We start today's discussion with a quote from artist Chuck Close, who said "inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work." This sounds a little confrontational, but the he continues with an explanation: "If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightening to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.” We both agree that this is the way it works for us - we paint and the ideas come. If we simply waited for an idea, we both think nothing would happen -the  bolt of lightening would never strike. But we wonder whether there are some people who really do have to wait for the spark of an idea? Who have to respond to external stimuli rather than stimuli that come from within. This leads us to contemplate how the pandemic has effected our inspiration, both in positive and negative ways. For many artists lockdown took away their source of inspiration but in many cases that resulted in new and creative ideas. Finally, we ask how you can find inspiration when it has gone, and offer some of our own solutions for getting past that stuck feeling. Mentioned: Louise course: https://www.louisefletcherart.com/ Gary Peters' manifesto: https://garypeters.info/manifesto This Naked Mind: https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Naked-Mind-Annie-Grace/dp/0008293430 Find our websites and sign up for our newsletters at: www.alicesheridan.com www.louisefletcherart.com Follow us on Instagram: @alicesheridanstudio @louisefletcher_art "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Scott Denholm is a rapidly emerging and award winning ocean artist, living on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. It was his love of the natural world and previous work which first inspired his art, and also to find ways of making better choices for less impact on the environment. He has gathered a decade of research into The Artist Guide to Eco Friendly Art. We asked, and you had questions; lots of them! So listen to the conversation and see what changes you can bring to your practice. Which materials make a greener choice? Does it matter what canvas you choose? What else might you want to consider around packaging and marketing? The book has covered a lot of ground and is a thorough guide with links and suppliers and will save you loads of time. So if this is something you have been meaning to look into this is a great start.  While Alice starts by feeling a little guilty that she could be doing more, every decision can add to the impact (or not) we are making so Scott's advice is just to start with ONE thing... what will be yours? Mentioned Buy the book here: https://theartistguide.to/books/artist-guide-to-eco-friendly-art/    (ebook $7US or paperback or buy from Amazon) Find Scott's art on his website:  scottdenholm.com Find Scott on Instagram @scottdenholm_oceanart Andy Goldsworthy video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPDH8yCnlk0 Find our websites and sign up for our newsletters at: www.alicesheridan.com www.louisefletcherart.com Follow us on Instagram: @alicesheridanstudio @louisefletcher_art "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

What kind of person are you? What are your personality traits and what are your quirks? This might seem like an odd question for an art podcast, but we both believe that it's a vital one and in this episode, we get into why. For us, the ancient greek aphorism "know thyself" applies perfectly to art-making and may impact our style, our medium and our process. If you love detail and precision, you may prefer slow and deliberative forms of art. If you like to pre-plan, you may be suited to complex printmaking or ceramic techniques. And if you love surprise and lack of control, intuitive abstracts might suit you to a tee. Our choice of media can also be totally related to our personality preferences - want the element of surprise? Maybe inks or watercolours would appeal most. Love to work fast and furious? Quick-drying acrylics might be your forte. And finally, our process and workspace will work best for us if they are aligned with who we are. Our discussion takes a quick detour into enneagrams, whizzes past the Myers-Briggs test, touches on the role of age, and wends its way through various rather tortured analogies - all in an effort to spark thought and discussion about this most important of topics. Above all, we are asking: where you think your personality is already in your work - and where you think there is room to bring more of yourself into your art. Mentioned Shrine of Duty podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/53IJZX2FH4pLtrAZl9yR5m Obsessed with Line of Duty podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0742833/episodes/downloads Find our websites and sign up for our newsletters at: www.alicesheridan.com www.louisefletcherart.com Follow us on Instagram: @alicesheridanstudio @louisefletcher_art "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Probably! We all are to some extent... After all, it's not unusual to enjoy it when other people like our work. However there are times it can become a problem and block you from moving forward.  We discuss times when we have been guilty of making work with too much consideration for what other people may think of it and have some ideas about how to spot when this may be having a detrimental impact on your own work. It's a fine line sometimes between caring too much and thinking "f*ck it" with pure abandon, so perhaps it's about honing your own personal criteria. After all - YOU are the artist.  Hopefully this conversation will help if you are ready to release yourself from other people's ideas and get closer to your own vision. Louise shares where this has also shown up recently in her book project and Alice shares the thrill of seeing other people's wins in her Connected Artist Club membership - not surprisingly usually when people have taken that brave step to try something which feels adventurous and personal. Mentioned Alice's video on Youtube: Starting a New Series Find our websites and sign up for our newsletters at: www.alicesheridan.com www.louisefletcherart.com Follow us on Instagram: @alicesheridanstudio @louisefletcher_art "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

This week, Louise is joined by special guest Lewis Noble. Lewis is a UK-based contemporary landscape painter with a unique style and a well-established reputation. He exhibits widely and has been teaching workshops for over 15 years.  In this episode, we discuss his approach to abstracting from reality, a unique process that involves a combination of plein air painting and studio work. Our wide-ranging discussion covers issues such as getting away from the horizon line, the role of collage, and how to know when a painting is done. Lewis also shares his experience of turning in-person teaching into an online learning experience and the discoveries he has made along the way. Mentioned Lewis's website: https://www.lewisnoble.co.uk/ Lewis's online workshop: https://www.lewisnoble.co.uk/online-workshops Lewis on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2ojuGFqdy4DO8Tf7tsVBfA Find our websites and sign up for our newsletters at: www.alicesheridan.com www.louisefletcherart.com Follow us on Instagram: @alicesheridanstudio @louisefletcher_art "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

