that by going in and working more, I guess, sometimes, but some people can't do that.

Some people exercise. Some people don't. So I think there's just very different ways that people can do it. And yeah, drawing, coloring, they seem childish, but they're childlike, which is different. Childish is one thing. Childlike is different. You know, Picasso, he said, and I think I quoted it in the book, that the artist is the child that survived. So be creative.

Like with Megan, to play with Megan is to act like a child. Should I not do that? Should I just go to work? No, I should probably just pretend to be a kid and allow myself to be silly and have some fun. And that's probably the same with drawing. Like, allow yourself to be a little bit silly, have a little bit of fun, and then do some work. That's okay. Yeah, I think that that's really interesting because there's a lot of ways people cope in their day-to-days that are probably less than healthy.

I know lots of people drink wine at the end of their tough day, and that's fine. I'm not against the wine industry. but there is other things that we can do and we should kind of lay them out like different options we have which is go take a dance class drink your wine if that's what you want to do you can go and smoke you can do the thing

that interests you you can draw you can color you can do different things to unwind at the end of your day but know that there are lots of options there isn't just one option and probably you should try some other options too yeah like maybe if you haven't tried drinking wine maybe you can try that and do it while you're coloring I'm sure

Yeah. Well, people love to do like those painting classes where it's like paint and drink wine. Yeah. I think those are fun. You know, yeah, I think I think this kind of a drawing style might be really perfect for something like that too. Yeah. Because usually they're drawing the same thing and whatnot. But I think all of it in the end is learning about a part of yourself. Like having some leisure time is one thing. And a lot of people love to just do nothing. Like I want to do nothing. And sure, that has a place. But meditation. That's a powerful, like, tool in our arsenal, you know, of, like, tools. The power of meditation, it improves life. And all it is is, like, taking space. Like, the way I look at meditation is focusing attention on one thing and keeping it there. And your mind will take you away.

So you bring it back. You're supposed to be paying attention to this thing. So I think if you can find something to do that, you're just going to be more at peace. And I think that's what downtime really is. You know, people will think, like, I'm going to take a break. So I'm going to go watch, like, the movie speed. or like, you know, some high adrenaline movie. It's like, you're not resting when you're watching the movie speed.

You're like, you're doing work, believe it or not. Yeah, I agree with that, especially with a lot of movies. I've just been trying to look at the archetypes of movies and what the overarching theme of the movie is. And you just cannot get away from the original stories are all throughout all of the movies we consume. And then I've been saying for a long time, like, I'm not religious. I'm not religious. and then I've been listening to a biblical series and they talk about the two

Canaan Abel, the two brothers, and then you see that in The Avengers and you see that in Harry Potter and you see these two disagreeable people who are like brothers and then I say I'm not religious and it's like am I allowed to say that if I know that the underlying thing has a religious

substructure? I think you could believe it or not I think you could because I don't know how to put it I think religious to me is probably more like practicing some specific rituals. That's what I suspect it is. Okay, so I don't mean that.

But archetypes, they're just fundamental parts of humans, right? Like the hero archetype. That's part of us. And that's what a lot of the stories we're seeing are. The hero's journey. Exactly. I think that that story has that, because it has that relationship with who we are, that it elicits like a religious response from us.

I'm not saying that I'm not talking really about churches. and stuff like that. I'm talking about that religious feeling of you are completely when people are watching Harry Potter they're completely focused when they're reading the books

that are like some ridiculous amount of pages long. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yes. I would say yes then. Because I feel that way about some things.

Like I was, you could say religious about back to the future. Yes. Or nowadays I'm into like, Lord of the Rings. Yeah. It's funny,

but I am not much of a reader. Yeah. It's just, I find it so difficult to read at length. But I'll listen. at Link. So I've been listening to a lot of Lord of the Rings

YouTube videos. So explaining all the mythology, all of like, even about J.R.R. Tolkien and his history as an author, but listening to the Simerilion, which is like the his ultimate history of like Middle Earth and all that. It's awesome, awesome

like deep archetypal stuff. And yeah, that's all like reflects in us. Yeah. You know, J.R. Tolkien was deeply Catholic. But, he put a lot of what those like archetypes are those base ideas into that book so was stanley and j k rolling i don't think they were committed to a specific religion but i think that they had that relationship with the archetypes of kane and able and they had those understandings

and then they brought that to life and then everybody's watching it and saying i'm done with religion and it's like i don't know and you can find that in yourself all the time right like all like those archetypes they're a part of us so yeah i suspect a lot of those people that that that's what they're doing. They're expressing who they are and like what what parts of themselves they know. And it's the same with like my art. Like I can only express who I am and what I know like in my understanding. Like that's it. That's all I can express. That's such a unique thing because it is like thinking about it. It's you're never copying somebody else and just verbatim doing another person's artwork and just tracing. You're trying to come up with your story, your version, what your

characters look like and that's that's like dreaming to me because I don't do that it's so true I think that's one of the things that trips me out about the drawings I see people doing with my pages they turn them into like different artwork and I it's I think it's awesome because I draw them differently I really do like when I put pen to paper or when I draw my colegraphic pages I come up with real different results that are just they're mine they're what I like and even I like to draw them, which is funny. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So let's get into the book itself and how it works and how it's structured and what your audience is. Okay. Yeah, we're learning about our audiences we move forward. I'll talk about the book first because we kind of went into it kind of guns blazing. I was like, I want to build like the ultimate version of this book. So it is simple, the concept simple, right? It's like a reverse coloring book.

You could call it that. But it is the reverse of a coloring book, right? So I was like, what would that look like? And I want people to have the relationship with the book. So we have other drawing pages you can download. But the book itself is meant to be like a sketchbook. It's meant to feel like your drawing book. So very personalized to you.

Like, yeah, you're drawing my stuff, but this is what you care about that you're putting into this. And you can do whatever you want to it. So the front cover has like a cheap kind of tearaway cover. It just has a bit of an instruction on it of how maybe you might start. But once you take that away, there's a thicker cover behind it. Same cover. But now it's copiographic style, which is lighter colors. And you can draw your lines on it and make it your cover, make it your book.

I think that's super important. So I included that. And then you get to the next page and it's a little bit of instruction, maybe just a bit of a breakdown. And then the pages, the way they work, I figure, is one side of the page is the drawing. So that you just go to town, have a lot of fun, high quality paper. So I picked the paper specifically for how transparent it is. So I want it to be kind of not transparent. What is it like to have to choose the paper?

