Nicole Troup: 0:00

Say yes to as many opportunities as possible within reason. With and going back to balance, as long as you're you're being balanced about it, and you're not getting overwhelmed with saying yes to too many things all at once, get out of your comfort zone. Saying yes more often will open up more doors.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:20

Welcome to the Faso Podcast, where we believe that fortune favors a bold brush. My name is Laura 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 who are in careers tied to the art world, in order to hear their advice and insights. For today's episode, we sat down with Nicole Troop, a Pennsylvania-based portrait artist and instructor who specializes in oil and charcoal commissions, leads workshops both online and in person, and runs her storytelling-driven nonprofit initiative, Portraits for a Cause. Nicole emphasizes the importance of saying yes to opportunities such as exhibitions, workshops, and collaborations, even when they feel outside your comfort zone, because those yeses often open unexpected doors for your career. She advises artists to join local and national art organizations, both for community and for the practical benefits of newsletters, exhibition calls, teaching opportunities, and referrals. Nicole stresses branding yourself clearly. For her, branding herself as a portrait artist, so that when someone needs that specific kind of work, your name comes to mind. In terms of style and artistic voice, she recommends looking more at your own work than at others online, building on what feels natural, such as your own brushstrokes, colors, and tendencies, instead of constantly comparing yourself. For balance, she suggests setting clear work hours and boundaries so art doesn't eclipse health and family, and using a separate studio space if possible to reduce distractions and increase focus. Finally, she encourages artists to follow what genuinely excites them because that intrinsic motivation is what sustains a long-term meaningful art career. Don't forget to check out her website to see her upcoming workshops, such as her upcoming online workshop with the Scottsdale Artists School and her art retreat, Sketchbook Adventures in Italy. Welcome, Nicole, to the Faso podcast. How are you today?

Nicole Troup: 2:11

I'm good. I'm excited to be here. I've been listening a lot to the Faso podcast lately, the BoldBrush podcast, and I love listening to all the artists. I always feel like I get something out of it and learn a lot. So thank you. This is great.

Laura Arango Baier: 2:28

Yeah, awesome. And I love having a fellow listener, and also a wonderful artist because, of course, I reached out back to you because you reached out to me first. But I reached out back because I saw your work, and I was like, oh, I want to have her on the podcast. I want to see, you know, your perspective about portraiture and your perspective on just everything that you've experienced as an artist. Because I think that every artist has something that can help our listeners, just as the podcast has helped you to learn something new and to maybe be more encouraged to not be so afraid of you know trying difficult things and to maybe find out that it's actually really fun and you can overcome a lot of these mental I guess glass ceilings that you never know if you didn't have them you could do something amazing and I I definitely see that with you and your work, so I'm excited to have you.

Nicole Troup: 3:24

Thank you, appreciate it.

Laura Arango Baier: 3:25

Of course, yeah. But before we dive into your beautiful work, do you mind telling us a bit about who you are and what you do?

Nicole Troup: 3:32

Yes. So I'm a portrait artist from Pennsylvania in the United States, and I I'm a commission portrait artist, so I've done portraits anywhere from CEOs to children and even pets. And I work mostly in oils and also charcoals. Those would be my two main media. But I do other experiment with other media work on other media such as acrylics, I've done acrylics and metal leaf. I incorporate metal leaf into some of my portrait work, gold leaf and silver leaf, even variegated leaf as well. And I've taught many workshops on that. So I'm also an art instructor. I love teaching what I know, love love teaching my process to other artists, and I teach online. I teach in person at museums in my home studio, and I guess lastly, just an interesting fact that maybe not everyone knows. As I own a nonprofit, Portraits for a cause. I can go into that a little bit more later, but yeah. So yeah, that's just a little bit, a little bit about me.

Laura Arango Baier: 4:49

Awesome, yeah. And then I also really wanted to ask you about how you began following the path of the artist.

Nicole Troup: 5:00

Okay, so my path started when I was very young. I would say I was elementary age. I would watch my brother draw, and you know he was four years older than me. I looked up to him. I you know would sit down and draw with him, and then I just developed an interest, a passion for it. My parents noticed that at a young age. I had very supportive family, so they saw that I was interested in art, and they, instead of steering me away from it, they definitely pushed me and encouraged me in that direction. And they signed me up for a private mentorship with a local art teacher, ski homes, and that is where I learn like the bulk of of what I know now. The foundation of everything, you know, all the foundations of

