Casey Lynn Hancock – From Air Force to Artist, Managing Risk, and Balancing Creativity & Discipline – EP127
Season 3
Episode 127

Casey Lynn Hancock – From Air Force to Artist, Managing Risk, and Balancing Creativity & Discipline – EP127

Casey Lynn Hancock is a self-taught artist and has exploded on to the scene in the last 2 years with her very unique paintings and distinctive style. I noticed her work through social media, connected and was delighted when she agreed to come onto the show to talk about her career, her passion, focus, style and her backstory. Casey was in the military for a number of years in the US air force and only decided to pursue a career as a full-time artist. Summary of the discussion:
  • Growing up – always having a passion for drawing, mainly of animals.
  • Originally being bad at drawing animals
  • Having an innate passion for drawing from her earliest memories
  • Being a perfectionist from her youth
  • Not having art, creativity or design in the family
  • Despite having a passion and an eagerness to moving into this world early on, her father was very against it as artist don’t make any money!
  • Instead of art school, Casey joined the military and Lessons learned and principals take from the army – discipline, preparation, professionalism, integrity, and other core values – developed accountability and focus
  • Expressing creativity through photography while in the military
  • After leaving the military, deciding to dive into a marketing degree to develop these skills – still remembering having her father’s words in her head
  • Working in Marketing after the military which also have helped in her current career choice
  • Key learning and takeaways from the Corporate world – social media, marketing, understanding what people want to see!
  • Time lapse videos being a big hit with her followers which was something she’d never have realised before
  • Taking the step out on her own – what was the strategy before taking the leap?
  • Planning, Saving, and having a clear plan!
  • Having a 2 Year window to really start making progress
  • Living well within her means!
  • Telling her father 30 days after taking the decision to go out on her own
  • Trusting her judgement and having an exit strategy if it’s not working out!
  • Dealing with great months and slow months
  • Once out, starting to build up her portfolio
  • Not having the benefit of mentors when starting out
  • Finding inspiration for some of the initial pieces of work
  • Developing her own style, preferred colours (Teale is prominent) and approach
  • A breakthrough piece that helped raise awareness of her work
  • Experimenting and trying out new techniques
  • The energy put into the work
  • The importance of the design phase of the work – coming up with the concept as the most challenging part
  • Playing with skin tones which is proving a big challenge
  • Having no formal training, every day is a learning experience but using YouTube and other resources to grow and develop
  • Practice a specific technique over and over in a deliberate way
  • Working style & doing the work – focusing on big blocks of time
  • Getting into flow and loving the process
  • Painters Block – leaving work for days, weeks and somethings months before coming back and finishing it
  • Perfectionism v Good Enough
  • Quote – Perfection is the Enemy of Profitability!
  • Time Management Approaches – Tracking hours spend on every piece ever done
  • Breaking down work into earning per hours
  • Dealing with Fear, Self-Doubt, and Judgement – The hardest thing!
  • Promoting her work was the hardest thing compared to a product!
  • Knowing this is the work she wants to do, just keep doing!
  • Quote – Andy Warhol – Keep Creating! Keep doing the work
  • Biggest lesson learned - Don’t wait until you feel like you know who you are before you get started!
  • Don’t wait till you feel like you’re there! IT WILL PROBABLY NEVER COME!
  • Enjoying seeing the progression & just start!
  • Don’t compare your real life to someone else high light reel
Website – www.caseypaintings.com Instragram - @caseypaintings

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