Stephanie Thomson: 0:00

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable about how your work looks if you're looking to become a full time artist, get a fresh pair of eyes from an artist who is better than you whose work you respect.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:13

Welcome to the BoldBrush show, where we believe that fortune favors bold brush. My name is Laura Arango Baier and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast, we are a podcast that covers art marketing techniques and all sorts of business tips specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers, as well as others creating careers tied to the art world in order to hear their advice and insights. On today's episode, we sat down with Stephanie Thompson, a brilliantly passionate artist who has masterfully navigated her creative journey with intelligence and dedication, transforming her artistic dreams into a thriving career through strategic workshop experiences and continuous learning. She also tells us about her broadcasting brushers project, which demonstrates her commitment to artistic community, providing global artists with access to high quality life drawing experiences through high resolution camera use and interactive streaming, Stephanie challenges traditional narratives about artist development, proving that personal growth and professional excellence can beautifully coexist. Her portraits reflect not just technical mastery, but a profound understanding of human emotion and connection throughout the conversation, she reveals a refreshingly humble approach to art. Wait Yes throughout the conversation, she reveals a refreshingly humble approach to artistic development, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a gap between artistic vision and current skill level as a crucial mechanism for continuous improvement. Stephanie's journey is a compelling narrative of passion and persistence and the transformative power of embracing lifelong learning in one's artistic pursuit. Finally, Stephanie tells us where life painting enthusiasts can sign up for her Patreon and experience her broadcast. Welcome Stephanie to the BoldBrush show. How are you today?

Stephanie Thomson: 1:51

I am really good. I've been looking forward to our conversation. How are

Laura Arango Baier: 1:54

you? Yeah, me too. This is so exciting because, of course, I love your portraits. I think they're so beautiful, so expressive. And they're like, I think if anyone out there wants a great example of someone who's really pulling off these gorgeous portraits the way that you're doing it, which is very Sergeant esque, and it's very alive and just such a treat to look at, go check out her website right now, because, oh my gosh,

Stephanie Thomson: 2:22

thanks. It's very kind of

Laura Arango Baier: 2:23

you. Yeah, of course, of course. And I know how much hard work it takes to get to that point, so I'm like, Girl, amazing, amazing. Thanks. So, of course, but before we talk even more about your beautiful work, do you mind telling us a bit about who you are and what you do.

Stephanie Thomson: 2:43

Sure, no problem, I am Stephanie. I am 27 years old, and I started painting in oils when I was around 14, and then when I was 17, became serious with it, and I have now been painting. This is my 10 year anniversary of painting full time, being having different definitions throughout the different years, but being devoted to becoming an artist. So that's sort of a big milestone. Year 2020 25 is and then 2026 there's other milestones there too. But yes, I am a wife. I'm a mother to a little boy, and I paint portraits. Are my favorite, but I paint all different subject matters, including landscape still life. I'm getting more and more into still life and looking forward to diving deeper into still life. Even, you know, as the fall comes a little bit, I'm a little bit more heads down with some figurative pieces right now. But yeah, that's, that's a little bit about me. I mostly paint in oils. I also do charcoal, and I I do watercolor when I am on vacation or having fun,

Laura Arango Baier: 4:04

awesome. Yeah, and it's great that you know you have also that interest in other, say, topics or genres and painting, because they all have their own challenges. You know, it's, it's, yeah, it's really awesome to do portraiture, and your portraits are obviously gorgeous. But also it is really wonderful to pick up objects that have, you know, different textures or different feelings to them, and just trying to put them together to make something else. And it it's, in my opinion, a little more challenging, of course, because with people, you usually have the same skin mixtures, usually right, or it's a variation of the same exact mixtures, but with like still life, or especially with plein air. When you've got so much green mixing, green mixing a specific green that's a challenge. So it's it's great to always continue to expand. And I think that's one of the things that we discussed last time, too, where, um. Yeah, you had mentioned how you you're itching to take another workshop, which I think is really awesome, because, again, it's that never you never really stopped learning, right? And actually, this is a good segue into my next question, which is, when did you begin to follow the path of the artist?

Stephanie Thomson: 5:20

Yes, I actually just, you know, referred to the 10 year anniversary just a moment ago. So it's been 10 years since I first took my first workshop and stepped foot into the art, the representational artist world. So I was always very artistic as child, and I kept drawing after most of the other kids stopped. You know, when you're 12, 1314, some of us keep going, and some of us don't. So I was always labeled as the artistic one in my family or in my social circle, but I knew I couldn't draw very well, and I certainly couldn't draw a portrait. So I drew a lot of faceless people, and a lot of I could copy really well. I first started painting oils when I was 14, and I could never it was, of course, because I didn't understand value and color temperature and composition, I couldn't actually draw. So I could never paint my own paintings, but I could copy really well. So when I graduated high school at 17, I discovered, you know, I really wanted to see if I could learn to draw and actually sort of earn this reputation I had of being an artist. And I took my first workshop with a artist named Ken Backus. He's a landscape guy, great artist, and I thought I would probably do pretty well, you know, I would know a lot of the thing, you know, I could always like perform very well, you know, in artistic settings. And so I went in thinking I would be good at this, and I was not. It was horrible. I didn't understand value everyone else did. I was just overwhelmed. But I was so inspired because I was watching him paint, and it was somewhat magical, but I also I was understood. I understood the principles of what he was saying. I just was nowhere close to having truly adopted them, or being able to practice them. So after that first workshop, I was head first into the representational artist world, and very shortly after, went to my first portrait Society of America Conference, which you know all of my art heroes are painting, and my mom was with me, because I'm pretty sure at that point I was still 17. I may have been 18 at that point, but because, you know, my parents were very supportive of this path, but they weren't. They wanted to understand what world I was stepping into, right? And so just like sending me off, it would have been like if I had wanted to become a nurse, but I wanted to study in a state all the way across the side of the country, you know, they would have taken me there and made sure that it was a safe place, you know, before just dropping me off. And is the curriculum? Are your teachers good, you know? And so it was the same thing. I wanted to study this painting. They were very supportive, but they wanted to understand who I was learning from what I was learning, and so they could also know how to support me best. So anyway, we're sitting in this lecture, and I think it was, it was probably rose France and painting, or Michael Shane Neal, or, I can't remember exactly who it was, but my mom leaned over and said, What do you think about all of this? And I leaned back and said, I'm I want to do that. I want to be up there someday. I want to be doing I want to be able to do that. And so I was all over from there, and 10 years later, I am learn. I know how much I still have to learn. As you mentioned earlier, you know, at that point, I thought, when I get up on that stage and I'm painting, I will know everything about painting, and I will have these super easy painting days, and I'll just always be inspired. And that was just naivete, but I've really grown to just fall in love with that, the process of of learning, because that really is what being an artist is,