art: 5:56

shading, oil painting. So I learned so much from him, and just a few other people. I guess that shaped me along the way. You know, my parents were great. They really encouraged me. My mom specifically was a is an artist. She not by profession, but she definitely dabbles in it, and it's definitely a hobby for her. So she's she does watercolors and and ink pen and ink mainly. So she was you know we we would do that was kind of her thing. We would do that, but she really encouraged me on that path. So I owe a lot to both my parents for that. And my grandfather was also an artist, and he was a watercolor artist. So this will be my paternal grandfather, and so he was an influence. He was, he was a man of few words, very quiet, but he definitely did encourage me. You know, if you'd see my work, he was very encouraging about it. And just a fun fact. So he really liked his art resembled Andrew Wyeth's work, and he really liked Andrew Wyeth. Like their family vacations growing up, they would go up to Maine, and they would go to all the places. You know, the Andrew Wyeth would paint, and he really, really liked him. He would go to the Brandywine Museum a lot, and so one time he went to the Brandywine Museum, and he, in the parking lot, he ran into Andrew Wyeth. He was there. Yeah, it's it's a crazy story, and he just went up. It was like a life dream. So he went up to him, and because you know Andrew Wyeth's work and his family work is at the Brandywine Museum in Chadsford, Pennsylvania. But he just went up to him. He said, "I'd love. He's like, "I love your work. I'd love to maybe show you my work. Maybe you can offer me some pointers. And Andrew Weiss was like, "Yeah, sure. You know, send me some slides. So, so he sent him some slides of his work, and Andrew Wyeth wrote a handwritten letter back to him, just saying thank you for showing these to me. You know, I really like this. Just kind of, I guess, offering him some pointers and said, you know, keep in touch and left his number, you know, at the bottom of the page and signed it. And so my my grandfather has since passed away, but my grandmother still has has the original letter from Andrew Wyeth, and so I made a copy of him, and I kept it, and I read over, and I was like, "What a neat story, you know, that that he had that personal connection with him. So yeah, so just looking at my grandfather's work growing up, that also encouraged me. He had art exhibits. He didn't do it full time. He had another job as well, but just seeing that he could, you know, do it, and he he did it well, and he found a lot of fulfillment from it. So, you know, so he was a role model to me as an artist. So, yeah, that's a little bit of my path growing up. I've, I guess, to continue on that when I I took many years of going back to ski homes. He was my art instructor growing up, but he there was we as a child we ended up going moving to Papua New Guinea, which is you know country north of Australia, and my we were missionaries, so I grew up as a missionary kid, and we lived with a just you know kind of crazy story. We lived in a remote village. You only you could only get there by helicopter, and then you'd had to hike all your luggage into this village. We lived in you know a bush house and just lived very primitively. So we lived with this tribe, and my dad's purpose was they they wanted somebody to come in and translate you know the Bible into their language. So that's my Bible. My dad was a Bible translator, and we had this we had this artist come in from Australia, and he was an illustrator. So he. Illustrated just different books of the Bible about love or forgiveness, and made these little books, and he would illustrate the picture. So I remember seeing that growing up, and I thought, oh, that you know, that was just very inspiring to me. I think that left a mark, like, oh, I could do that. You know, I could grow up and I could illustrate books, illustrate stories. So storytelling just became important to me. So I after that I I just ended up going to art school and wanted to you know pursue the path of illustration, which you know as you can see now has changed. Now I'm a portrait artist, so I'll just kind of go into that. So I went to school for illustration. I was interested in illustrating books, and even possibly going into the movie industry in art school. We would we would have classes with like storybook or storyboard write or sketching, and also character design. So I I found interest in that. I thought that would be really neat to work in the movie industry like that, design characters, do storyboards, and things like that. So I graduated art school with a bachelor's degree in in 2008 in fine arts, but concentration illustration. We didn't just do illustration. We had a lot of fine art classes, figure drawing, live live study classes, and and I guess after that, after I graduated, I I just had a couple people in my area just came up to me and they said, "Oh, I'd love you to. You're an artist. I'd love you to draw a portrait of my child or you know my pet, and so I I said yes. You know I said yes. I tried at that time to say yes to opportunities, even if it wasn't necessarily going in the illustration direction. Just I'm going to say yes. You know. So I said yes, and I would deliver these these finished drawings. It could be people that I worked with, you know, and that knew my work and were solid on social media. And I deliver it to them. And I just remember finding a lot of fulfillment in making something personal and so important to them. You know, sometimes it would it could be a portrait of somebody that passed away, or just someone that meant a lot to them, and just their emotional reaction from it-it was-it just meant so much. And I thought, wow, this there's something in this. This is this is meaningful. I love talking to people and my clients and learning about them, learning about their stories, and I and that is kind of like the seed to how I started going in the direction of being a portrait artist and not so much an illustrator. I did end up doing one illustration job and I still have interest in that, but portraits are my passion and that's kind of the direction that I Headed in, so yeah, that's a that's how I got started.

Laura Arango Baier: 13:07

Yeah, yeah, and it's really funny because I have spoken to quite a few fine artists who used to be illustrators, and one way or another, it was either you know an interest that arose over time that they became fine artists or necessity because of course illustration as it used to be is no longer the same. It is all digital, and at this point with AI, I don't even know if it's gonna survive for a while. I think it'll come back, but I think right now it's it's in a really tense position. But I find it wonderful to talk to people who studied illustration, because I find that you guys have such a natural, of course, through all the training, an understanding of using color and being fast, and also just composition-wise, you know, and storytelling, which is of course what you are discussing. How illustration is more of a vehicle of storytelling. In I like to say that classical painting used to do that, but then at the turn of the century, illustration carried that torch because the camera happened, and then you know illustrators started getting hired for advertisement stuff or you know books and stuff, but then illustration just continued carrying that torch, and that's one of the reasons I think that illustration has such a great power, especially for someone who becomes a fine artist. It's like a really great gosh, it's like the the back pocket like tool that you just always pull out. Which actually, I wanted to

ask you: 14:48

Do you find that there's still maybe something from your illustration process that you you had in school or that you continued that you still use in your portraiture?

Nicole Troup: 15:01

Yeah, good question. Let me think about that. I I would say what still remains maybe maybe nuts. I mean the storytelling for sure, and that's what portraits for a cause is definitely story based. But as as far as maybe technique or style. So when I do portrait commissions, it's I'm I work mostly in charcoals and oils. But for I would say my for fun for myself, like I'll just do sketches in my sketchbook, and I'll work in watercolor and ink, and I love like the whole when I was in art school. Just like you know, I would work in either watercolor or acrylic, acrylic washes, and then I would just kind of outline some things or put in some. I love like the fine fine details of like pen work, you know, like cross hatching or hatching that I don't necessarily do my portraits, but in unless it's charcoal, I might put a little bit of that in. But I will do that in my sketchbooks. Just if I'm taking going on a trip and I take my sketchbook with me, I might do some sketches that resemble more of that illustration type style of the you know the outlining and so I still really like that, but I kind of do that for myself in my sketchbook. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 16:31

yeah, and that brings to mind one little thing, which is precisely that it is also nice to remember that you can, as a working artist, still do stuff for yourself because I think a lot of artists, me included, I think we all think like, oh, I just gotta have inventory and have inventory and have inventory, or find the next you know painting that I gotta make full fully fledged. But it is wonderful to keep in mind that you can still play. You can still pull out your sketchbook and oh, I kind of have this fun little idea that I want to play with instead of like just taking it so serious all the time. I think that's you know it's a good habit to

Nicole Troup: 17:08

have. Yeah, and there and there's no pressure in that with my sketchbook. Like nobody really has to see it, and it's just for me to work out my ideas and maybe some fun techniques and just kind of experiment and just do something that doesn't have an expectation or pressure behind it. So you know, with as a portrait artist, there's a lot of deadlines, and you know, I also have to kind of conform to a specific, you know, a style. I don't want to experiment too much with my portrait work because people expect that. Like if they commission me, they look at my style and they they want that style, so I have to be consistent with that. But in my sketchbook, I can do whatever I want. You know, I don't have to be consistent. It's just fun. It's for me. Yeah. So

Laura Arango Baier: 17:53

yeah, yeah. And you mentioned there style, which also is, in my opinion, very similar to artistic voice, how long would you say that it took for you to find your style as a portrait painter?