It was a trip. We went to hemlock printers in Burnaby, I think they are. And they're a major outfit. Like they have, we decided first of all to print it in Canada, which adds cost to it. But we wanted to be mindful about that. They're eco, super eco aware there. So we have the tag on the back of the book. but we looked through different papers and I just looked at the transparency because we have text on the back so I'll get to that but I didn't want the text to like be very visible on the drawing side so I worked hard to balance the colors so they're light enough and the page is opaque enough like it's thick enough it can handle some ink so it'll be a really great drawing experience even the pages have perforated lines so if you decide like I really love this page I'm going to frame it you take it out frame it or you say I really hate this

page. I don't like how it turned out. I'm going to throw it away. You don't have to hurt your book. Before I get to the back of the page, I'll say like the, it's also ring bound, like a sketchbook. So twin ring binding. So normally you have like wire, uh, kind of like spiral binding. But if you've ever used like a notebook for too long, the pages get destroyed. Yeah. That's the spiral ring binding. Twin ring is, uh, perfect. It's like, you fold it over. It's perfect. Wow. So this book really is designed. I designed the book. Yeah. Wow. And I, it, I think on the inside cover, it tells you about that design. So what the different parts are and how useful they are.

So we're always trying to communicate the value that's in it that I very much was like very mindful of it. Yeah, because the difference would be me going out to the store and buying pencils. I have no idea what pencils to get and paper and I have no idea what paper to get. Yeah. And colors, those steps. I have no idea where we're, because you're starting, a lot of people are going to be starting at Ground Zero.

We're like, we're having to like, I have to communicate a lot of this stuff. figure out how to? Because part of the trouble, I know we're getting off from the book, but like, is that I'm maybe an advanced artist, right? I don't want to be certain because I know I'm advanced, but it's hard for me to come back to fundamentals sometimes because I'll skip right over them. They're like ingrained into me. Yeah. Like driving and forgetting that you just drove for a half an hour, like that kind of a thing. Yeah. So the backs of the pages, they're interesting. So I'll have a drawing on the front and on the back I have like a story, like a title and a story. And sometimes it's just a description, an anecdote, but most of the time it's a

creative story that I wrote to go with it. Because I wanted to impress upon people the importance of having a story when you're writing, or sorry, when you're drawing. Because like, I used to draw growing up, but you can't just draw without a story. It's, it's, you end up with, uh, kind of just like, almost like randomness. And that's how I had to draw for years because I wasn't into stories. So I drew random things growing up. But then I got into story. But then I got into The story is just a little bit. And now all of everything I'm doing involves a story because it's so much easier. If you know the subject of what you're drawing and how they feel and where they're going and what they're seeing and where there's room to be creative, then it's like you can do whatever you want.

And you have your parameters, your limitations that are you need to do it well. Wow. So that on the back of the book, that's important. That is incredibly important. I think that that's, we need to talk about that because I do think that everybody needs a story on who they are themselves. And they need to figure out who they are and where they're going. And work through that. And I don't think people do that enough.

So that's what. You're probably right. You know, hope you don't mind me saying, but like Jordan Peterson, he has a great tool he put together called self-authoring. Yeah. And I did most of my self-authoring. So what they have you do is break down your life into, they call it six epochs. And then you have to break down those epochs into like, kind of like, I think it's like five to six or some number like that parts. the most significant parts of that epoch, then you have to write something like 3,000

either letters or words to those parts. Yeah. And so the reason for it is to not just figure out your story, but to align your inner self. So by, it's been proven, like, it's been shown at least that by doing that, you actually, like, you kind of integrate important things that might not have got integrated. Yeah. I think it increases university students' ability to stay in university for 30%. Oh, you know this.

I know. Yeah, I did most of it. I think I got to the latter epochs, and I kind of trailed off. But I learned some very significant things that I didn't realize had happened to me. Well, and you have to pick, you have to draw two versions of yourself, right? If everything goes right and if everything goes wrong. Yeah, that's daddy right. That's another part of it.

I think it's you have to get into something like the virtues, and I forget the other one. I think I did the negative one first, and I didn't do the virtues. I still have work to do it. What was that like, though, because for people who don't know, you have to write about your version of life if you did everything wrong and you continue to do the things you know yourself by your own definition to be wrong if you continued that? I did it so long ago now. I did it a couple years ago, I think, that I actually can't recall. call down. Yeah. I don't know. Um, I, I think it was, I have a faint memory that it was

therapeutic. You take like, I know you take an event and then you kind of like, you write how it could have gone or what happened or something like that and how it could have gone differently and what you could do differently in the future. Something like that. And then, and then you, you can break, you can actually have that kind of way of looking at things with problems you're having and deciding to, you know, address it now. Yeah. And I wish more people would take advantage of those mindsets because I know a lot of people who are in jobs they absolutely hate and they're not thinking how to the place they're in is unhealthy mentally. It's unhealthy like emotionally. There's lots of reasons that you shouldn't stay there and then they just stay there and they don't realize how much harm they're doing to themselves.

Well, there's got to be a way I think to communicate it effectively because people have trouble connecting to like ways of saying things sometimes. I think like you say what's your five year plan? It's like, I can't. I don't know. It's like, but maybe that's one of those sayings that's just used too much. Yeah. So it's like, okay, like you said, like Jordan Peterson's great at this. You'll say like, okay, what do you do right now that doesn't work?

Well, I don't know. Well, who does know? Well, you should know. So how do you sit down and figure that out? What happens if you keep doing that for one year or two years or three years? And it's worth sitting in that pain and suffering what that postulating might look like. Yeah. And then saying, okay, I want to avoid it.

Like, he says, if I, if I don't do my taxes, that's like a demon that grows or like a dragon that grows. Yeah. And yeah, you could avoid it for like maybe two years, three years, five years. But you start getting like 10 years, that dragon is becoming like a very ferocious thing that's going to bite pack. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't think that people grapple with that in the small things that make up their life. and we often do just put it off and say like I'll move from the job eventually and it's like you need to develop a plan the day you realize you don't want to stay there because you're going to become resentful. I feel like the reason could be like I might have gotten myself into better way of facing life that has its real challenges but is the benefit.

So I would say freelancing. So when I started freelancing I went from like comfortable quote unquote comfortable like getting paid every two weeks having. a 40-hour work week to like, I went from that to not knowing where my money's coming from, not knowing who my clients are going to be or what my jobs might be up, might become. So I went from like working in this comfortable predictable. You could say like I had the illusion of being able to predict the future, but I couldn't, I couldn't predict it. I got laid off from a graphic design job.

I couldn't see that coming. I went from comfort to nothing. So I started, I decided, I was like, what am I going to do? Am I going to go get a regular Joe job, let's say? Or I go work to some other firm 40 hours a week, which I actually didn't like. I didn't like not only the limitation of how much I could work and how much I could make. But I guess I didn't like just being stuck at one place doing one thing. So I said, okay, I guess freelancing.

And it was the most scary, I would say, decision I've ever made. It was super, super scary. What happened? Oh, well, I was working. So I lived in Chilawak. and I was working in Chilliwack at a kind of a funny long story. So I was living in Abbotsford and I was working at a 40-hour work week kind of job. And I applied, I don't know how to tell the story.