Laura Arango Baier: 9:20

absolutely, absolutely, yeah. And then it's, um, I think it's very fortunate that you also had that support from your family and your parents, you know, being able to take you there and also make sure that this is, you know, something that you cared for and wanted to attempt. Because I have heard so many stories of people who say, Oh, my parents, they dissuaded me from even attempting to be an artist, because the whole Oh, well, you'll be a starving artist, or you don't make money, or just the typical stuff, which, it can be true, maybe, but I think in today's world, it's less true thanks to the internet and thanks to, I guess, just the skill. Level that we are able to even accomplish today thanks to the internet. Things to you know, all of the schools that have come up workshops, which I'm really curious because we discussed this last time, but I think for our listeners, it is something that's worth talking about, which is, how did you find out about workshops and why did you decide to go the workshop route instead of an atelier route?

Stephanie Thomson: 10:26

This was quite a journey for me. Finding out about the workshops was was the easy part, and I'll tell you how I did that, but the deciding between taking a workshop route versus entering a school was more of a year long process of a lot of question asking. So I had a childhood art teacher who I called up when I was 17, and I was thinking, I think I actually want to be an artist. And I thought, maybe, well, my mom, I have to give my mom credit for this. She said, You need to call Barry. Barry stepping is his name, and he said, he said, to find a local artist. So I grew up in Indianapolis, the Indianapolis area, and CW Monday is an amazing artist that lives here in Indianapolis. And my childhood art teacher, Barry stebbing, knew of him, and he said, You need to link up with CW Monday. His recommendation was based on a couple different things. So I am a strong Christian, and CW is very stubbing. Knew that and is as well. And so my faith is a big part of my life, and my, my, my even my childhood. And Barry was is also a professing believer. And so part of his recommendation for me was, you know, I want you to learn how to actually paint. Because he'd known me for 15 years at that point. Or no, I would have been two when I met him. He's known me for 12 years at that point, and he knew the type of art that I was making and what I wanted to make. And so he was saying, you know, if you go to your local art school, they're going to have basket weaving. And you know, what is it, pottery and all these different classes that you're required to take, you know, you don't want to be a basket weaver. You know, you don't want to be a potter, and you don't necessarily want to enter this world that is going to be very distracting to you when you know exactly what you want to do. And even the faith element came into it where, you know, I don't know if you guys, you've walked through like a typical like, not an atelier, but just like a state art school. Recently, it can be this is not universal, but the people in there just do not look happy. You know, there is a lot of scary dark art, and it's just, I don't know even the local ones. I was doing some life drawing classes there for a couple years, and I would look around, and I just thought, this is just unsettling to me. So anyway, he just picked up on these things. You're very young. I would find an artist who has an amazing philosophy, and is an amazing painter, and all those things came up in CW Monday. So I couldn't take CWS class because it was totally full. He was teaching that that spring, I think, and so I couldn't take his class. But that's when I got linked up in Ken Bacchus class, because at that time in southern Indiana, there would be workshops in the spring and fall. And CW, Monday was sort of the sort of, he's the biggest artist, I would say, the best Indiana artist today, and he has all these connections to people that are now my friends thanks to taking these workshops. But you know, so I got to study with Sue Lyon because she came to the southern Indiana town, Dan Gerhardt was there all these huge artists. And so because I couldn't take CWS class, because it was full, I took Ken backuses instead, and through that avenue, got to meet CW and then have him as a mentor. And I'm still very close to him today as a friend. So that's how I found out about workshops and took my first one. The second part would be, you know, how did I decide to stick with workshops and not go to an atelier? That's that was, as I said, about a year long, soul searching and question asking. So that first year I took, I think, three workshops somewhere along there, and every artist that I studied with, I asked, you know, what do you think about these ateliers? What do you think about what they're teaching? Do you think I need them? And particularly, I remember there were varied results and answers from some of these different people. I had a couple criteria. I wanted to have no debt when it came to starting my life as a painter, and a lot of the ateliers would require me to go into heavy debt. And that was a huge i. Uh, deterrent for me. So I really, and the workshop route I could do with no debt. So it was that was a huge, you know, pro in the workshop category. The other thing with the ateliers that I was finding, you know, the top ones were in New York City, you know, San Francisco, Philadelphia, you know, and there's no dorms and there's no nothing, you know, it's just debt, debt, debt, debt, debt, all these, these big things. So, you know, there's, but if it's the way that I'm going to learn the most, you know, I was really committed to it. So I would find a way, you know. But I wasn't convinced that that was the only way to go. So I asked all of my different mentors and teachers, and even sought out teachers that had learned from workshops exclusively as well. So one of the teachers that I learned so much from, who I just adore still, is Johanna Harmon, and she taught a workshop she teaches in Scottsdale, in the in February every year, an amazing teacher and an amazing painter, and I studied with her on CW Monday's recommendation, because she studied with artists in workshops, and that was her manner of training. So eventually, after talking to so many different artists, you know, and hearing different opinions, I decided that I could do what I was wanting to do with my unique skill set and my desire, my goal, for what I wanted my work to look like without an atelier, do it without any debt and and have the career. I mean, you never know what career you're going to have. You know, you have hopes and things, but I thought that I could do it. And several different people told me different things. You know, some people really pushed, really, really pushed. But, yes, go, go, go. You need to go do this. But a lot of the artists that whose work I most admired said it could be more detrimental to you than not, because you'll take many years overcoming looking having your work look like just like everyone else's. And one of the other things that someone said to me was you're already working in all different lighting situations, natural light, artificial light, and in Atelier, you'll go to only artificial light, I think is what they said, but I don't know if that's entirely true. If I feel like they really do emphasize more natural light, so maybe I'm forgetting this. But their point was, you're already doing you're already very diversified and doing very well with it. So keep going. It would actually slow you down potentially, to go into an atelier. So I can never know what would have happened if I went to an atelier because I didn't, but I am really so grateful for the path that I did take, for not only the financial reasons, but also having the ability to hand pick my teachers and based off of my individual weaknesses was very invaluable.