Nicole Troup: 18:10

I would say throughout college, I I still was kind of experimenting. Didn't really probably didn't have that figured out quite yet. I graduated art school in 2008, you know, with full intention of being an illustrator, and probably right after I graduated, I got engaged. Then I got married a year later, so I kind of put the illustration on hold for a little bit, planning wedding, and then so after I got married, I really started thinking, okay, what direction do I want to take with this? Do I do I want to pursue all the illustration companies and the movie industry? And that's that's when I started getting portraits, commissions, and kind of just headed in that direction. So finding my voice was through not only the subject matter of the portraits. I I want to. I get a lot of fulfillment from sharing stories, telling stories, learning about my subjects, but the style. I would say that took a couple years, and I think what I had to stop maybe comparing myself to other people I see online, and I had to become I had to become confident in who I was, and I think that is when I just started to find my voice. So when you're looking online, there are so many beautiful artists out there, portrait artists, but it can also be a trap. It it makes it brings out the ADHD in me. Not that I'm ADHD, but it brings out that side where oh I like that style and oh I like that style, like what they did there, and then you start losing yourself because you're trying. To do all these different things, so I think the less that I look at other artists and the more I look at my own work, just I look back at my work and I just build on that. Okay, this work for me, I really like this that I did here. I'm just going to kind of build on that, maybe experiment without looking at too many different artists, and just focus on what kind of style comes natural to me. What you know when I paint, what are my natural brushstrokes? What are the natural colors that I use that I am comfortable with? So you know, what brushstrokes am I comfortable with? What colors am I comfortable with, and kind of just keep building on that, and then building the confidence that okay, my art doesn't look like this person or that person, but I'm confident in what I do, and I'm just going to keep doing the best to my ability in the direction that I'm going. So yeah, so that's again probably a few years after after graduating art school is when I started become find my voice. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 21:08

yeah, and I like that you mentioned you know pretty much getting to know yourself. It's like okay, what do I reach for, and allowing that to kind of like marinate for some time before you start experimenting because I think it's

Nicole Troup: 21:20

yeah

Laura Arango Baier: 21:21

it's hard to have a solid foundation of understanding like what naturally works for someone if if they keep changing things up. It's almost like you want to create a control group for yourself if that makes sense, and then you can start like you know shifting stuff around like oh maybe I'll add this this color because I'm attracted to it, but I was intimidated, and now I feel confident to pursue it. Right? Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think then I think

Nicole Troup: 21:50

some of it's just about getting ask yourself what what gets you excited. You know, does that color get you excited? Do do you you know what motivates you to keep picking up that brush every day and just kind of move in that direction, whether it's the technique you're using, the color, the composition, what is motivating you, and follow that. And you know, so yeah, it's you know it's been a I think a hard road trying to figure out that direction, but you know just and it may not always be the technique that I'm finding my voice in, or the composition that I'm finding my voice in, this you know the whole style of it. But it's also you know I another thing that maybe some people don't know about me is I've been inspired inspired by certain artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, and Clara Peters, female artist, who they incorporated like hidden messages or secret things into their paintings, and you know, like Leonardo da Vinci and the Mona Lisa. Maybe not everyone knows this, but he hid his initials in the eyes, and I don't know what it. I think it's just like I just. I've always, even in films, I just like sort of that mystery or that you know secret codes or hidden messages. And so I'm. I take. I have taken that and I've incorporated that into my work. I know Caravaggio. One of his paintings, he hid his a tiny minuscule portrait of himself in a a glass a curved glass piece in his painting, and you don't really see it unless you get up close. Or Clara Peters carved like her name or initials into a still life into one of the butter knives, but it's so tiny. So those are kind of things that I thought, you know, that I've incorporated in my art, and I'm wanting, with the intention of, you know, liking the whole mystery or secretive aspect of it, but also wanting to make it interactive for people, kind of fun. Like so, you know, I've had art exhibits where I've had these paintings and people get up close and they try to find you know maybe the initials to the subject and they try to find where that's at or I did and I do that in commission portraits as well because I try to I thought that is another aspect to make it meaningful to the person so and then my clients have caught on to that and then have requested that so I had you know one client where it was a dog portrait their beloved doll they took them hunting but there was birch trees in the background and the the dog's name is Wiley and so I hid the the the letter each letter of the name kind of carved it either into the tree in the background or a leaf Somewhere, and just kind of you know people are trying to oh where's you know where are the initials so kind of you know it's it's fun it makes interactive so then I've had clients you know commission you know work and they just say hey would you you know the subject would you put their carve their name into the branch in the background or something. Like yeah, so you know it's it's it's been fun, and I've done all kinds of things. I've even going back to the storytelling. Like I've used invisible ink, where the person's story is written in the entire background of the painting, and you don't even see it unless you you put a black light up to it, and then you can see the story, and you can read the whole story. But you never know it's there until you do that. So, just trying to incorporate the story into the painting without necessarily it being, you know, visible and distracting from the portrait. But that's a whole process, like using invisible inks or invisible paints in your work, you have to prepare the surface first. You have to use special varnishes because the ink or the ink will fade over time. So you have to use you know certain varnishes to keep it from fading, so it becomes you know long lasting. So just an interesting thing. Yeah. So if anyone ever you know looks at my work on on social media. You know, a lot of those paintings might have those hidden messages in there, or you know, a hidden invisible story in the background, or something like that. So,

Laura Arango Baier: 26:12

yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that. That reminds me of you know, like how you said some of the old masters and how they had little little Easter eggs just hidden around in their their portraits. Yeah. Like I know that there's one portrait from medieval times might have been from oh one of the Dutch masters, and he he he hid like a fly on the person, and the fly, of course, is not a very positive symbol to have. It actually means that the person's kind of rotten, so it's kind of like kids painting this person. They were kind of terrible.