Essentially, I would, okay, so I only drew characters. I never drew backgrounds. I drew one or two backgrounds and I saw this sign, this billboard outside my house. And it was like for a building development that was going up. And it was this beautiful painting of a building, nice trees and everything. I was like, pretty sure I could do that. But I know I don't draw background. So I emailed them and I applied.

They never got, they got back to me one year later. After my, my current job was like, I was so frustrated with them. I was so ready to leave. And this company emailed me. And they're like, hey, about that email one year ago. You can totally come work for us. So they tried me out. I got the job.

And I worked with them for probably three years, four years, something like that. Or, yeah, maybe three years. And so it was in the building development industry. And it was about 2009, 2010, I think that that industry kind of, I think it was then anyway, that they started, it started collapsing the whole, what they call it, the 2008 crash. It was something, but it was with the real estate industry. Yeah. And it was a major crash. And it was like, that's all the business did.

All we did was develop marketing materials. And I got a job there just painting environments. So I actually went into a job having painted two pictures of environments, and I got a job only doing that. Wow. So I got better at it, let's say. Yeah. I got really good at it. And anyway, that crash happened.

I got laid off. And I was like, so I worked for them for years. I didn't work for them as an employee. I actually worked for them as a sole proprietor. Yeah. So they were one of my clients. They were my biggest client. And that was like his way of the boss's kind of way of getting people to start their own careers, their own.

Jobs. I'm sure he had other reasons, but it really worked. I did have a couple other clients. I got some other work, but it was like, I know this was my main bread and butter and that's a comfort zone. And it's dangerous, right? So I was stifled. I was stuck in my career. Then I got laid off. And so I had been working for maybe like, I don't know, maybe at that point, I was in my career for many years, like maybe seven years. I don't know. And I was like, okay, at this point, this is my career. And he says, like, I'm laid off. And I got no work. I got no job. So I had an identity crisis. Like, I actually, it was a really, really hard experience. Because all of a sudden, I had no career.

So who I thought I was, I wasn't. And, like, if that's ever happened to you, it's world shaking. Because you're like, I don't know who to be. I don't know what I do. So even though I felt that dire, I decided to freelance. And I was like, because I did the math. And I was like, okay, I was making something like 23, 50 an hour at this place, working 40 hours a week. And I don't know what it worked out to be.

I was like, well, if I had $100 a day, I'd be okay. Right. So I gave myself a raise right away. I was like, okay, I'll say 25 an hour is what I'll make. And then I got some work. And I was like, okay, well, I need about $750 to pay my rent. I need about $1,000 a month maybe, because back, I didn't drive, I didn't do any of that. And so I was like, okay, I need $1,000, but I could make that in two days if I did it, right, you know?

So then I would adjust my rates to get to the $100 a day mark or the $1,000 a month part. And I kept adjusting it, and I would get little bits of work, like just little bits. And I started practicing law of attraction as well. so I got this book called The Go Giver Rather than the go-getter You're a go-giver Which I'll be happy to get into Yeah, let's tell me about it

Oh man, it's such a big story I feel like, so I was I was going around to everybody I knew At that point and going, hey, I just lost my job It really sucks, hurts a lot Do you have anything I can do? I need money Like that was my story I was telling everybody

And I said it to everybody And everyone's like, nope, that really sucks sorry man i can't help you and then i said it to one guy and he was like uh what he's like you're not saying this to everybody are you and i was like yeah i'm like that's what happened what do you want me to do and he was like all right first of all stop he's like don't say that to anyone anymore he's like you got to get this book called a go get and i like i'm not a reader but i found the audiobook and i listened to it and it has like five or six laws that if you abide by these laws you're going to be successful and then you hear this hokey stuff all the time about that but

going around asking people like to give me something i need it give it to me like it felt wrong and i thought that's what business was i thought business was going hey give me this thing that you have and that i need and i'll give something to you and that's business but it's it's missing love it actually that's an important piece i think to making a personal and valuable so the go giver you know I don't have all the principles memorized anymore. I think I tried to adapt them into me so I live with them more. But it's always giving more value than you're receiving. That's one of them.

So making sure, like, I'm actually doing more, I'm doing, my work could be so good that however much they pay me, they don't feel like they're giving me enough. And so that's one of the things I adapted. And I did that a bunch. I did it to all their laws, what they call laws, and it started to work. One of them, I tried it on my brother before I really got to put it into work with work. So one of them is like, you have to give in order to receive. But you have to give selflessly. You can't give to receive.

So I was like, okay, how do I try this? So my brother was in living room playing a video game. And I went and I just made him food. I just made him a meal. And I brought it out to him. I was like, here's a plate of food for you to eat. He was like, what? Thank you.

Thanks. And I was like, don't worry about it. No, no. you enjoy that and I and literally the next day he came into my room with a plate of food and I was like thank you this is so unlike you so I thought how do I apply that to work then if it works there I mean yeah it's supposed to work with work so okay what do I want I want to get work that's actually what I want so I can't give work to anyone I can't hire somebody and like expect that equation to work out. But I thought, okay, I do know a couple people that are skilled people who might appreciate getting some work. So I didn't know what to do. I just started email like a bunch of random people in the internet saying, hey, my buddy Scott is a great programmer. Maybe he could help you. Here's this information. I did that a bunch. And literally like,

I think like the next week, I got an email from someone wanting a website because Scott had told them about me and now they wanted a website. And I charged them like $2,500, which back then was like a lot. Two and a half months of work. And I was like, that's a lot of rent in one job. And it worked out really well. And so the principles of the go-giver, they work. And so I just kept that up, kept giving myself raises.

So my value for what I output, how quickly I do it, how I even, how I help people has to be part of the equation. Like, if I make someone a label for their product, they're going to sell, you know, 100,000 of them. that has to equate to me doing a logo for a small business owner in Chilwack, right? Yeah. So balanced a lot of that out as best I can through the years. But it's kept me going. So now I've been freelancing for, I would say, about, I think I emailed and told you about 12 or 13 years.

Yeah. And still get work. I still get jobs. Pays my rent. That's one thing I was going to ask about because it's something hard for people to calculate, which is the value of your work, because we have sued. understandings of like milk should be five dollars we have we get that assumption but we lose the relationship of what's going on in the background how did it get to be that price right and you're in a

unique circumstance where you're so good at what you do you can do it so quickly that I could never it would take me years to learn how to do it as quickly as you can and you have to figure out what the value of this product is despite the fact that because even the person who did this artwork for me he was like I was like oh how long to take you and he's like I can't tell you that or that'll be like that will change your thinking on how how much work it is to create a piece of artwork like this and so what is that like for you well it's very true you run into that all the time I've had clients like straight up like debate me on my prices too it's like why would I pay you $1,600 for a logo when I could get one for 60 bucks online I'm like I was like go ahead I was like you can get it for 60 bucks I'm like feel free but I am a I'm a brand designer, which is different than just a graphic designer. And so I think I've learned to put such care into my designs. I think about it on levels that are that are deeper when it comes to their business and who they are and who their demographics are.