Laura Arango Baier: 18:02

Amazing, yeah, yeah. And I totally agree there is, there is something about, you know, like, yeah, tele is can be beneficial, because I studied two of them, and I can definitely say that the amount of information you get from them is, it can sometimes be, and I had a friend who described it as drinking water from a fire hose, yes, but I do agree that it does kind of slow you down. The benefit that I see personally is also the insane amount of model time we do get, which comes at a very hefty cost. Like you said, it is very expensive to go to Natalie, and having that debt definitely is something that you know is worth considering, like you did. You're very wise to not have any debt over, you know, going to art school like that. And even better than it is in college, either, because those are even more expensive, and, I would say, even less qualified to teach you the type of painting that we do, which is the realism route, the very, you know, academic sort of direction that we we've decided to go in no hate on colleges, if that's the type of art that you prefer, of course, but yeah, ateliers are definitely limiting. It's almost like you're only driving a car in in like a an obstacle course. And when you try to go out into the real world, right? You're suddenly like, oh, I kind of gotta relearn some things here, because I've only ever been in this very specific environment. So I do agree with that. Having that, you know, experience going around in different with different teachers, different workshops, is very useful, and it's also it's like, I want to say, like a boot camp, almost. Because it's so much shorter. You have such limited time with an instructor, and they have to give, give, give, give, give, and you just have to take, take, take, because it's such limited time. How many workshops? Oh, yeah,

Stephanie Thomson: 20:15

sorry to interrupt you, but while I love this dichotomy of your Atelier background, because I don't have it, right? So I want to ask you this question, do you because this would be, as you brought up, you know, it's a very short period of time in a workshop, five days at the most. Sometimes there's offerings that are longer out there. So you, you know, the drawback of workshops is that you don't have repeated exposure over a series of months. You know, like the amount of progress that you can make in five days is what they can give you advice on, versus like an atelier when you have a whole semester, right? So my question for you is, do you think that, I mean, the Atelier is not self paced? Is it like you have assignments that you must meet

Laura Arango Baier: 21:03

that depends on the school. So for example, at the angel Academy, it was a lot more self paced. The only thing that really isn't is your figure class, because once the figure, once the figure, time is over, it's over. But if you have, like your cast drawings or your still life setup. You do have, at least at the angel Academy as much time as you really want to take. But of course, that's really dependent on how much money you want to spend, right? Do have the more you pay, exactly. So in that part, they do push their students to at least have some sort of deadline, or at least have some sort of goal that they want to reach. Because, you know, it's, it's not just like, oh, well, you're wasting time and money for yourself, but it's also like you're using up resources. So it's, it is self paced in that sense, at Grand Central, for example, though our cast, I don't know if maybe they've changed this in any way. So this is all just from my experience. But for the cast, they would give you a limit of a month to work on your cast, for example. And then once that time limit is over, it's over, you can still, you know, after class, if you still want to work on it, grab your cast, you put it up, and then you just keep working. But for the class time, you do have a limit. So somewhat self paced, somewhat not. I do think that the there is a balance between having too little time and too much time. Because when you when you're exposed to something for too, too long. And this is the kind of like, the issue that I have with projects that are way too long, is, you'll go through one part of the figure, you realize you did it kind of wrong, but then by the time you take you know, you have another figure, and you reach the same point, you can't really remember what you did wrong because it was such a long time ago, unless you take, like, extensive notes, or like you actually fix the thing and remember it right, you might risk making the same mistake. So I do like the aspect of a workshop being shorter because you're really, really forced to, almost like plein air, where you are really forced to make the decision, and then get better at making those decisions in a shorter span of time, because you're so limited by like the light conditions, right? So there's, there's a bit of a benefit. I guess it also depends very much on the, I would even say, the, what's it, the personality of the artists as well. Some people, I might prefer the slowness, yeah, some people might prefer the fastness of, you know, other types of painting. I still haven't figured out which one's my preference. To be honest, I've been so exposed to like these long, long term projects that it almost feels illegal if I move too fast. So there's a little

Stephanie Thomson: 24:02

bit if I did it quickly and enjoyed it, heaven forbid, yeah. I mean, you

Laura Arango Baier: 24:08

can go quickly in these in these places, but oftentimes they'll be like, Oh, we're unsure if it was just like a fluke and it worked out somehow, or you actually are understanding the concepts, which is also very important. So I do think the personality

Stephanie Thomson: 24:26

artist really does come into play with these different choices about how you become educated, right? Because I've always been a very self motivated person, so having that period of time with the instructors, that was short, you know, I went in with a series of questions beforehand that I would ask, and I would hunt them down on breaks, you know, you know, they're trying to eat their lunch, and then just, here I come with my lunch, like, Hey, can I eat with you? And of course, they said yes. And now, as I'm, like, teaching workshops, I was like, I should have given those people a break. The poor things were just trying to get a moment. To themselves, but anyway, I was able, you know, my personality lended itself to then coming home and not having any accountability, you know, no instruction after the fact I was, you know, it worked for me, whereas some other people at Atelier might be better, because you do have those like those deadlines, even though they're loose, imposed upon you from outside. So that's an interesting thanks for giving me that insight.

Laura Arango Baier: 25:29

Yeah, of course. I mean, I'm happy to share because it is, it is really interesting to have the comparison, yeah. Um, of like, I wonder what would have happened if I had experienced that. And honestly, I think in the end, what matters is the quality of the work. And I do agree with some of the comments that were made to you about ateliers, which is, you end up having to fight yourself to not paint like the other students, because there is a level of training that is so specialized, and it's great, because you truly do get a ton of skill. I mean, I feel like I'm happy that now. I don't feel like, Oh no, like I'm going to try to draw this thing that I've never drawn before. I'm terrified. It's more like, No, I have all of these skills that I can fall back on, that I'm very confident that I can actually pull something off and maybe be a little satisfied with them, which is, like, you know, the typical problem we all have as artists is, hmm, is this actually going to turn out okay? But it is really challenging to overcome these habits that you've built in terms of what your teachers wanted, which was a very specific method from point A to point B, as I like to say. So that is one of the hurdles that personally, I have faced, not seeming like, Oh yeah, you look like you studied at so and so. It's like, Oh, thanks, I guess which is it can be fine. But I think the wonderful opportunity that people do get from that, though, is the opportunity to start from somewhere, start from a very specific point, and then build from there, and actually from there, I would suggest for those people to take workshops, because you get to expand your knowledge with more. Like I said, you're outside of the obstacle course now you're trying out different scenarios, types of situations. So yeah, it's very interesting. But you know, in your case, also, I'm really curious about your process too, because you have experienced many different workshops, and I'm guessing you've been exposed to many different ways of laying out your palette, what colors you use, what materials you use. How have you found that taking these workshops has affected your process, and how have you personally developed it after figuring things out.