Nicole Troup: 26:46

That's awful. Yeah, but they'll

Laura Arango Baier: 26:49

have little things like that. Yeah, and I was always curious about it when I was in art history. So it's fun to you know see you being like, I want to bring that back, and I totally agree. I think it it brings back the storytelling, of course, and the interactive aspect of you know being in front of a painting-that's you know it exists to tell you something. It's not just-I mean, not all paintings are decorative. They are maybe secondary is decorative, but they exist for a reason, and it's nice to you know bring forth like the whole, oh, it's like I spy, you know. It's like yeah, I wonder where. Oh, like they they put this here. That's so cool. Um, and I think that's a really wonderful thing to bring back. Um, yeah, yeah,

Nicole Troup: 27:34

yeah. And I, growing up, I loved the I Spy books or um Waldo. So I would say you know I think as an artist like we we bring our personality into it our past experiences our childhood experiences we can you know you'll find little pieces of myself and in my paintings that may not be very obvious you know from the start but yeah so yeah I I mean, and I've included symbolism in some of my commissions as well. Like I know there's, I got a commission for somebody whose wife passed away, and but she she had a bracelet. He wanted me to incorporate a bracelet of hers that was meaningful to hers. So, you know, he gave me the bracelet, and I used that as a reference. But you know, I had a little symbol of a clinging cross because she was religious, and he wanted me to incorporate that. So, you know, I try to incorporate something, some type of symbolism into into the portraits that that are meaningful to to the subject. So, yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 28:35

yeah, yeah, and again adds to the the story of the person, and not just you know oh here's their face it's here's you know little pieces of them as well which is great and this actually segues very cleanly into wanting to ask you about your portraits for a cause can you tell us a little bit more about it and a little bit of the process of how you know you start with your sitter and develop it into a portrait.

Nicole Troup: 29:06

Yeah. So the probably I'll just start from the beginning of how I got started with that. Just kind of the seeds that were planted. I really I just it's kind of much of it combines like my love for film and storytelling, and that's what film is. Film is storytelling, so I think that's why, you know, I'm a film film buff. I really like a good story. A lot of times, I like the true stories that are told in films, but I've I like to kind of see somebody's journey, you know, throughout life and how that comes to play and the obstacles they face. So that has been a big part of portraits for a cause. But I would say it started in I think it was 2014 is when it started. I just I. Met a a guy. His name's Sam Childers, but he wrote a book, and he there was a movie made about him. Gerard Butler plays him in the movie, but it's called Machine Gun Preacher. So it was a true story about his life. He was, and he's from Pennsylvania, so he lives you know a couple hours from me. But he was in and out of jail. You know, just he'd get into bar fights. He'd had a really rough life in and out of jail, and he ended up in he ended up just going to church, and he found God, and he he was invited to go over to Africa to go on a missions trip just to help people build homes in that area. He was a construction worker, and he came across. It was in South Sudan and the Sudan area, but he came across a child that had was killed by a landmine, and he encountered the civil war over there and the rebel group, the LRA. I think this was. I'm not exactly certain of the date, late 1990s or early 2000s when this was going on. But the the Lord's Resistance Army was a rebel group over there, and they would terrorize villages. They would, you know, burn villages down. They would kidnap children, and they would train them as soldiers at a very young age. is very sad situation. So he, this child, just he felt for the people over there, and it catapulted him into this, you know, this mission to rescue these children as much as he can help them. So he joined the freedom fighters over there, and he ended up going in and rescuing children. and And he would carry a machine gun just to protect himself. And so people started, and he also started a church over there. So they called the people have started calling him machine gun preacher, and that is why the movie is called Machine Gun Preacher. But he built orphanages over there and has helped so many kids who have been affected by the war, lost their parents either in the civil wars or to famine, and so that was his life calling is to help help these kids. And anyway, so I I met him and I decided I wanted to get involved. And so I went over to Africa. I brought my suitcases filled with art supplies, canvases, paints, and my goal was to get the the kids' stories out there. So I went to the orphanage. I stayed, and Sam Childers was there as well, and just kind of showed me around. But I, I met the kids, heard their amazing stories, and I just brought one day. You know, we at the orphanage, we just set up tables outside. I laid the canvases out and the paints and all that, and I just had them paint, paint what they wanted, maybe something that told the audience about themselves. So it could be they painted their families, their former home that was burnt down, or you know, in the Civil War, or their family painted their families that they didn't have anymore. And and then we brought the so it's therapeutic because a lot of the children, when I was over there, they said these children weren't really. Some of them were closed and weren't talking about what had happened to them. You know, they went through a lot of trauma, and so the paintings kind of help open that conversation and and bring that out. But I ended up we brought the paintings back to the U.S. to, and we had a held a gala in New York, just called it the Angel. The organization is Angels of East Africa. That's what he named it, but we called it the Angels of East Africa Gala. So we had it in New York at the City Winery, and we auctioned off all the kids' paintings or in anything else. Invited people. There is the nice thing was the we had some of the actors in the movie supported the event. So Michael Shannon is an actor in the movie. He's in some films right now, like Superman. I know he's a big actor, and I think he he came to the event. He spoke at the event, and then we had like Megan Boone from the Black List. She came as well. So it's kind of neat to see the support, even from you know people in the film industry, come and support this event. So that's kind of where it began. And then I started making connections with different people in the film industry who were either linked to that movie or new, you know, kind of through word of mouth. And like Madeline Carroll, she's an actress in the movie Machine Gum Preacher. But I did shortly after that. She couldn't make it to the event, but I did. We just her way of supporting. We I did a portrait of her, and we tried to auction off the art. You know, we'd make prints and she'd sign them, and then we'd auction them off or sell them, and then raise money for Angels of East Africa through that. So that's kind of where it began, and then it kind of you know went from there, where basically I'd collaborate with different people in the film industry who wanted to either support Angels of East Africa or maybe another organization that they that was important to them. And I would interview them sometimes, and we'd you know put the interview in a magazine and the art in a magazine, But we and you know I just been kind of doing that off and on throughout the years. But it wasn't just people in the film industry that I collaborated with for this. Also in my local area. So in my local area, I would I started sort of a different. It's a series, kind of branch off of Portraits for a Cause, but it's kind of the same thing. But heroes from our town. So I just kind of put it out on social media. I'm doing heroes from our town. Who's a hero in your life? And you know, people would send me their stories and do a portrait of this person. This person means a lot to me. They've I've looked up to them, and it would just be stories from our local area that I would do paintings of, and we could raise awareness for whatever it is. Maybe that person is going through an illness, has an illness, and raising awareness for you know the stroke community, or who you know certain illnesses or people, somebody who's went through depression and how they overcame it, and so I would have an exhibit of their work with their stories beside it, and it just kind of ran from that. I would I would say even before the machine gun preacher, probably another thing that kind of planted those seeds of storytelling and really being drawn to people's journey and how they may have overcome obstacles and how other people hearing that story it might encourage them, bring them hope, let them know that they're not the only one maybe struggling with this or that is back to my childhood. You know, when we lived in Papua New Guinea, I was exposed to many different cultures, many different stories, people from all over the world, different tribes, and their stories. So, just learning to be compassionate about people's stories and things they've gone through. Also, my own my sister and my dad's story-it's kind of crazy. This is kind of, you know, takes us to a dark place. But when we were in Papua New Guinea, my dad and my sister found themselves in a hostage situation, and you know, by gunpoint, it was it was scary. They did get out of it, but it just started with my sister and my dad walked down the road to a friend's house to get her pick her up for a sleepover, and they were held at held at gunpoint. And my sister, she's a twin sister. She's my twin sister, but she, I think we were only 11 at the time, so she, you know, very young. And they, you know, they thought that they wouldn't get out of that situation-the threats of death and kidnapping the kids. And so, you know, faith growing up, and even now, my faith in God has always been important to me and my family. So my dad just, you know, they held hands through the situation. They prayed, and they ended up being able to escape from the hostage situation. So, you know, over there there was a lot of gangs. They were called rascals, and they, I guess, they heard a noise outside, and they thought it was the police coming, and they ran out of the house. But they tried to, you know, rob the house and get get money. And but yeah, they were able to escape that situation. But that was kind of the catalyst for us returning home, or else we would have been over there many more years. They, so I had to witness even my sister, my dad's personal story of overcoming trauma, you know, and that years of of that P.S. You know, PTSD, kind of witnessing that. I think at the time I was very young and I didn't quite grasp the whole picture of it, but as an adult looking back, you know, I've thought about more and understand that more. So even my sister, my dad, I'd love to incorporate their portraits into the portraits for a cause and kind of share their story because they have a really, really meaningful story from trauma to healing. You know, so. Yeah, so I've that's that's kind of been how Porches for Cause has started and developed because of because of you know experiences past experiences. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 40:14