So it's like you have to be able to, I think, meet that value. But really in the end, what you're saying is true. Like I heard it said once, it's like, this didn't take me like a week to make. this took me 30 years to me. Yeah, right? So, because I've been, I've been developing, developing myself as an artist for that long. And so, yeah, it is, some of the equations are hard to work out, but it's like, I, I do good work. It doesn't matter necessarily how long it takes, but I do meet deadlines, but I want the thing to be really effective.

I want it to make you more successful. Yeah. So that's what you're paying for. Actually is a really high quality piece that's designed with that, with that way. wisdom in mind. Yeah. And I think that's why I switched from being a logo designer, just graphic designer, too. I'm more of a brand designer now.

I think about the future of the brand. I think about how it's going to be used, where it's going to be used. And so you have to develop many versions of a logo sometimes. And so I actually design all kinds of things. I design entire trade show booths, you know, full page ads, magazine ads, all kinds of marketing materials. It's like whatever comes across my desk, usually I'll do. and I want to get into more of a niche market

where I'm designing, let's say, mostly brands and focusing on something like that. But now it's like copia and graphic designer. I'm running two businesses essentially now. Yeah. But I still love designing a really strong brand and working with a company for a long period of time to really maintain that brand.

Yeah. And there's a voice that comes along with a brand. And it gets really diluted really quickly when people don't value that voice. And they go, oh, it's just a low. logo and to get, you know, this person and that person, this person to design the same materials and nothing's cohesive because it's like a director of a movie. You can't have necessarily like six or seven directors directing a movie. It'll look like hogwash, right? You need a director or

two directors because they can work together. I don't know if that answers your question about value, but it's, it is, that is a tricky thing because I think, yeah, some people, they don't get the value. Yeah. And it is sometimes hard to explain when it looks like I just draw a picture for you. I ran into that starting this because I did reach out to whatever it was, 99 designs. And it was just an immediate headache because I had sent him this image right here. And I said, and I have the paramount.

And I want to figure out a way to mix that together with the word bigger than me. And he took this and he put that on top of that and sent it to me and said, there you go. And I was like, well, that's copyright. And he said, no, that's not copyright. And it's wild to think that like an album cover, I know is copyright. That's not how copyright works. But he didn't care because I paid him, like, I think it was like 70 bucks or something. Like, it was super horrible.

And he's probably overseas. And, yeah, it's like a third of China's like market is, what's it called? Counterfeit. Yeah, I couldn't think of it either. And then I hired podcast branding and Mark Dakota. And he sat down with me. We did a 30-minute conversation. We went through, what are you trying to do?

What are the pieces that matter to you? What are the pieces that don't matter to you? And what colors matter? Why do they matter? And he asked me all those personal questions. And then he sent me three options. We put them all together to form one main option that I really liked. And that's how we got the cover.

That's brilliant. I like these pictures, by the way. I missed the paramount. I was so sad. And they were like, we're going to take it down. Yes, I'm very disappointed. But I like your logo, too. I think I was analyzing it yesterday.

I wasn't criticizing it up. I think Jenna asked me what I thought of it. And I was like, I think I really dig it. And I thought about what it made me think of. And I think it's perfect, actually. It's great. Okay, awesome. Well, I'm glad to have your approval on that because...

Well, and now I understand it more with Paramount because it's like the marquee kind of lights all the way around it. Exactly. Yeah, I think that's pretty clever. Awesome. Well, let's get back. We went on a long distance from the book. Sure.

But who are you trying to work towards getting this to market too? Who's the... Well, before we get into that, can I finish? I want to finish. For sure. Because I totally, I was like, I'm derailing this and I don't care. So the back of the pages, they have a story. I think it's pretty important.

But there's also consider this, I call it, consider this points. They have points where it says, consider this. And there's like maybe three to five or six points. And they're like educational points. Because I want people to have the opportunity when they get the book. book, not just to draw and have fun, but we wanted to add value to it by saying, okay, here are some things you can think about that actually are concepts that might encourage your growth. And sometimes they're simple. They're just like, look how this shape. It looks like

this shape. But also sometimes they're bigger ideas of like expressing yourself or taking time, you know, to do it. I can't even think of what they are. I wrote the whole book, by the way, and we edited it like six times, seven times. I didn't ever think I'd write a book, but apparently I have. And then each page at the bottom of those considerous points has a quote from someone famous, sometimes me, as a kind of encouragement, maybe like an inspirational quote to encourage you to keep going, keep pursuing what you're doing. So that's that book.

And then also to finish off the book, it's like the back page goes into a couple variations of drawing styles you could consider. You can draw whatever you want, whatever style you can imagine or find. But then there's also the shape familiarity points. So the back cover is the last thing I could probably say about it. It's a thick, like nice thick cards stock. I don't know what you would say like cardboard almost, but like even thicker. Like you would find it on a sketchbook.

We wanted a practical way to draw like when you're sitting anywhere. So it kind of works like a table. You just can. And that's a left book. So everything went into this book. Yeah. Well, I was like, there's a reason sketchbooks are designed that way they are. They have a hard backing as well.

And I was like, I really want that experience for people. I want them to have a book and really sit down and feel like, this is my book and I'm an artist too. And I'm going to spend time with this thing and make it my own. and I'm going to love it for whatever it is and whatever it turns out to be and hopefully have fun. Yeah, that's a wild thing about coloring books now that I think about the adult ones. I don't think are usually hard cover. They're usually soft cover.

Yeah, true. That would go against your... Well, and it's a... The value goes way up. Like, the cost for us to produce these was pretty high. So we certainly made it like a premium quality book. I think in the future we're going to produce like versions that aren't as like don't have all the bells in whistles, let's say, so the cost isn't going to be the same. But hopefully the paper quality

stays the same, I think, because I really want that, I want that, at least that feel of the paper, and I want that drawing experience to be really top-notch. Yeah. But yeah, so, and who it ends up in whose hands? So we've, we've had a lot of experience, like, putting in people's hands, and a lot of people really love it. And it seems like everybody can enjoy it. Who would love to get in the hands of people who are very creative and who really love maybe new experiences or want to really like get into something and really like build it, you know, like make it their own over a period of time. But kids really love it. Kids absolutely love. Are they coming, are these coming into the schools at all? We're working toward that. I think we're like a fairly new

company. We like, so a book was printed in November. And so that's how old we are. Yeah. And so we've been we've been definitely working on developing a lot of materials. So I have like downloadable drawing packs online now. I think we've released at least two or three. I think three and have a couple like maybe three more in production. We're starting to release a lot of individual pages and that's probably how we're going to move forward. So there's lots of like inexpensive ways to get in on it. So you know, a dollar or two dollars for a single page or I think it's five dollars right now or maybe it's four to five for like a pack of five. So you can print these at home on your regular paper and and just, and you can print them, you know, 100 times if you want.