Stephanie Thomson: 28:03

Really good question at first like the first year, second year, third year, I would say my process looked like the processes I was watching my instructors, have you know, so my brushes were the brushes that my instructors used, partially because I would buy the things on their supply lists. And you know, so my growing art supply collection was theirs. But as I kept going, you know, I started to move away from making bad copies of my instructors, towards sort of, I guess you could say, finding my own style, which is such a, you know, angsty question that everyone always has, you know, I've got to find my style. How do I find it? And the way that I first learned about that was the way that I still think about it. I heard Kwong ho say, if you were worrying about finding your style, your style is going to take, is going to be harder to find. Basically, your style is already there, you know, it's just being inhibited by your lack of understanding of the principles to properly say it. So, you know, we all learn when we're going through school, the characters of the letters of the alphabet to write, and then we learn cursive, how we put them together, and then our cursive looks so awkward and exactly, you know, a poor rendition of the of the what we're tracing or what we're copying. As we learn to make this more beautiful script from the basic letters, but as you over the course of your life. Of time, continue to write and you and you're not thinking about it necessarily. You know, you're just writing to write, to get the thoughts out of your mind, to jot down what you're learning, whatever you're not you're not thinking about what your handwriting is looking like over time, it develops to the point where you Laura could walk into the kitchen and see a note left by your significant other or your mother, and you would know which one it was, and there'd be no question, and they wouldn't have had to sign their name, because you just see it. That's my mom's handwriting, or that's my husband's handwriting. That's how it is with painting, right? It will come out, even though we're all taught these basic principles. So I'm getting off of on a tangent original question, which I'm trying to remember about my process, so that that's sort of though how my process has developed. That's why I went into that story. It did make sense. That's good. You know, I learned the principles, and I learned them in different ways, you know, from different artists. So one artist would you know, value, value value value value, value, whereas another one might be a little bit more of a colorist, and I would learn more about how color works from them. Of course, value is still important, because value is king. But you know, I would learn a different aspect from this person, or they would use a completely type of different type of brush to do something. So I would come back from every workshop and paint worse than I did before I left, because I would have us new download of information, and it would be, you know, there's so much more possibilities now and now. How do I incorporate now, instead of standing in front of the easel and knowing one way to paint such and such, now I know that there are 10 different ways. So which 1am I going to do, you know, and then the next workshop. Now there's 20 ways next workshop, you know, there's until you have an understanding that there is no one way to do one thing or another, you know, there's no one brush, there's no one color mixture. So it would, it sort of goes like this for me still, you know. And for the audio people listening only on the audio, you know, I'm doing this roller coaster motion with my hand, you know, you you are painting at home, and you're rising the coaster, and you're like, Yes, I'm really, you know, I'm reaching something. And then you paint a painting that just sings, you know? And it's like it just flows off the brush. You get these edges that you want, and it's, you know, you can go to bed that night, you feel great. And then you learn something new. You look at a master painting, and then all of a sudden you realize, Wait, I don't know anything about soft edges. You go back to that painting that you thought was so amazing. Oh, wow. The edges are all terrible. Okay, and so then now you're down the hill, you know. And, and it's okay, I have so much more to learn, you know. And so, or maybe that painting was coming down the hill, you know, the fun part, the easy part, and now you're going back up the hill. So it's, that's how my process has always been, you know, I like going into my first workshop. I'm, I'm usually the best artist in my, you know, surroundings. Oh, wow, no, I'm terrible. And I don't know anything, you know, but I can learn. So then I keep, keep working. So I'm getting, you know, I'm just falling in love with my own word picture here a little bit. But that's that is truly how my process has really been, and that's how I want it to be, because I never want to have a method for painting any one thing, you know, I really, I really Buck against what I see a lot on social media. And you maybe see this as well. You know, how many times when you open Instagram, are you getting advertised? Secrets to painting children, you know, secrets to painting drapery, the secrets to being a master secrets, you know. And I just think that is just a load of hogwash, because there's no secrets to anything. It's the basic principles. Coming back to the handwriting analogy. It's those, those simple block letters that we learned, those are the foundation, you know, and there's no secret to it. There's 100 different ways that you can use them, certainly, but the secret is understanding those principles and putting the work in to understand them more and more and more. So that's you know. And then my palette of colors has been informed by different things. When I first started, I knew I couldn't control value, and I knew it was the most important. So I went to a very limited palette, the Zorn palette, for a long time, and then I did a I wanted to move more chromatic, so I did a simple primary palette, yellow, blue and red and white, of course, for another you know, year before, I then sort of moved into really wanting to understand color more, and now I work with a split primary palette of about 14 colors, and I've stuck with that for the last probably five or six years, and I'm really it really feels right for me, and I'm adding. Some things taking some things away at different points, but yeah, that's the long answer with a lot of word pictures to your

Laura Arango Baier: 35:06

question. No, that's that's great because I was so curious. You know, having had exposure to a bunch of different teachers, right? It's very different from the affiliate system, which oftentimes, if you have a very good school and very good instructors, they will tell you, Okay, start with these pigments. And this is how you would mix flesh. This is how you would, you know, decide to mix for a specific object if you're making a still life, right? So it's also interesting to hear like you have all of these artists who have their own processes that you know obviously aren't, quote, unquote, the standard, right? Because in these athletes, they make a standard, so it's a lot easier to learn, and then you kind of deviate from that, but having so much different information, I bet must have been a little bit confusing. But at the same time, you do have the benefit of experimentation, of opening yourself up to different methods and not being afraid to try something new, which, you know, I'm sure people out there don't agree that, like ateliers make you afraid of trying something new. I think that's just a normal, natural human fear when you're used to something but, but it is great to have had that experience of, oh, well, this instructor uses this very specific pigment, and I can see why, and I might keep it, or I might change it, or I might do something else. So I think that's a great benefit. And then, in terms also of the creation of an image, do you also have a process that you've built for yourself around that