if you've been enjoying the podcast and also want to ask our guests live questions, then you might want to join our monthly webinar, the Faso Show, 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 Faso Show webinar is coming up on the fifth of November with our special guests Kevin McPherson, Susan Lyon, and Scott Burdick. You can find a sign-up link in the show notes. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing, and it goes to show that you can meet someone and then they might have gone through something that you could never imagine experiencing, and maybe they keep it to themselves, or maybe it's you know like you said something that's a bit dark and and maybe not something that they readily share, but it's still something that we can learn from or we can empathize with, sympathize with, because sometimes you know someone might go through something, and it turns out someone else had a very similar experience. And seeing someone else overcome that trauma or that pain or suffering, it gives hope, you know, to other people who have experienced it as well. And I think you know, passing it forward in that way is is very beautiful. It's very healing as well.

Nicole Troup: 41:41

It is, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. And then just going back to part of your question was, you just how do I do the portraits? So the collaboration is usually some of some of my subjects I meet, and then the ones that I don't. I do have. We basically work through photos that they have. So they send me some photos. Some of, especially some of the ones in the film industry. Some of them live in Hollywood, but they send me a group of photos that I could use. I just tell them what I'm looking for, specific lighting, and then we both decide on you know which one we think would be would work the best, and then I do the portrait, and then they we make reproduction. We sell the original, or we make the reproduction prints. They autograph them, and then we sell them. They sell them on their social media. I sell them on, you know, mine and in the website. And then the ones that are, you know, closer to me, I just I take photographs myself. I do try to do some like in person painting and sketching, but a lot of it is worked from photographs. I just feel like people don't have the time right now to to sit a whole lot. Even though I know, you know, you do learn a lot from working from life, and you have to have that balance working from life, but also from photograph. I think if you have enough knowledge working from life, then you can know when you're working with photographs, like oh, this this value or this color, you know it's this value might be flattened or it may not as you know you might not see the form as much but working enough from life you know that and you can kind of modify that modify things to make it look more like it is from life, So, yeah, I guess I would probably say my latest collaboration was with actress Anne Mahoney from she's from the hit TV series The Walking Dead, but in some other films that I that I like, but this cause that we're raising money for and awareness is is for the for art organizations. So, and so basically, I know a lot of art organizations they're having trouble with funding or they're not getting the funding, and as an artist, you know that's that's close to my heart, and it could be art organizations, not just the visual arts or you know painters and sculptors, but also people in the artists in the film industry or you know writers, any kind of creative art. So we're raising money for that now. We're just selling prints. I did a portrait of her in charcoal, and we're just selling prints of that right now, raising money for for art organizations. So, yeah. So that's kind of the background with that. With yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 44:54

wow. It feels like it's one of those things that you start out with one thing, and then it kind of. Into other directions that you didn't expect, but it kind of takes a life of its own, which is really cool.

Nicole Troup: 45:08

Yeah, yeah, it's it's a fun project because I get to meet a lot of interesting people, and I have a few portraits lined up that I haven't announced yet. But some from the film industry, some from the Portra Society of America. I have, you know, a couple people there that I've collaborated with and am currently in the process of doing their portraits and then sharing their stories. And then we'll, you know, we'll sell the art, or and it's not just selling the art that we raise money for different things. It's also I might do an art demonstration online doing their portrait and then selling the demo, and then a percentage of that goes to whatever cause we're raising money for, and so it can be you know we can raise money through the art, through demos, through a live stream. You know if we just I'm also expanding it even more, I'm gonna. I'm starting a podcast where I basically chat with the person while I'm drawing their portrait, and they share their story that way. But eventually, I'd like to make that a live stream where people can, you know, maybe purchase a live stream ticket, and then we percentage that goes to you know whatever cause we're raising money for, so it just keeps growing and expanding, and so that's yeah, that's kind of kind of my fun side project that I'm working on. So

Laura Arango Baier: 46:33

yeah, that's exciting. Yeah, and actually, it also because of course now you're doing these projects and stuff, but I also want to kind of go back to before when you first started as an artist. When did you realize that you can make a real living from your art, and what was that transition like for you?