Yeah. So the value we're trying to make sure it's there for people to draw it. And the nice thing about the downloadable packs is the themes can be very specific. Yeah. So, like, I think right now we have one that's like drawing cartoon animals, one that's drawing cartoon characters. And one I just came out with, that is one of my favorites, it's drawing mushrooms. Yeah. And it's literally just a pack of mushrooms.

And it's like, I drew so many different kinds of mushrooms. And for whatever reason, mushrooms are just, they're awesome. Yeah. And not to get into some weird side thing, but I think mushrooms are incredible. Do you want to talk about Fantastic Fungi and Where to Find Them? Well, sort of. Is that a title of something? I swear I've heard that.

Yeah, that's the movie by, I'm going to forget his name now, but it's... It's not Terrence McCannet, is it? No, but it's Paul Stamance is a mycologist, and he's been... Oh, I know him, yeah, yeah. He has the hat that's made of mushrooms. Yes, and he came out with a movie, and he's part of it, Fantastic Fung Guy. You know what trips me out about them is that they are, they grow like a plant, but they're not a plant, they're meaty, but they're meaty, but they're not that animal. Yeah.

So they have this other kind of species of thing. That to me, I just love how alien they seem. You ready for this? Sure. Okay, this gets weird. So I was watching and we were learning about trees in the documentary, and they were talking about how the mycelium under the trees are able to determine whether or not one tree is getting enough nutrients. And they will share the nutrients. Two trees beside each other under the ground will share and trade nutrients in order to survive.

And that's through Mycelial Network. So the mushrooms will actually help them? Yes. No way. Yeah. Oh, wow. I know the biggest organism on the planet is a mushroom. Yes.

I know that. One of the oldest ones is here in, I think, B.C. Oh, really? Or one of the largest. They're like as big as a forest or something, right? Like all on the ground. Yeah. Now that we're talking about mushrooms, actually one of my favorite clients.

they produce a mushroom bag for hydroponic growing or garden growing, even indoor gardens. So it's like a mushroom. They have a patent on it. And it's this mushroom that eats bark in a bag and it produces CO2. So it doesn't, it's non-fruiting, which means it doesn't produce little mushroom tips and stuff. But it actually like produces CO2, abundant CO2 for like six months of like constant CO2. Wow. So you put that in your garden, really an expensive product.

And it's like, it's brilliant. The plants love it. They need the breathe, right? Yeah. And they're one of my favorite companies because they've just been like, they brought me on board. They're like, yeah, you take a piece of what we sell. And then you just keep producing whatever you like. And so I've made probably like a couple dozen full page illustrated ads for them.

And that's just our arrangement. And it just, we've been going for like, I don't even know, 10 years. Wow. Yeah. It's crazy. I'm taking Lions Main is just a part of our. coffee now we have like a specific bag isn't that the one that is like tastes like lobster or something is it that one maybe yeah if it was on its own this one's mixed in with a coffee so it just

tastes like coffee to me um and then we have chaga as well which is another mushroom uh really good for ph balancing your body and so we've really gotten into it and definitely for the lines main i notice it with just being able to have the words there when i need them rather than for calling them exactly where do you get that coffee uh just beyond nutrition okay Yeah, most of the stuff, the water, everything comes from beyond nutrition. Nice. Yeah. Well, I might have to look into that.

I know, I really want to get into, like, mycology. Yeah. I'd love to be able to walk into a forest and say, that's that kind of mushroom, that's that kind of mushroom. I'd love to just be able to say, name anything other than, like, that's a tree. And I know that's a tree because so many things I don't know the name of. So where did we, I feel like we totally took a tangent. And who the book is for? So I think it's, yeah, so kids love it.

I know it's for kids, to a degree, because I actually made it with myself in mind. too when I was when I was that age right when I was like 10 starting to draw I wish I had a book I could just have doodled in without having to figure out like what drawing is or having to copy people yeah because I did I copied other people so it's not any different to this the better thing maybe I shouldn't get in doing another tangent but I think it's the immersion quality is pretty important because you're actually drawing along and that and so you end up drawing how you would naturally figure out how to draw. Because people don't use construction lines when they draw.

Yeah. Just you don't. You start with an eye. You draw nose, draw mouth. So it's more like that drawing, which is normal, kind of everyday drawing, than designing. So nowadays, I use construction lines because I'm a very competent drawer. Yeah. So I design a scene.

I design very specific things. So I need it to look a certain way and be very dynamic or whatever. So I use all those lines. So that's my tangent. Okay, awesome. And so... So who else I would say is for? It's probably for...

I don't know. I think most of the people... I think it's mostly women who actually is part of our demographic. But I think it's anybody who is really into their own creativity. What do you think behind the men not being as interested in it? It's hard to say, I think it's an openness thing to maybe creativity, maybe to self-care. Because that does seem to be part of it. It's like people who...

value self-care take time, and they find ways of doing that. So I feel like that's part of it, but part of it is also, it's a creative area. So I don't know, maybe it's that. Maybe an extra both, yeah. Yeah, we don't have our formula down, but I know a lot of who does come to us and interacts with us, it's like, that's the primary people. But I think it's like, it's an, I know what's an awesome gift for anyone who's creative. Personally, I'm a really, I'm really good at drawing, and I still like to draw it.

I love it because sometimes I don't want to come up with things to draw. I just want to sit down and draw. Yeah. I just want to draw lines, but I don't want to have to design something. Well, that's like if you want to read a good book, you're not going to write the book and then reread what you wrote. Good point. You're going to read a good book. But, like, yeah, if you're a professional writer, that would be pretty horrible if you were, like, compelled to write your book every time you're ready to, like, read something, I guess.

Yeah, so who else would it be for? I think, yeah, people who want... Probably something to do. That's a really good person that would really get something from it. Maybe someone who struggles with mindfulness as well and those topics are tough for them. Perhaps someone who struggles with their emotions or like who is in tough situations and doesn't really have much of an out. I think being able to adapt, that's really healthy. Yeah, taking time away and still doing something that makes you lean forward, you know, like is engaging.

Because a lot of times we spend our time doing things that aren't actually as engaging. They're like instant gratification, you know, browsing the internet, watching a movie. Maybe just take time to lean forward and actually like draw a little bit. It would be really cool to see how that would do in a foster care system now and in a foster home and see if every child was able to have a book and start to grapple with that. Maybe, yeah, maybe they would be really healthier for them. Yeah. Yeah, because you're in a situation you can't control.

and you might not have people to turn to that would be healthy for you. Yeah, right? Exactly. Interesting. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, I think if you're at all interested in art, then, and maybe if you, how about this one? If you ever wanted to draw, I think that's a really good one. Like, if you value drawing, but you know you will never learn, I think that's a really cool one because you didn't get to explore, you get to experience it.