Stephanie Thomson: 36:39

good question about how I'm going to answer that for a second. How I'll approach a different one painting or another would depend mostly on what it is. So recently, I did a portrait of my son and I called sanctuary, and in order to paint a self portrait with at that point he was 10 months old, I'm not going to be able to do that from life. So what I did was my husband and I had a little mini photo shoot actually right into my studio here. This is where I paint models and live stream life drawing sessions and different things. So we got the setup all ready to go, and I had sort of described to him what I wanted from the paint, from the photos, you know, the pose I was looking for for a couple weeks leading up to this. I just was, I just had this strong mental image of, you know, this just sort of like two bodies, sort of coming together as one. And I was doing a lot of little line drawings of it like we'd be watching TV, and I'd just be thinking, I've got to paint this painting. And I can see it almost in my mind, but I can't quite and so do these little line drawings anyway. So I kind of shown him some of those things and described it to him. So we did this photo shoot and the one and I'm looking at hundreds of photos later, trying to see, okay, do any of these really align with my vision, right? And one of the photos was of me as I was moving from one pose to the next, right. So I'm not posing, and I was trying to console our son, because even though it was roughly a 10 minute photo shoot, you know, he wanted to be doing something else, you know, at that point, and so he was starting to become restless. So I was trying to get a couple more minutes of photos out. And so the photo was a little blurry, but it had this, this moment, which maybe we can show this painting at the same time. But, you know, it's, I'm sort of looking at my son, and he's looking down, and it was the moment I wanted. So I did in that case, you know, I'm working from the photo, and the colors of the photo are not really going to be awesome, you know, for at that point, it was, we looked back, and some of the settings we had weren't the best for capturing great color, but I really needed the setup, and I wanted to work in layers on that painting and really experiment with color, because I've been learning a lot about color this year, and so it was fine that the you know, I wasn't going to be copying the colors one for one from that photo. So I did a little preparatory sketch, about of six by eight. And then I started the larger painting, and I worked in layers on that painting. Whereas, if I'm going to do a landscape, you know, I will, I will basically never do a landscape from just a photograph. I will always have, I will try to have some plein air, really quick sketches, because landscape is probably my least exciting subject matter at this phase of my life. And I love nature and being outside in nature, but for some reason, if there's a person in it, you know, I'm just going to be, I'm just like, I get this little fire inside, you know, and I have to, I. Have to work a little harder to get that fire and especially from a photo with a landscape, because I don't know why, I probably have something more to learn. I that's what it is. I just haven't learned enough yet about that particular subject matter. But anyway, so for that case, I'll use, you know, plein air, or do the entire thing. My favorite with landscapes is to return to the same scene a couple times and work on something, you know, whereas the still life, I'll do that all from life, there's no real reason to do all still life from photos, in my opinion, you know, it's just it takes all the fun out of it, so that, that would be the difference. You know, I'll work from photos. Sometimes I'll work from a series of sketches and photos other times and or just entirely from life.

Laura Arango Baier: 40:50

Awesome. If you've been enjoying the podcast and also want to be able to ask our guests live questions, then you might want to join our monthly BoldBrush live webinars, where our guest artists discuss marketing tips, share inspiring stories and answer your burning questions in real time, whether you're a seasoned painter or just starting your creative journey, this is your chance to connect, learn and spark new ideas, and whether you're stuck on a canvas or building your creative business, this is where breakthroughs happen. Don't miss out. Ignite your passion and transform your art practice by joining us. Our next BoldBrush Live Webinar is coming up on August 14, with our special guest, Diego Glazer. You can find the sign up link in the show notes at BoldBrush We inspire artists to inspire the world, because creating art creates magic, and the world is currently in desperate need of magic. BoldBrush provides artists with free art marketing, creativity and business ideas and information. This show is an example. We also offer written resources, articles and a free monthly art contest open to all visual artists. We believe that fortune favors the bold brush, and if you believe that too, sign up completely free@boldbrushshow.com that's B, O, L, d, b, r, U, S, H show.com. The BoldBrush Show is sponsored by Faso. Now, more than ever, it's crucial to have a website when you're an artist, especially if you want to be a professional in your career. Thankfully, with our special link, faso.com, forward slash podcast, you can make that come true and also get over 50% off your first year on your artist website. Yes, that's basically the price of 12 lattes in one year, which I think is a really great deal, considering that you get sleek and beautiful website templates that are also mobile friendly, e commerce, print on demand in certain countries, as well as access to our marketing center that has our brand new art marketing calendar. And the art marketing calendar is something that you won't get with our competitor. The art marketing calendar gives you day by day, step by step, guides on what you should be doing today right now in order to get your artwork out there and seen by the right eyes so that you can make more sales this year. So if you want to change your life and actually meet your sales goal this year. Then start now by going to our special link, faso.com forward slash podcast. That's F, A, S, o.com, forward slash podcast, yeah, it makes perfect sense. And obviously, if you want to have a painting right, or make a painting of yourself with your son, it's kind of hard to do both things, paint and hold your child. And, you know, have a mirror in that case to even attempt it, because, yeah, especially at 10 months old, they're so restless. I just want to do something else. But, yeah, that's it's fascinating, of course, to me, because, you know, again, with workshops, you do get that opportunity to to work from life, and it is so much, so much better to work from life. But of course, pictures do have that ease where, oh well, you know, if I can't capture this at this moment, or if it's a really dynamic pose, or if this person absolutely just can't sit for too long, then of course, the picture is very useful. And that painting that you mentioned that you did of you and your son is absolutely gorgeous. It is so beautiful because it's such a candid moment. It really feels alive. So I loved it when I saw it. And actually, this brings me also to the next thing that I'm really curious to hear about, which is your broadcasting brushers, since you did mention also having a live stream and having, you know, live painting. Do you mind telling us a bit about that?