Nicole Troup: 46:56

Okay, good question. So I graduated art school in 2008, and like I got married, we had we had a child a year later. So we had like a told you this earlier. We had like a four or five year plan. I was like, oh, I want to build my art career, then we can have kids later. We ended up having our first child a year later, and no regrets. I have two boys now, and I think we just got started earlier with kids earlier, and then you know, and then I'll focus more on my career later. I'll be able, you know, so some people start later and then have kids, you know, later, but we started earlier, and then I'll so, but it just depends on the timing, and so I have two boys, Bryce and Colton, wonderful kids, and they. So I would say I worked part time for a while raising a family that comes, you know, first and foremost, and so I worked at a hospital, and then I built up my art career on the side for a few years, from like 2008 to 2014. So I needed, you know, a stable. I was just starting out, needed stable income. So I was worked in environmental services at our local hospital, which is a fancy word for housekeeping, and I mostly worked in like the operating rooms. I'd have to disinfect the rooms before and after the surgeries, you know. And I um I did that for a while till we had our second child, Colton, in 2014, and um so I was off for a few months, and I ended up. By then, I had like a few students, and I was getting a steady kind of a steady flow of commissions on the side. So when I'd get home from work, my part-time job, I would do my schedule my classes, and that's when weekends is when I'd work on my commissions, or if the kids were napping, that's when I'd work on it. So by 2014, our second son was born, and he, I took off three months from work. I went back to work. I worked there, I think, for a few months, and then I thought, you know what? I think I'm just ready to make a leap of faith, quit the hospital, and just do art. You know, I'm gonna do it. It was, you know, my husband's very supportive, but we were both like, oh, I don't know, this is, you know, this is risky. It's very risky. You know, we we don't have that that income, that steady income that we're that we've depended on. But I'm never gonna get to where I want to go until I take the leap of faith, and so I decided. After just a few months of going back to the hospital, I put in my two week notice, and I it was very freeing. You know, I I liked the hospital; it was good. The people were great, but I was ready to do what I. Felt like I was born to do, and so I started. I had more time to be able to, you know, no longer working there. That I had time to promote more classes and commissions, and then I ended up, you know, after my first

year, I just wanted to see: 50:18

is this worth it? You know, income wise, can I do this? And so, for my first year quitting, I made more money off of my art than I did working at a steady job. So I thought that gave me a confidence that okay, I can really do this. And every year, I kept track of that, I kept track of how much my income would be, and every single year after I quit, my income would increase every single year to this day. So I made the right choice, and it does help though. Like I, I could take the risk because my husband worked full time, so I could take that risk because of that. So I know not everybody's in that situation, and it was worth it. I would say most of how I made my living from an artist again was mostly from commissions and and instruction. I had a steady flow of private art lessons, private art students, private mentorship-it was all in person at that time, and so that became my steady flow of income, so that I also could do the commissions. Because commissions are kind of you get a large amount of commissions at once, and then sometimes you don't get some for a while. So the art classes were my steady flow of income, and that was my stability. And most of my to this day, so most of my commissions come from either word of mouth. So I did a commission for somebody, and then they spread the word or hang it up in their house, and somebody else sees it, or repeat customers. So it's really important to you know keep a relationship with your clients, you know your your patrons, because they're they're sometimes your you know they're your biggest supporters in your in your income and your job, and also through exhibitions. So my work, you know, as a portrait artist, you know, you don't always sell your portraits as much unless it's a commission. So I would be hesitant at times to do exhibits because they're like, well, these are portraits. You know, I don't know if anybody's going to buy these. Sometimes people do, but it just depends, and I started getting commissions by doing exhibiting my portraits. I might borrow a portrait back from clients, or and then hang it up an exhibit, and then some, you know, people would see it, and they were like, "Oh, I really like that. I like that charcoal portrait. And so then they would contact me to do a commission. So that was very beneficial. So exhibits, also social media. Anytime I'd finish a portrait, I put it on social media. I would put a picture, you know, with the client holding the portrait, and then sometimes get a commission from that. So those two things have definitely been beneficial in my career. I Instagram. I I think I I don't get as much success from Instagram as I do Facebook, and I think some of it is I'm I'm late to the game. I was very late to the Instagram game. I feel like there was a time where you didn't have the algorithm where people were thriving, you know, on Instagram and you know selling work, getting commissions, and I was kind of late in that. I joined Instagram shortly before COVID, probably a couple years before COVID. And at first, when I joined, I thought this is great, you know. And then COVID happened, the algorithm happened, and so I think that has definitely hurt Instagram and and hurt a lot of artists and some artists are doing well you know on Instagram but I think a lot might struggle you know with with getting exposure on Instagram so I find I have better luck on Facebook than I do Instagram so yeah so I right now you know I'm I'm I'm getting steady flow of classes. I get my income mostly through workshops, private lessons, commissions. I do mostly portraits, but I just started getting house portrait commissions. So that's another thing. People, you know, the it's you know commissions are definitely things that are meaningful to people. So it's definitely I like commissions. It's you know it's steady. I do more commission work than I do selling my work in galleries because you get paid up front. It's a you know you you get paid to do the work before you even start painting it and. But you know, you always have to you have to make it look the way they want it to look, so which is fine. But sometimes that stifles our creativity, so that's why I have my sketchbook or I have my own fun. That's why I have portraits for a cause. I can I can do what I want. I have the freedom to play around with styles and lighting. So I think that's a good. If you're commission artist, I love doing commissions, but at the same time, I need an outlet of more creativity that doesn't involve commissions that I can play around with and let my personality or my interest truly come through. You know, so yeah, so that's kind of kind of my journey. But

Laura Arango Baier: 55:39

yeah, and actually, that also brings to mind one thing which we were actually kind of discussing before we started recording, which is having a balance, right? How how have you been managing the challenge of you know having so many ongoing things at the same time as an artist,

Nicole Troup: 56:02

yeah. So I'll be honest. There's times where I still don't have balance. There, I think I get over ambitious at times, and I'm like, I just get excited. Like I, just my head's bursting with ideas, and I'm like, I want to do this, and I want to do that painting, and I, oh, I want to collaborate with this person, and it's those times where I start to say yes to too many things at once, and then I can feel overwhelmed because again, I have to always remind myself that art isn't my first priority. My family is my first priority, And I need to have that my health. Like I need to still find time to exercise. I can't just get lost in a pain for hours, and everything else is neglected. You know. So the way I create balance, I'm always a work in progress. Is I I have to set a certain amount of hours that I want to work daily. Figure out what those hours are so that you still have time to do whatever exercise, spend time with your family, your kids, maybe do another hobby. And then when you reach that amount of hours daily, I have to cut myself off. I'm like, even if I'm like, oh, I I could paint for another two hours. Like, nope, because if I say yes to painting two more hours, then I say no to all of this, and then nobody eats tonight, you know. Or, I mean, they can make their own food sometimes, but it's like, oh, you know, we don't. I I start to I have to say no to something else if I'm saying no to more art. So I have to always remind myself of that balance. And sometimes I do good at it, and sometimes I don't. And there, you know, sometimes I have a deadline where I'm like, I just have to. Everything else has to be put on hold. I just got to finish this deadline for this commission or this workshop that I'm preparing for, whatever it is. But then I have to go back to okay. Once that's done, I need to go back to balancing myself, and yeah. So I guess I'm not always balanced, but I try my best, you know, to to be balanced as I can.