Yeah, and you get to put that part of you that says, I'm not a drawer. To rest, you can... Yeah, literally just have some fun with it. Don't make it such a hard deal. It's so funny to me that people don't question it with a coloring book usually because colors are fun. They're great, but coloring books have been around forever. So it's much more normalized in a way.

Yeah. So drawing is this... Make it not exclusive to artists and just, yeah, take a try, maybe something. Is there anything like this in the market locally? There's nothing like this in the market in the world. old. This is the first of its kind. Wow. Yeah, I was like, I've never seen it in my life. I've never heard of it. The closest thing that I've ever seen is like people drawing on a

newspaper with like a, you know, a sharpet or something. Yeah. That's about it. So you have like how to draw books, which are actually really difficult and off putting, which I think this is a much better solution because that makes people quit art quickly. Because they can't do the circle that they're telling them. Well, and you open it up and you're like, this is like geometry. Yeah. Like I don't, I want to draw.

I don't want to do geometry, which is understandable. I know they're trying to give you some fundamentals, but at the same time, that's like you're shutting people down when they're at a very delicate place. Yeah, you're almost making it like mathematical

where they need to turn off their creativity and focus. And that's, it's appropriate. I mean, that's useful, but that's a little bit more advanced than the basics. Yeah. So then the other options are like,

you have those dot-to-dot books, which, the dots. You don't know what you might get. So it's a bit of a mystery. That's kind of fun. But in the end, you have a bunch of numbers on your page and it's not very interesting, I think, in the long run. Then you have tracing paper, which this is like tracing, but it's different. We're tracing paper, you can't see through the paper very well, and you're stealing everything. This is not like that. I think this is, we're designing it specifically so you can explore drawing. Yeah. So I don't know. I haven't seen it anywhere. I, and it's, I've looked and I've, I've,

we've been online for a while, and some people said they saw something like it a long time ago, and it's like, I look at what they mentioned, and it's not that, it's something else. So yeah, we're looking into, I don't know, like I've coined the name copiography as the art style. Yeah. Which is, you know, these simple colored shapes that are meant for a design guide, like, or sorry, a drawing guide. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I'm surprised it doesn't exist, but I was like, it should exist. Well, that's perfect because I did try drawing a long time ago and I bought the paper and I bought some drawing pencils and just never the pencils ended up going in the garbage as with the paper I'm sure.

I think that's the thing that bothers me too is like it's people are neglected when it comes to art like yeah you have the materials you can get pencils and paper and you can get this and that you get a how-to drawing book but there is a missing piece so I the goal was to make the thing that's like a coloring book for drawing. Because coloring books, you know, you're drawing on other, or you're coloring on other people's drawings, but it is it is an important thing to explore, which is coloring, how colors interact with each other. And what that means, even how that makes you feel. Yeah. Because colors have very distinct feelings to them, which is important in marketing. But yeah, so that that was my goal. It was like, I want to

give people the ability to do something that they, they might have wished one day they could of maybe wish they still could or maybe just doubt that they have it in them at all. Yeah. It's like you don't need any of that. Just let all that go and just draw. That's awesome. That's it. Wow. So my only other question with the book is where can people

get it and how much does it cost? So you can get it on our website, copialine.com, and yeah, we also have downloadable drawing packs on there. We were in the book man. We have a couple in there and we were in Julian's, which is downtown Chilliwack. We're not downtown Chilliwack, but like

Cross from Superstore. We're in a couple other stores, but we're growing. And our goal is to start producing a lot more like downloadable packs because right now, pandemic, we love people to buy the book. Like, everyone go get one, get one for the people in your life that you think, you know, are artists or want to try that too. But the online part might be really good. So I'll download a pack or I'll put it on my USB and take it to Staples, print it for like

two bucks. Yeah. And then that's a lot. I paid maybe seven bucks for, I don't know, seven pages like that. But yeah, so I would say website first. That's probably the main place. And if you're in Chilliwack, we can bring it to you as well. Because, like, we didn't realize this until we were already printed everything.

But Canada's shipping prices are actually really high. They're really, really high. How much are that? Like, for... It was like $16 to ship somewhere in Canada anywhere. Wow. Yeah. So if you're local and you want to get one, just contact us and let us know.

Yeah, we can work it out. Okay, awesome. Yeah, and yeah, yeah, anyway. And so let's go a little bit more into the design part of things and what your background is there and maybe some art that you've created or a logo you've designed. Sure. So which part, design part? Yes, wherever you'd like to start off. I don't know.

I mean, like, for me, I got into designing later than art. So I was an artist ever since I was a little kid, like preschool. And I got more serious at like 10 years old and then more serious at even... Right around graduating high school, because I was like, what am I going to do with my life? And so I went into art. And it was funny because I saw graphic design when I was young, and I thought that's stupid. Like, who would do that? That's silly.

That's selling out. And then I took aptitude tests, and it's like, that's what you should be doing. Like, my aptitude was graphic design. Yeah. And then when I did it, I did it, it was easy. I was like, well, this is like, goes together pretty quickly. So I've actually been designing and illustrating at the same time and developing each skill set.

And to speak to design, really, I brought my illustration into design and my design skills into illustration. Because a lot of designing is the same as making a painting. So you know like a Renaissance painting. They tell a story. But they tell the story using lighting, composition, and focal points. Like, I want you to look at this part first and then this part second. And then maybe if you're still looking, this part.

part. And you take that into marketing and it's like to develop a whole page ad. I want you to read the tagline first. Then I want you to notice the logo. And then I want you to kind of like understand what it is we're really like all about. That's wild. Because when we look at, when I look at the information, none of that is running through my mind that I'm being guided through. You, because you'll look at the red circle because it draws all of your attention out of your control. A lot of it isn't in your control. It's this like more subtle probably are reptilian brain. It's like, but you, those are tools in the illustrators arsenal and in the, or I should

say toolbox and in the toolbox of the designer. And I, continuing that, even with logo design, so a lot of that is about simplifying and coming up with the very simplest ways to tell the story of the company, whether it's a product or whether it's like a feeling or an idea or a motto or something like that. And so those ideas about simplifying icons, making icons. I brought that into my illustration. So now it's like I love drawing clearly. Like I like when my shapes are clear, which is like in Copia.

I have to be able to draw things very clearly so that people understand them when they're looking at them. So anyway, designing. Man, that was a world I didn't really want to get into and I did and I've been doing it for a long time. I think I still really enjoy a lot of parts of it. But now I'm excited about the potential of doing coping away more. Yeah. I think that I'd love that to be my future. Yeah.