Stephanie Thomson: 44:27

Yeah, no problem at all. Yeah. So painting from life is so vital for us, right? And in workshops, I would have models all lined up for me, and the pose all figured out, you know? And it's so inspiring because you have a teacher there that's teaching you, and you have all this energy in the room. And so painting is like, it's just, it's not hard to get inspired. And then when I would come home from these workshops, this is, this is backstory before I get to broadcasting brushers. Um. Um, then I would come home and I would realize, you know, okay, that that camp like energy that you have is gone a little bit, and now I'm responsible for hiring my own models or going and finding them. So when I was in my workshop circuit, I guess you could say I was in, I took workshops for about four years and three or four a year, two, three or four a year. I was looking for life drawing groups for in between those workshops, so that I could be painting from life as much as possible. And there were some in my area. Some were very far away, and some, there was a particular group that was so wonderful and inspiring and beneficial. And I loved painting with these artists, and some of them are still very good friends of mine today. But the lighting of the space that we had was so so poor, and the walls were this stark white with paintings hung on them, and so the background was just always this very uninspiring mesh of neutrals and then very hard angles and lines. And what was interesting was a lot of the people in the group were landscape painters, primarily, and so they were looking at it as just purely practice, and they didn't really care to push through to find an amazing composition or a pose, they just, they were happy with anything. And again, the lighting was really tough. So after a year or so of going to these different life drawing classes around my area, and there weren't classes, they were just sessions. You know, you'd go and you'd pay everyone, pay the model, I was also really frustrated, because I wasn't really frustrated, but I was feeling a lack because I didn't know who the models were beforehand. So I would be in my mind all day preparing for this session, you know. Okay, how do I want to approach this? What weakness am I going to really target? And I would start to paint the painting in my mind, you know. How am I going to go about this in order to make it better than, you know, last time I didn't take my values dark enough, and so I really need to get that value dark enough so that I can show the light and shadow, you know? And so I'd be having this mental process, and I'd show up and realize that, as I was thinking about getting my values dark enough, I had been mentally painting a brunette, and now there's a blonde on the model stand, and I just, I'm totally thrown out of my mental process. And, you know, I've been, I realized I was painting this brunette all day, you know. So it was like, in order to really harness the creativity that was feeling so, so frustrated, I needed to be even more control. So I actually started my own life drawing group so that I could hire the models, so that I could think about the poses, you know, because I'd be looking at these master paintings and think I would love to paint that pose. But then I had no, no power to really make it happen. So I started inviting local artist friends to come paint with me, to also share the load. You know, because at 1819 to hire a model and spend $45 or $60 for us for three hours of painting, it was very prohibitive. So that's why I started this lecturing group. And it just became, we became special to each other, you know, this community of artists that we was getting together so frequently, it just was so bolstering to not only my artistic growth, but also just my creativity and my mental health. I guess you could say, as an artist, you know, we're so isolated so much of the time when we're making our serious work, which we should be, you know, because you really do have to, it's all it's very mental painting, right? And a lot of that needs to be done by yourself, but too much by yourself. You start to not realize what you're doing well, you know, and everything looks terrible in your painting, and painting is so hard. And, you know, like, you can start going down these bad thought processes and then just getting together and painting with friends. Oh my gosh, wow. Look. She's using this penguin. I've never even heard of this, you know, when all of a sudden you're just getting this like, you know, there's like, this irrational difficulty, that sometimes, when we're too often alone painting, it's just painting is so hard, and I can't I'm so bad, you know, and so painting in a group really just is so uplifting, and the time painting from life is so important, right? Okay, so that's sort of the backstory about, you know, my history of painting from life and life drawing groups this last year and a half that I have now become a mother and just grown up generally. You know, when I first started painting, I was 1718, 1920, and to take off for two weeks to go to Scottsdale, Arizona, to take back to back workshops at the Scottsdale artist school was no big deal, because I would just, I would tell the families that I nannied for that I was going to be out of town and I would arrange, you know, I didn't have a dog that I needed to I didn't have a house, I didn't have children, I didn't have a spouse, you know, like it was just, I was the freest I will ever probably be in my life. And I don't want that freedom back now, you know, because then. I would mean, I don't have my son, and I don't have this beautiful life that I built, but I capitalized on it then and when I became a mother, and or even before then, I became a wife, you know, I realized the prime the majority of artists out in the world have real life responsibilities. They're not 17 years old and just very freewheeling in a way. And even 17 year olds might not have as much freedom as I had at that stage, right. And so doing what I did would be a lot harder for me now. And even getting to these life drawing sessions would be more difficult. You know, I started painting from life again when my son and hosting models in our studio, this in this space when he was about three months old. And I could do that even though he was, you know, full time nursing. And, you know, I'm a three month old is so dependent was primary. And because of, you know, I had a very slow recovery and different things, I could do that because it was at my house, and I host the models and the artists come to me, you know, and to my studio, and I could give the baby to my husband, you know, who was upstairs when I was needing to paint. And I just thought, Okay, how, how could I create a place for artists like me that have real life responsibilities? Maybe it's not children. Maybe it's that they're caregivers for an elderly family member. Or, you know, they just have a very demanding job there, for some reason, don't have the ability to be get from point A to point B, or there's no life drawing classes or sessions in their area. Everyone is a landscape painter. Everyone's abstract. You know, how many times have I heard that at these different places, porch society, or even, you know, posting about the basement brushers, the group that I've hosted in my basement to do life drawing for all these years. I wish I lived in your area. I would come paint with you. No one is doing this. And this idea of broadcasting brushers came to mind. My husband and I, we disagree on whose idea it was first. So we've settled on the idea that it was a joint idea, you know, because I wanted to do harness this ability to paint online for a while, but just doing something like a class or a demo video really just wasn't inspiring enough to me. Everyone it's it's out there. Like I said, secrets to painting this secrets to painting that you can find. That you can find 100 instructional videos, but I really wanted to get more at this problem that I was seeing where, what if you, if you want to paint from life, but you have limitations, how could and you want to have an artistic community and grow together? How, how could I help this problem? You know, when you look at the great artists of the past and even the not too recent past, maybe that's the wrong phrase. Not I don't know if that phrase is right, but I'll just say the names like Richard Schmidt and the Putney painters, or everyone at the palette and chisel, or Everett, Raymond Kinsler and Michael Shane Neal. You know, great artists rise together, very few in isolation. You know, are becoming great at the level that I have wanted to become all alone. You know, even looking back, Sargent was writing to Monet was writing to Mancini, was writing to Degas, was writing to Mary Cassatt was, you know, and they were getting together and going and painting abroad, you know, getting together and painting together is so important. So super long intro to this now concluded, but now you understand sort of where this idea for broadcasting brochures came from, and my spirit, my heart behind it. So what we have done, and we, as my husband and I, we have gotten all of the tech figured out to live stream in 4k resolution, because the in order to offer to artists all around the world, not just the country, but the world, this access to very high quality reference material, and give people the opportunity to paint from life. Of course, it is not from life, from life, from life, I get that, but that's where the 4k resolution really comes in. Is important, because if we can't paint from life, what are we painting from? We're painting from crappy cell phone pictures, primarily, right? Like, that's the 99% I feel maybe not that much percent, but that's our alternative. And you know, some of us have very nice cameras and are working with it, but some of us don't. And then don't, and then we're just left with these terrible reference photos, terrible materials, and it's all still and already very chosen out for us. So what broadcasting brushers is is it's a twice monthly life drawing group, very. Where we are painting together for three hours. So I hire, I hire a model. They sit for three hours, and a camera is pointed at them, and their pose for that full three hours. So you see them as they're shifting and tilting and sitting from life in 4k resolution. So you can see individual hairs. You can see individual pores. You know, when I show the models, this is what they're seeing. If you a lot of them are wish they hadn't seen it. You know, it's very It's unbelievable the quality. Another camera is pointed at my canvas, and then a third camera is pointed at my palette, and then those two are in a picture, in picture so you can see my painting and my palette at the same time, and watch not only has the painting is developing, but what the palette is looking like. Because the palette is the brain of the painting. It's, you know, in all my workshops, I paid so much attention to what their palette was doing, and then we're chatting throughout the entire thing. I'm talking through my process and talking to the model. And so far, we have 80 artists from all over the world joining our live streams and painting together. And it's, it's just been my hypothesis was proven right very quickly, that people are hungry not only to paint from life, from very high quality reference material, but they also want to be in a community of artists and how, you know, be vulnerable and share their work. We have a discord chat set up so that simultaneously as we're painting, people are sending progress photos of their painting for everyone to see, and if it makes you uncomfortable, you don't need to, but I encourage everyone to do so, because you can get you ask advice, you can just get uplifted and sort of get out of your own mind. You know, painting is so often, as I said, isolating. We get way too deep into our own psyche, and it's such a benefit to not only paint from life, but to do so with other artists and grow together.