Laura Arango Baier: 58:18

Yeah, it's like you said, it's a a work in progress all the time because I'm definitely the type of person that I I relate to so much. It's like I have so much that I want to do, and I get so excited. And then some things have a time limit, and other things don't. So the thing that has helped me a lot is just having like a one of those paper calendars that has, but it's a week calendar, so it's like you know Monday through Sunday, and you know I kind of pick and choose like, okay, what is the most pressing thing, and like I start laying it out, and then I realize too that like I can only really plan one week ahead because you know with being an artist, you're an entrepreneur, you're basically a free agent in many, many ways, and you're very flexible. And that flexibility, unfortunately, doesn't lend itself to a stable daily schedule. So it's hard because it's like, oh well, it turns out that I have a dentist appointment on this day, and because I'm flexible, I know I can go at a time that other people can't go. So I kind of have to work around that, right? Or oh, like I, I like you said, like oh, I have a project that I really, really need to finish before this day. So I kind of need to make sure that everything else is like checked off, so that I don't, you know, I could just focus on this. Or sometimes I'm sure you've experienced this. You have to rely on on your partner, your husband, someone who's your spouse, someone who's with you. To you know, I'm sorry. Like I have this project. Do you mind helping me carry the load in these other ways? So that I can, you know, focus on making sure that I get money for this specific project, and oftentimes, you know, it balances out because, like, maybe in the future, your spouse also has something that, oh, can you help me carry the load? And that's also the important part of having, you know, a good partner with you, yeah, because that can make a huge difference, especially if you have a family unit to make sure that things don't fall apart, and you know your kids go to their sports classes or their piano lessons on time, when you know you for sure are not available for that.

Nicole Troup: 1:00:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah, and yeah, Jake, he's he's good with that. There's times where yeah, I have to meet a deadline, and I'm like, you know, he cooks dinner, or you know whatever needs to get the kids need to be run somewhere, and then I can focus on working and getting that meeting that deadline. What also has helped is I have a studio at my house, but I also just started running a studio outside of the house. So and that is, I use that specifically for if I need to meet a deadline. And being at the house, you know, you can get interrupted a lot, and not just by your family, but also by just me getting distracted. Like if I'm walking from down, you know, the kitchen to my studio, and I see three things that need done, like oh, I need to clean that, or oh, I need to do the laundry. Like oh, this this is pressing. So when I see those things, it's hard for me to get it out of my mind. When I'm at the studio, there's nothing there pulling my attention away. So that's actually been very helpful as having a studio to kind of go to, and I can get lost on my work for a couple hours, and I actually get more done that way sometimes than when I'm home. So, yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:01:51

yes, yeah, having that compartmentalization. Yeah, I I started also going to a separate studio because I'm lucky enough that I can afford it, so I'm happy about that. But I noticed that, wow, I actually get stuff done because you know I'm not distracted by like you said, like the the daily little thingamabobs that need to get picked up or the laundry that needs to get done, which it will get done because it has to, either by me or you know my partner, but it's hard when, like you said, like I said, also like you're free agents, you can walk around your home, and if you don't have like that discipline of like work home, it can it can be really easy to let the time slip away in other ways, and then having that other studio also, it's like, well, I can't really bring all my distractions with me, right? So that's really nice too. It

Nicole Troup: 1:02:51

is. I love. I absolutely love having it. It can be inconvenient because I do have to. It's like 2025 minute drive, so round trip, it's like 45 minutes or so, so that takes time, and but it's just it's worth it, you know. In the long run, it I can accomplish more for sure when I'm there. So

Laura Arango Baier: 1:03:12

yeah, yeah, it's it's obviously the drawback is oh well I got to spend some more money, but in the long run, it saves you time, and I always have this bit of like a philosophical view on time and money, which is things in life either cost you time or they cost you money, but only one of those things comes back. Yeah, and that's money. Time does not. Yeah. So if you can afford to save yourself time, awesome. But if you can't, you know that's that's fine. But you know you can find other ways to use that time as well. So it's it's a little bit of a compromise that has to happen there. Yeah, and you know that's that's what it means to be alive and what it means to be an artist as well. So yeah,

Nicole Troup: 1:04:00

Exactly.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:04:02

Yeah, and then I wanted to ask you also, what final advice would you give to someone who really wants to have a career as an artist?

Nicole Troup: 1:04:13

Okay, so yeah, I have a definitely a few words of advice for artists starting out, and that is to get involved in as many art organizations as possible, and I started out with local organizations. And what that, how that benefited was first of all building a community with other artists that are like-minded like you, that can encourage you and motivate you in the direction that you want to go. You also it's the resources that you get from the art clubs as well, and you get like usually a monthly newsletter that has all kinds of open doors and opportunities, whether that's exhibiting your work, you know sometimes I've been a this one art club that I'm a member of the Valley. Art Association. I've got a few commissions from just being part of that group because I've branded myself as a portrait artist. So anytime the art club gets a request from somebody in in the community that is looking for a portrait artist, many times they'll come to me and say, "Oh, we know portrait artists. So I think branding yourself is Extremely important, you know. You don't need to just only paint one thing, but make sure that you're known for something specific, you know, so that other people, your name comes to mind when somebody's looking for that type of artist. So that has helped a lot and boosted my career because it has opened up so many opportunities, things that are I was never aware of before, places to exhibit that I was never aware of, even workshops. You know, because you a lot of these newsletters have workshop venues. You know, this artist is teaching here or there, and then you think, oh, oh, I could, that's close to me. I could teach there as well. So that's that's one thing I would say. Another would be that I that has worked a lot for me is say yes to as many opportunities as possible within reason. With and going back to balance, as long as you're you're being balanced about it and you're not getting overwhelmed with saying yes to too many things all at once. Just say say yes, even if you're not sure if that will open up a door or not. Say yes yes to it. So because that also helps get your work out there. So it could be an art exhibit. Like I have before, I've been asked to do you know have my work in in an art exhibit, and I have thought, well, I don't know if I want to do that or because of this, this, or that. But I'll do it. I'll say yes to it. So then I do it, and then I got a commission out of it. So you know, somebody came to the the opening show, and then they wanted you know to commission me. Another was, you know, workshops like I, you know I slowed down with teaching workshops for a while. I didn't teach for a while. I was just doing like private mentorship, but the workshops are also helpful because you meet new people. The private mentorship, you know, you're teaching the same people. Workshops get your work on a you know on a website from a different venue or museum, and then they send your work out to to their followers. So I just taught a workshop at a local museum, and then I received you know an email from somebody who they missed the deadline to sign up for the workshop, but therefore, then they wanted to take private lessons from me. So that opened up that door. If I never would have taught with that museum, then that opportunity wouldn't have, you know, come to fruition. So I, yeah, I would say get out of your comfort zone. If I have had to say yes to things that I maybe wasn't 100% comfortable with, because artists we can sometimes be. Sometimes some of us are introverted, and you know I can a little bit introverted. I'm not always. I had I've had to build confidence as far as getting my work out there, being confident, my work, and you know, just saying yes to things that maybe I wasn't 100% comfortable with. So, I'd say saying yes more often will open up more doors.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:08:32