And just drawing things that people really want to experience and draw and interacting with people. Because there's one thing I love to see. It's like what people are also interested in, right? And what happens when they get their hands on it? Yeah. I know I'm bringing it back with it. Yeah. So I just want to know if there's any businesses that you interacted with through design or anything.

that we might be able to talk about and know more about. Sure. Yeah. So the one I mentioned earlier, the mushroom bag, that's called X-Ale. And so that's a product that's available. Do they sell it around here? They do. I think there's only one, I don't know what stores would sell it.

I know Crystal Mountain Products is a distributor, and they probably have some stores to find it at, but you can talk to them. Yeah. But they're like a big U.S. company, right, Excel. So they're available. There's a store locator on their website. I think it's like exhale CO2 bags or something.com. Yeah.

But that's just an amazing product. Like really worth getting if that's like your, if you're an indoor grower. And even they put it outside around outdoor grows. You know, like whether it's vegetables or whatever, it's like all plants bring CO2. So it's natural. It's inexpensive. It's like there's no heat. There's no danger.

Put it in and it's like you're bringing this natural element, like the mushroom. Yeah. into your indoor forest you know so it harmonizes it it's like sorry it brings up the ambient CO2 levels to like a place the plants like yeah so that's one business I'd mention the other one might be like one yellow tree I work with a company in town called one yellow tree and they are a marketing agency so that's my friend Glenn is my partner with copia he that's his company he's a couple partners on that and they do like a whole lot of like web development you know, local and abroad and, yeah, I've definitely worked with them for years.

I'm their graphic guy, so lots of, lots of love there. Yeah. So I ain't pretty sure that's Oneyellow Tree.com. Yeah. And then, and they're good for like small to large businesses as well. And I'm also available for the graphic design work, but one I would mention too is Studio 70. I did a great logo for them and they're in downtown. I think they're, I forget what, they're, like, located within another store.

It's called Maine on, something on Maine or something like that, but Nickl Cup's Studio 70. Yeah. Really happy with how that project turned out and really awesome lady that runs it. That's awesome. Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about small businesses locally that you enjoy so we can lift them up as well? Oh, man. In town here?

In town here. Oh, geez. Or throughout the Fraser Valley. Fraser Valley. Well, the ones, I haven't worked with some of them, but yeah, my favorites. We could just talk about that. Well, you're right next to the Yellow Deli. They're brilliant.

I love that place. What do you think of some of the controversy that they faced? Because I think some of it is unfounded and some of it is questionable. I don't even know. I hear, like, obviously there's always chatter. And I'm just like, I don't know, man. It's just people. They're like, they do their own thing.

I don't even know what the controversy might even be. There was a documentary, I think, released in this. States in regards to one of their sister organizations down there that had some abuse allegations. And the only thing that I have to say is that I have spoken at length with Mahir who works there. And I feel very confident that if he were to lie to me, he would not be able to lie to me for the seven years I've been going there. And so I have my opinion that I don't think that that's the case. But I think it's highly possible. I don't see why that wouldn't be possible but it's a lot of it might be situational and then a lot of it I mean even if there's an

inherent part that enables abuse to happen like it's this close community you're not meant to speak to outsiders but they're not like that but then that's that's a common thing that happens anyway but yeah if they're not like that yeah because you can send people to a job out in a restaurant and risk them telling everyone about what yeah like that would be a bad call yeah and I don't I don't know, obviously I don't know the inside story, so I think the only thing I could say was just like, yeah, listen to the people that

that, you know, if they're a part of it, that are saying that this has happened. Yeah. Like, that's the truth. Exactly. Right? Like, at least that's their perspective. Yeah. And that should be at least respected to whatever degree it is. Anyways, that was kind of a negative part. No, that's okay. I love going in there. They're really, really kind people.

I love the atmosphere. I really miss seeing restaurants that have, like, like a theme I remember being a kid and like going to a pizza pizzeria and it was like all Italian themed and red bricks and like big scoops of putting the pizza in the oven and like you know even subway with the wall and they had the map of like New York City and stuff I always had that smell yeah yeah I miss themed restaurants so when I go there it's like I feel like I'm in the tavern at like you know some like I want to

say Lord of the Rings but yeah but it is like that it's like like this really lovely like wooden old architecture yeah so that's a business i think is really awesome like galaxy foe yeah brilliant food there's they're all going to be food places yeah i think uh shandar hut it's a staple absolutely i'm trying to get them on the podcast oh you should i'm doing my best i yeah i was uh i i know um i think is i think we share a name um the son of the main guy uh gordon i think his name is gordie i think he's awesome yeah he's really nice but delicious food um i love the what is it the chili panir hot my favorite okay i only have like the chicken oh man chili panir you gotta try it okay and then if you ever ever been to the loose

caboose yes yeah haven't been in ages because they don't have the train that goes all the way around anymore or do they i don't oh no i don't know if they run it though maybe last time i was there they did i can't remember yeah but i think they're korean and i always get the soul uh it's called the soul breakfast. Yeah. It comes with these, these like pickled, I think they're beets, their giant pickled, like almost tortillas, like a bunch of fixings in them, delicious, super good, kind of fried dumplings and stuff.

I like Julianne's, awesome. Where is that? So that's the art store that's across from Superstore. Oh, okay. It's right next to Hofsteads. And I've been going there for years, years and years. Yeah. And what do you go there for and what?

So that's just art supplies, you know. I think, I don't know if the lady that runs it is Julianne. I think it might be, but I've got some stuff framed there and, you know, bought all my sketchbooks and stuff there. Because I used to, so I'm an artist. They used to live in Chilliwack for years. And I moved to Abbotsford a couple years ago. But working here, I mean, living here, that was where all my supplies came from.

Because this is nowhere the art stores around. Yeah. And then, you know, I would also give a shout out just to the art center. I think, I think it's pretty awesome. It's like, I think, fairly close to it. Yes, like a block away. I would go to, so one way I improved with my art was, I never went to school for art. I was, I was an advanced placement in high school, but I would go to life drawing at the art center, like religiously.

I would go like two days a week, and that was like all the classes I could get, and I would just keep going, and I went for years. What was, what did you do that? So life drawing, that's where you go, and there's a nude bottle, and you pay, I don't know what it is, like $12 per session. And then you sit there for three hours and draw them while they do like five minute poses or 10 minute poses or 15 or 20 or 30 sometimes. And I did that for years though, like twice a week. My drawing skill went from like quite like okay. Like I could draw things pretty well, but they had no feeling in them to like I was drawing mostly with feelings. So if it was a woman, I would draw like very feminine lines, curves and these like delicate shapes.