Laura Arango Baier: 57:10

Absolutely. Yes. I mean, it's true. It is true. And I think it's such a great you know idea. Because, like you said, there are people out there. Maybe they can't access a live model, or maybe they can't maybe they have some sort of disability right, where they just can't move at all, but they do have access to being able to work from home and paint from home, and it's excellent, again, building community, and you're giving other artists the opportunity to work from life, which is honestly a treat, I think, you know, if I had heard about it when I was a student, and I was like, Man, I want more model time, I definitely would have, if I had found your your live stream, would have been like, oh my gosh, yes, I'm doing this. Um, because, you know, besides the the ability to be able to know work from a model, there's also the community, right? Which is, I think, even more beautiful, because it seems to, for example, this podcast that I've been able to also hear about other pigments that I'm like, Oh my gosh, you know, I've been hunting down like, a really transparent black, and I can't find one. And then a guest is like, oh, try chromatic black. It's actually, like a mixed black, and it's really transparent. I'm like, No way, right? So, but otherwise, if I didn't have this, you know, the opportunity to use this podcast to be able to do that, I wouldn't have really known, even though I Googled it, I don't know how many times like, most transparent black pigment, there's none, right? So, so, yeah, I think it's having that, you know, connection with other people, right? Which is another thing that we seek for as artists, having that connection. We try to do that with our work, of course, with our paintings, that someone sees it and immediately just have that click with it. But also we need that in a social way as well. And of course, kindred spirits with other artists. It's so easy to talk to other artists, which is really fun as well, but yeah, and then Oh. And of course, I will also be including the link for anyone who wants to become a part of it. That link will be in the show notes or in the description for depending on where we post this. And I wanted to ask you as well. Do you have any final advice for someone who wants to become a full time artist?

Stephanie Thomson: 59:29

It's a very broad and good question. Yes, I'd have a couple different avenues of advice. And of course, I can only speak from my own experience and what I have, what, what, how God has directed my steps, right? So, from personal experience, the the few things that have made becoming a full time artist, I. Possible and a joy have been coming back to this no debt thing. You know, I think that's just very beneficial, because for me personally, it has allowed me to, as I've been in the process of going from a student to a full time painter, focus on growth and learning and prioritize that in my painting, versus having to take every commission that came my way. You know, of this very distant friend of a distant family member who has a selfie of them with their dog that they really want you to paint, you know, and because I had this certain level of financial freedom, I didn't have to take those things and slow my progress down by, you know, fighting with this terrible selfie photo that I was painting from. And instead paint a painting that I was, you know, had contemplated, and then I then would enter into a show to then build my curriculum vitae, because, you know, I don't have a degree, or, you know, something from a school. So those shows were very important for building sort of a reputation in the art world, but then also a little bit of credibility. So that would be one of the first things of a piece of advice going to a full time artist you know, would be to prioritize whatever you have to do in order to prioritize learning and growth. I had other jobs at the start, I was nannying, and I had a desk job for a little while, working for this woman. And those things I prioritized so that I could say no to the commission, so that I could say no to having to paint every little thing that came my way because I was so focused on growth. So that's my main piece of advice. And then the second would be to have, how do I want to say this to realize, sort of what we said at the very beginning, Laura, is that this desire to grow and this feeling that your, your skill level is here, you Know, halfway up the the mountain, but your your taste is the tallest peak, and that that, that difference is so large, you know, that never goes away. Because, you know, as you're on this roller coaster, as we talked about earlier too, you know there, there are times when your taste, or your you know your ability. I think I said that wrong. Your ability is so different from your taste. Let me correct myself. Your ability starts to catch up to your expectation or your taste, right as you are, working, working, working, working, working, and then you do a painting, and it's like, yes, here we are. I, my ability is at the same level as the vision that I had in my mind. And then all it takes is just wait 24 hours, and then you'll see another painting on your Instagram, and all of a sudden that peak just got way higher, and you're way back down here again. I was under the illusion When I first started painting that that was a result of me being a new artist, and that is just not true. The day that I am constantly having my ability level at my expectation or my desire or my taste level, is the day that I've stopped growing, that I've plateaued, and then my paintings are probably really bad, and it's something to be concerned about constantly having that difference is a really good thing and something to really lean into,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:04:07