Yeah, absolutely. I am in total agreement because, oh, it builds experience on one side. You realize, oh, you know, I I tried it. I don't think I'll do that again. Or oh, I tried it. You know what? I kind of love it. And then also, it puts your work out there, right? Like if if, and I love to say this because my my French teacher used to say this a lot in high school, and it was if you never ask or if you don't, you know, put yourself out there, the answer is always no. You know, like you don't have the the gall to sometimes, you know, even reach out for those opportunities that you think, oh, maybe not, and get out of, like you said, that comfort zone. You don't know where that could have taken you. You know, like it's it's the that is like where the crossroads can happen that will lead you to a path that leads you to something even more incredible than whatever you thought you had planned in your head. I mean, I think we have to leave some room for life to surprise us, but we also have to move in that direction to give it the opportunity to surprise us, you know

Nicole Troup: 1:09:43

exactly. Yeah,

Unknown: 1:09:45

yeah, yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:09:47

And actually, speaking of shows, workshops, is there anything that you would like to tell us about or promote that you have going up?

Nicole Troup: 1:09:56

Yeah, yes, I have a few things. I'll first talk about. I have some upcoming workshops. So in October, october 17, it's a it's a three three consecutive weekends. I'm teaching at the the Scottsdale Artist School in Arizona, but it's online, and it the class is an introduction to painting the faso features in oil. So we're not painting the whole face. We're just going to paint the features in different angles and learning the anatomy about that. So that's three consecutive weekends in October, the October 17, and the two falling weekends. I'm trying to remember the dates, but so and then you you they anyone can go on my website, nicoletroopmasterpiece.com/workshops, and it's all under there. And then another one I'm teaching. This is I'm really excited about this one. So this is an art retreat I'm teaching next September, September 2027, and that is going to be in Italy. And so the workshop or the art retreat is called Sketchbook Adventures in Italy. So it's a little different than what I'm, you know, what I usually teach is animal portraits or people. So this will be sketchbook adventures. So it's more like a, I guess, an art holiday. But I will be teaching things as far as when we're sketching on location, how to sketch quickly, and then how to create your compositions, what to leave out, what to include when you're sketching on location because you, you know you have the time limits, you have also limits from the weather, the sun, and all that. So also in the art retreat, I'll discuss like how to you know portable supplies. You know if you're really an artist that likes to take your art supplies on trips, how to you know all the policies with flying, with art supplies and oils and all that. So all that will be discussed, and I get to I think with again with that I get to bring a little bit of my illustration background as far as we'll be doing like watercolors and ink sketches, but also pencil and and some gouache and but this will be@hotelion.com. This is also my website under my workshop menu, but it's hotelian.com and it is a. We'll be staying. The art art retreat center is at a in a village called Monte Pero, and it's in the La Marche region of Italy. It's more center Italy, center to the east coast, a beautiful area. We'll be staying in a medieval hilltop village at the very top, and so it's going to be a mix between you know sketching at going on different excursions and sketching different locations, but also experiencing the culture. So we'll have like a pasta making day. We'll also go down into the villages and experience the culture and the food. We'll have like a a wine experience, like an orchard experience, and just do different things. But I just want to let people know that if you're an artist, you can also bring a non-artist participant. So sometimes people like to bring a partner or a friend along with them. But everything's it's all inclusive, so there's a starting price and everything's included in that. The room, the transportation to and from the excursions, as well as the airport. You know, just a very good affordable price for anyone who wants to experience art and travel. So that's what I've been trying to do. I love travel. I think that was shaped by my childhood. We traveled all over the world, and I love to combine travel and and art. So, yeah. So that's I would say also another thing I'd like to promote is portraits for a cause. So if anybody wants to learn more about that, they can go into my website again www.nicoletroopmasterpiece. com, and you can read more about that and the features and in the news. That's it's been included in different news outlets, and people can read all the stories from the different collaborations. They can, if they want to buy a print, they can do that online, and also donate if people want to donate towards the cause. So I can continue doing this and continue sharing more inspiring stories. So, I'm just trying to think if there was anything else. I'm not in any exhibits right now, but I am not part of a gallery right now. I would like to eventually, but right now it's been working for me, just like self promotion, like on social media and through my website. Through person in person opportunities, so yeah, that's people can also find me on social media, Instagram, Facebook, and my handle is at Nicole Troop Masterpiece. I also just started a YouTube channel. I'm trying to grow that, but I have a vlog on that, and it's called Life Life as an Artist. So just just short little videos of my daily weekly life as an artist. I don't always keep up with that, but I do try to at least once a month, and it just shows videos that helpful tips, maybe things that I'm working on, and just for anyone who's curious, you know, about a life as an artist and what that entails. So, yeah, but yeah, I guess that's I think that's it.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:15:54

Yeah, awesome. And then I will include all of your links in the show notes as well, so our listeners who are on their phone right now can go check out your beautiful work and read about your project and check out your blog and you know sign up for any workshops. But yeah, so thank you so much, Nicole, for the inspiring chat and for you know just giving us some of your time and giving us really great advice and you know just being present, I really appreciate it.

Nicole Troup: 1:16:26

Well, thank you. I it's been fun. I love sharing my story, and I hope you know others can kind of get something out of this. So this conversation, but thank you. Appreciate

Unknown: 1:16:36

it.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:16:37

Yes. Thank you to everyone out there for listening to the podcast, your continued support means a lot to us. If you've enjoyed the episode, please leave a review for the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or leave us a comment on YouTube. This helps us reach others who might also benefit from the excellent advice that our guests provide. Thank you.