This week, we're discussing the challenges of finding time to make our art when we all have so much else going on. Many of us balance family, work and art-making and then somewhere in there, we also need to find time to market the work and manage the admin side of things. This means posting on social media, managing a website, keeping inventory, dealing with galleries, communicating with buyers, packing and shipping, doing our accounts .... the list goes on and, truthfully, it can be a challenge. Neither of us claim to have this all worked out, but we have found some ways to make things a little easier on ourselves. These solutions include creating good systems, asking for help, making clear choices, and being careful not to bite off more than you can reasonably chew (something we both find easier to say than to do!) Mentioned: Laura Horne Art podcast https://www.laurahornart.com/thepodcast Unforgotten  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mLwTNqJLRw Find our websites and sign up for our newsletters at: www.alicesheridan.com www.louisefletcherart.com Follow us on Instagram: @alicesheridanstudio @louisefletcher_art "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

This week, we're diving into the world of Instagram. This is perhaps the most popular social media platform for artists, but it can feel overwhelming, confusing or just downright frustrating. What are the right hashtags? Why do some posts do better than others? How can you increase your following? Do your clothes have to match your paintings? And what on earth is a reel? In this wide-ranging discussion, we share our own strategies for success on Instagram and explain how we have built up a following over time. Our tips include taking things slowly, considering your grid, having conversations, and only using extra features such as stories, reels and IGTV if they really appeal to you. We also discuss the dreaded algorithm and explain the simple secret to making it work for you. This might not be the definitive guide to Instagram - we'd need more time for that! - but we hope it sparks some ideas, eliminates some fears, or inspires you to get more active on the platform. Instagram really can be fun! Mentioned Heavyweight podcast: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/heavyweight Bibby G: www.bibbyart.com Word Hippo https://www.wordhippo.com/ Find our websites and sign up for our newsletters at: www.alicesheridan.com www.louisefletcherart.com Follow us on Instagram: @alicesheridanstudio @louisefletcher_art "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

We recorded this episode in response to a listener question about the ways in which we both use sketchbooks. The ensuing discussion demonstrated how different we are in this regard. Louise uses many of her sketchbooks as judgement-free playgrounds, places in which to relax and explore while Alice does this kind of work on loose sheets of paper and keeps her sketchbook for a more thoughtful development of ideas. We both also have a practice of journalling about our art, although again in slightly different ways. During today's chat, we also share how we've worked in the past, debate our favourite sketchbooks, and share the different ways that our sketchbook work feeds into our finished paintings. As always, we agree that sketchbooks are intensely personal - there is no right or wrong - and we hope our ideas help to make sense of your own feelings about your sketchbooks (or lack thereof!) Mentioned: Seawhite sketchbooks (regular): https://www.amazon.co.uk/SEAWHITE-Hardback-Artists-Sketchbook-195X195/dp/B0067JPQR0 Seawhite concertina: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seawhite-A5-Concertina-Sketchbook-Case/dp/B00BUPIPMO Moleskine sketchbooks: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=moleskin+art+sketchbook&adgrpid=54075308395 Stillman & Birn books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Stillman+%26+Birn&ref=bl_dp_s_web_3818381031 Hannemuehle sketchbooks: https://www.hahnemuehle.com/en/artist-papers/sketch-drawing/sketch-books.html Handbook sketchbooks: https://www.jacksonsart.com/brands/hand-book-journal-company Robert Motherwell Storming the Citadel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9V1ccTOBoQ Artholes Podcast: https://artholespodcast.com/ Find our websites and sign up for our newsletters at: www.alicesheridan.com www.louisefletcherart.com Follow us on Instagram: @alicesheridanstudio @louisefletcher_art "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

This week's main topic was inspired by some recent events within online art communities. These included an anonymous letter intended to hurt and intimidate one artist, an ill-informed discussion of Cy Twombley's work, and an angry email that turned out to be the result of a mistake. We discuss how our attitudes shape our experience of the world. It is true that our assumptions often determine not only the outcome of any situation, but how we feel on a day-to-day basis. Neither of us is perfect (no really!!) but we share how we look at challenging situations and some of the ways we turn things around in our minds.  We also answer a listener question about the amount of work we produce - do we just have lots of ideas or is it something about our process that allows us to produce so many paintings in a year? This leads to a discussion about the value of working in series, and the extent to which one idea can feed many paintings. Mentioned Elaine Tobin on Instagram Jon Clayton's website (look under books) Joan Mitchell book Find our websites and sign up for our newsletters at:  www.alicesheridan.com  www.louisefletcherart.com Follow us on Instagram: @alicesheridanstudio  @louisefletcher_art "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

This week, we are joined by representational painter Gabriel Lipper who has been painting professionally for over 20 years and teaching for more than 15 years. In this conversation, we discuss Gabe's transition from classical figurative work to a much looser style that brings in elements of abstraction and he shares his reasoning for making this move. During our chat, we learn about Gabe's passion for daily drawing an, his desire to portray the beauty of our world, and his commitment to sharing more of himself in his work. (We also discover that Alice has an aversion to the word "sketch!") Gabe is about to teach his "Learning to See" course, which ran for the first time last year, and we discuss both the course content and his experience of teaching it. Finally, we share two inspirational artists for you to check out. Mentioned: Get access to the Learning to See free workshop classes HERE Perfect for exploring that hybrid between realism and abstraction Learning to See course is now open (end Feb 2021) Gabe would love you to watch the free classes first which you can do on the link above. Find out more about joining the full program  HERE Gabe's website Roger Cecil: A Secret Artist  Raimonds Staprans: Full Spectrum (out of print) Find our websites:  www.alicesheridan.com  www.louisefletcherart.com Follow us on Instagram: @alicesheridanstudio  @louisefletcher_art "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License