because, like I said, as soon as they catch up,

Stephanie Thomson: 1:04:10

you're you're not growing any longer, and your Work is probably suffering. So get comfortable with being uncomfortable about how your work looks. And have a couple of artists, it can be just one for me, returning constantly, constantly, constantly, back to Michelle Dunaway, who I studied with many times, who's now a very close friend of mine. I just sent her a painting I'm working on yesterday, and just said something is not right about this, you know. And as I was in the session painting it, I was becoming frustrated. And, you know, all of a sudden that mental thought process starts coming out of, Wow, did you totally screw this up, because it was looking not too bad, too long ago. Yeah, I think that you've, you're, it's, you know, you've wasted all this time. You're, you know. Like this negative voice starts coming in. And instead of just, like, destroying the painting, you know, which would be a very bad idea, I stopped painting. Also my nap time, painting window ended so I needed to be done, which just encouragement out there to young women painters. This is a side note. This is probably too big of a side note to go into. Is this going to take too long? Laura, oh, no, you're good. Go for it. Um, it is such a wonderful thing to have prescribed painting times as a mother artist, I want to let you know babies sleep a lot. You can help them have very precise sleeping times that you can count on. You know, my son is sleeping twice a day for two hours. That's a lot of painting time, and to have that start and that stop for me personally, has been so beneficial to my process. Again, this is totally a tangent from your original question, but I'm so passionate about it, because so many people told me to never have children and never get married, so that you don't have this drain on your time, which is just so ridiculous, and I just having a specific set of time for painting for me has helped me, because I don't have time To enter the studio and have 30 minutes of existential crisis, 30 minutes of doubting whether the painting is important, 30 minutes of wondering if it will sell, and then a follow up with 20 minutes of prepping the canvas. Now I'm an hour plus wasted, and now I'm not wasted, but I've wasted it, and now I'm starting to paint right now, I don't have time for all of that, and I also have way more purpose, or, you know, just deep seated purpose as a mother, where if my painting goes poorly, I go and get my son up from his nap, and he smiles at me. He says, Mama, he says a new word back to me that he didn't say the day before, and it's like, I'll fix this painting, and I haven't had all this time to just overwork it to death, right? Like on my painting I was working on yesterday that I sent to Michelle Dunaway, returning to my first point about having an artist to send paintings to, to get a fresh eye to. You know, I didn't have time to just listen to that negative voice and just paint it into the ground and make it a self fulfilling prophecy. You know, that negative voice saying, this is really looking bad, and you're you're really making it worse. That would happen if I would keep doing it. I know, because I have done this dozens of times the couple years ago, my husband, you know, I was overworking paintings like crazy and ruining them because I was in this deep place of self doubt, you know, and I wasn't taking my own advice of getting a fresh eye. And my husband was said to me one time. He's like, Do you Do you think that you make this harder for yourself than you need to? I think you need to step away sooner? And I was like, Yeah, I definitely do. So anyway, that was a very long tangent, but don't be afraid to have a full life. Please don't edit your life experience because people are telling you not to, because of the sake of the paintings. Your paintings will become more richer, more rich. And having that prescribed time really has, on a personal level, benefited my art. And if you're looking to become a full time artist, get a fresh pair of eyes from an artist who is better than you whose work you respect.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:08:28

Perfect, perfect. It's good to know that maybe in the future, I will have to shorten my existential crisis time. Because, you know, I used to think it was the most important component to get myself painting, but I guess not, you know?

Stephanie Thomson: 1:08:43

Oh, it really just, it's not necessary. You can paint and just enjoy it the whole time, even if it's not going well the whole time, you don't have to hate yourself in the process.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:08:55

Man, that's good to know. Yeah, I feel like we've all been there, though. I feel like the existential crisis at some point is inevitable, but it is important to, you know, stay sober, to the fact that it's not, it's not always necessary. You can have one every so often. You can prescribe one every so often, I guess, like, oh, it's three o'clock, it's time for my existential crisis, and then hopefully I won't have one for the next month, fingers crossed, but, yeah, that was that's really great advice. I do agree that, as an artist and and you actually said something very similar to what I used to say when I was applying to these schools and I had my application like written out, I would always say that my reach exceeds my grasp, because it always did. It always did. And there are some things where I feel like, okay, reached it and now, oh no, now I want to reach over there, right, which is so similar to what you were describing. I can totally relate to that, and it is important to maintain that as well. But. You said, because you don't, you don't want to plateau, I feel like that's something, of course, that later on, people can worry about more, because I think there's so so much to learn in the beginning, foundationally speaking, like there's just so much, and just putting it together is such a challenge, which is why I actually also had a lot of instructors who would say it takes about 10 years to really get your career going, depending, obviously, on how much practice you can put in if you have a day job, don't have a day job, but I think that's such a great estimate, because it really does take tons of time and work to even Get to the point where you're worrying about plateauing. But but at the same time, it is really great to always be at the beginning. As I say, you're always at the beginning. You're always like, yeah, okay, you have this foundational stuff, but it's you're always at the beginning of learning something new and something else and something else. So it is, yeah, staying sober to the I don't know everything. Mentality is so important to continue to grow as an artist. And I love that you mentioned also mentorship, or even just having a friend who you admire, who you can reach out to and be like, Hey, I can't figure this out. It's great to have that, because when you're in a vacuum, like you said earlier, and why it's important to have that artistic community. If you're in a vacuum, you're alone, you almost become like a snake devouring itself, where you're just confused, there's there's nothing, so it's good to step out, but yeah, it's totally, totally great. And then I also wanted to ask, Where can people see more of your

Stephanie Thomson: 1:11:49

work, as previously mentioned with broadcasting brushers, I am live streaming me as I'm painting twice a month. That is all on Patreon. That's the the site that we're using right now to host that. So there's a couple different offerings within there. So you can find me there, actively available. There's a couple of secondary and tertiary tiers within that Patreon experience, depending on what like you're looking for. The second tier offers group critiques, so you can send in images of your work if you're looking for more specific guidance about paintings. And then the third tier is full and there is but there is a wait list, and that's some of more one to one time. So rather than a group setting, you get one on one time. We get together every month. So Patreon is one place you can find me, and that's broadcasting brushers on Patreon, or you can look up Stephanie page Thompson, I'm on Instagram, sharing behind the scenes and process videos and just day to day stuff of being an artist, being a mother, being me in the stories as well. And that's Stephanie page Thompson on Instagram, and my website is, again, shocker, Stephanie page, thompson.com, and you can find my that's where you can purchase available work directly, so those Oh, and I'm on YouTube too. I think it's Stephanie page Thompson. I can't remember. It's linked on my Instagram, but I share weekly YouTube videos on different topics about you know, one of my favorites that we did recently was, Are your mediums messing with your mind? And I just talked through a couple of mediums and why I've stopped using them because they have hormone disrupting properties, which, if you're a woman, I would recommend you looking into it's very, very interesting, and I've noticed a huge difference since I stopped using this medium. But yeah, just different topics like that. So

Laura Arango Baier: 1:14:15

awesome. And of course, I will include all of those links in the show notes and description for our listeners and our viewers, so go check those out immediately. Run, don't walk, and yeah. So thank you so much Stephanie for the lovely chat and for all the giggles and for all the great advice.

Stephanie Thomson: 1:14:36

Thank you, Laura. It's really great to get to chat with you today.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:14:39

Yeah, of course. Yeah.