If it was a man, it would be like more masculine lines, so harder edges and a little bit more textured. There's an energy to all these things. And it was just, it was awesome. I think it's such an invaluable way to get better at drawing. Wow, I would have never even thought of that as something. Oh, it's a tradition, I think, in art. Like that goes back to the beginnings of art, really. That's why you see, I think, in a lot of culture on the other side of the world is like these nude sculptures.

sculptures, right? You know, Michelangical painted everyone nude. It's like, that's humans. You know, that's us. That's so wild because I look at that being not versed in it and go like, I wouldn't feel comfortable sitting there and having somebody stand. It's amazing. Yeah. And everyone when they first go, they giggle. They're like, oh, they're nude. This is funny, but then you're drawing for three hours. Yeah. It fades away. Hard work. And yeah, you're looking at form and shadow and an anatomy and like posing and dialing these things in

the challenge of drawing this pose in two minutes versus 30 minutes it's a huge leap of like the skill sets I'm going to apply the amount of time and things like important to it

yeah but the model side of it man yeah they're they're brave and I hand it to them every one of them you ever find out how they hire those people well yeah yes some are professional models so some Like they, you know, in Vancouver, they have like, so they have a life drawing area next to Emily car.

And it's like, you can go there. I have never gone. But they have like, they're all professional models. Like, so they get paid like 100 bucks a session or something, maybe 120. I don't know. And, and, uh, but that's all they do. They'll travel around and do it for all the art, you know, like drawing places they can. And then, but some people, you know, they have backups that'll do it on a whim.

And it might just be some older woman or some older man who it just wants to do it. It might just be a younger guy who saw the ad and is like, oh, I'll do that. Or some young woman who's like, I want to do it because I want to kind of like challenge myself or I want to, I want to be more comfortable or do something wild or whatever it is. But they come into it and they get to learn to pose in these like really interesting ways. You know, like they're so they're expressing emotions, expressing these feelings. And just like those statues in Rome and stuff, they have to, they kind of like, they come up with these different poses that are very human. And we don't, we don't even tell them what to do. Yeah.

We just go, oh, maybe, maybe try, like, put your arms up or something. So they'll do very natural poses. Yeah. And that's what we draw. Wild. Yeah. Any other small businesses you want to mention? Not that I could think of at the moment.

I don't know. I've worked for lots of distributors of different products and so have developed lots of different products. But a lot of the products I've developed were niche. So it was in hydroponic industry, which is a whole other story. But I've been working in it since I was a young guy. Yeah. And so that's where a lot of my connections were. But I've slowly drifted into like other, I think other businesses.

And yeah, I don't know. I just keep working for a lot of the same guys now. And I develop lots. But yeah, I don't know. I think I'm trying to move away from graphic design now into. probably more producing stuff for Copia, which is awesome. And really doing my own artwork as well. Yeah.

Because that's something I moved away from for too long. Like, so making my own paintings or doing it for fun. Yeah. They say, you know, you shouldn't do what you love to do for work because it'll like, it'll kill it for you. It's like, that's true to a degree, I think. I used to think it was true. And then, you know, I did it.

And it did, it was a lot. Like, I kept doing it. But it's mostly just keep doing the same thing for too long. Yeah. That's mostly it. I don't love art anymore than I ever have, but I love it. It's still great. Yeah.

And I think what the trick is is just keep changing it up. So keep trying to do new things. You know, draw with ink, draw with pencil, draw with pastel. You know, so now I'm learning oil paints, which I've never learned. That's it. I love doing watercolor and I love doing agrilyx sometimes. Yeah. But now I'm challenging myself by painting with a new medium.

It's pretty fun when it's like, oh, I get it. I just learned something where this clicks. I understand. Yeah. But now I'm at the point where I, like, have all this foundation of art under me to try to like, so I can make a painting and I can think about the lighting and I can think about the interactions. Yeah.

But now I'm just trying to do it with a new medium. Well, your book is at the bookman, correct? I think, yeah, I think we have a couple copies there. And Amber Price is running the mural fest. So we should absolutely give a shout out to the murals that are up now. Have you had a chance to check them out? I haven't. I did hear about that.

I don't know anything about it, though. I think maybe it's because I'm in Abbotsford. I don't hear about Chilliwack a whole lot. Yeah, they put up four or five murals right downtown, right where her business is, just to brighten it up. Was that? That wasn't Chilliwark? Yeah. I think I heard it on the radio, and I thought Vancouver.

Are they doing that in Vancouver, too? I have no idea. I don't keep up with Vancouver. I'll have to go downtown and look then. Yeah. That sounds really cool. It is awesome. I did a couple years ago.

I got tasked by some of the artists at the life drawing to come help fix some murals because they got like graffitied. Wow. So we all just went down there and we like helped repaint them essentially. Yeah. But yeah, I'm really curious. So it's down by the book man. You said there's something? Yeah, all throughout now. No way. Yeah. Brilliant. Trying to bring more life to downtown. Yeah. Well, I know they did that one that was near that vault area right on the corner. They have that nice mural that went up a couple years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, tell people how you, um, is there anything else you want people to know about the book? So I don't think so. I think I just would love people to try it.

I think, you know, the better we can do with getting people on board to really, like, experience it and explore drawing it, the better, because that's in the end, that is our goal. We'd love to sell them all and, like, make another book, but that remains to be seen right now. So, yeah, I think if you can't, if you can't get a copy of the book ban, if they've sold out or whatever, just, you know, send us a message on copeline.com. And, you know, if you're on Instagram, too, check out, you know, I think it's at Copeline. Yeah. Because we try to post all the time. We just try to make it inspiring for people that are trying it and show them different ways they can work with it and see what people are doing too.

Yeah. Well, tell people how they can find you. So my website is the art of oneness.com. So you should probably share that because it's probably hard to write. Yes, I can do that. Yeah, because it's like, so the art of oneness. Yeah, that's it. The art of oneness.com.

And my Instagram is the same. It's the art at the art of oneness. Yeah. And yeah, I'm available for freelance if people are like looking for maybe a rebranding of their brand or if they're looking to get a company off the ground or if they have a product they want to develop. Yeah. I'm happy to work with people and see where we go with that. Awesome.

And can you tell people how to spell copeline when they look it up? Yeah. So copia line. K-O-P-I-N-C-O-P-A-L-N. Copia line. Yeah, we have two dots in our logo because it's just looks, it looks great. Yeah, that's the real word, but you don't need the dots when you're writing it out. Yes.

Well, I think that this podcast was incredibly valuable for people to really get to know the art side of things, build a better relationship with how to draw and where they could start and how to admit to themselves that there are some things that they can improve in themselves and start to work with that because I think that that was a huge theme in this podcast. Yeah. It was an honor to have you on. I'm so grateful that you took the time. Thank you very much. I'm happy. I feel like we have a great conversation. So, yeah, it makes me happy.

Absolutely. Okay. Well, thank you for coming on. Thanks, Aaron. You know, I'm going to