A few months ago, I shared a quick Instagram Story from my studio where I was collecting junk mail and turning it into paper mache sculpting material…and people went nuts.

“OMG recipe please!”

“This is the coolest thing I’ve seen on the internet in a loooong time.”

“I have so much junk mail I could do this with. Plz show us how to do this.”

These responses tickled me because I was raised by a grandma with an inability to throw anything away, so you could say that coming up with creative ways to reuse “trash” is in my genes. After getting fed up with all the junk mail that was piling up on my table, I decided to use my craftiness to do something about it. The result? Paper clay!

In the fall of 2020, I completely lost my creative spark.

The pandemic was raging, streets were burning, and try as I might, I couldn’t stop myself from consuming terrible news stories the same way one might mindlessly consume potato chips…

…which only reinforced the sinking feeling that it was selfish (dare I say reprehensible) for me to make art just for fun or pleasure…

…even though creating for fun and pleasure was, uh, what I built my entire career upon?

For the first time in a long time, I froze…

It’s easy, if you’re just now coming across my work, for it to look like I have my shit together. I’ve done lettering work for big clients like Google and Target, my Instagram following has grown past 250K, and I teach hundreds of people how to sharpen their lettering & creative marketing skills through online workshops each year. But what you can’t see is that this business took five years to build. And it definitely wasn’t always this peachy.

Let’s take it back to June 2013: I had just graduated top of my class from SVA with a degree in Advertising, and my partner and I had just landed our dream jobs as junior art directors at a big NYC agency. It ticked all my boxes: great salary, reputable agency for my resumé, and snacks all over the place. This was the job that was going to make all those late nights working my ass off in school worth it. I could feel it.

By October that year, I was drunk crying to my best friend in the back of a cab. Sobbing, I admitted to her that I felt drained and uninspired at the agency but also felt guilty for feeling this way because it was supposed to be my dream job. That was my conundrum: finally acknowledging I was unhappy with the long hours & mundane work but feeling obligated to stick it out. I found myself making lots of little excuses for why I couldn’t quit at that point.

The truth is that the shift from agency job to freelance can be intimidating, but it can be a lot less scary if you have a plan for how to make that transition and actionable steps to take you from here to there. For me, I knew I wanted to pursue lettering. I figured out what kind of work I wanted to do once I left the agency, how much financial cushion I needed to feel comfortable before quitting my job, and started working towards making those things a reality! 

I truly believe that this is a transition almost anyone can make. So, I spent a while thinking hard about the things that took me from miserable-at-an-agency to my-own-boss-and-loving-it. And from that I came up with 5 actionable steps YOU can take to start positioning yourself to go freelance while you’re still at your full-time job. 

What began as leftover paint from a mural project turned into a mini kitchen renovation. That’s a completely normal thing to do with extra paint, right?

I refer to this makeover as an interior design version of the TV show Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee (including that generous vodka pour for those who know the meme haha). I didn’t knock anything down or tear anything out. Instead, I used paint, stock cabinets, and new hardware to give the kitchen a colorful, custom look. Oh, and nine years of design + mural painting experience probably helped, too.

Here’s a peek inside the process, complete with sources and links to materials whenever possible!

My gut tells me that subjects that make me nervous - like this one! - are important to talk about, especially in a community of freelancers where we all learn and benefit from the experiences of our peers.

From the outside looking in, it’s easy to think “I’d never work on a project that’s related to (insert company or industry here)”, but through my own experience as a commercial lettering artist and conversations with industry peers… things often become less black-and-white when an actual offer is sitting in your inbox.

All this is to say that my take on business ethics and choosing clients is personal and imperfect. I’m sharing as a fellow freelancer & entrepreneur, to add to the conversation.

Let the true mural magic begin! You’re ready to seek out your first mural clients.

But first, I want to highlight an important point that I mentioned in some of the other articles: you should document everything you do related to murals, especially your “practice” murals. All of that practice is not only building your skills in large-scale painting but also giving you content to share on social media.

Social media content that documents your mural work creates credibility for you as a mural artist. It gives your audience a reason to trust that you know how to do the work. The more “behind the scenes” evidence you show of painting murals, the more confident potential clients will be that you are the real deal.

Here’s the unfortunate truth about finding your first mural wall: most likely, no one is going to let you paint on their wall without any examples of mural work (not even for free). This feels like a no-win situation for a lot of artists: I need a wall to get experience but I need experience to get access to walls!

Guess what? The mural wall is a myth.

In the first post of this series, I talked about mural myths. One of the most common myths about painting murals is that they need to go on a large exterior wall. The truth is that almost any large surface can be a mural surface, and an indoor mural is just as “mural-y” as an outdoor mural! 

I get A LOT of questions about transferring artwork to a mural-sized surface. This is (understandably) one of the most intimidating parts of beginning mural work for a lot of artists. Lucky for you, there’s a ton of options out there, and many of them are super-accessible to beginner muralists.

What I mean is you don’t need to drop hundreds of dollars on a projector for your first project. There are other time-tested ways to get your work on large surfaces that don’t include any expensive equipment!

I did my early murals completely freehand and these days I usually use transfer paper or a projector. Both techniques have their advantages, so first I’ll explain when and how I use each method.

Aww yeah, we’re back for Part 2 of my five-part mural painting blog series. Part 1 hopefully helped to smash some of the myths & limiting beliefs surrounding mural work, and in this post, we’re diving into mural painting supplies!

You basically need two things to do work as a muralist (other than artwork): 1. supplies and 2. willingness to try. Okay, a little experience doesn’t hurt either.

The secret, though, is that neither of those two things needs to be fancy or technically “correct” for you to do murals! They don’t even need to be mural-specific.

There’s no way around it: murals are cool. (That’s not a myth haha; I’ll get to those in a minute.) It’s awe-inspiring to stand near a gigantic piece of art, and dare I say even more magical to step back and admire one you just painted.

As someone who’s painted 15 murals over the years, I’ve received lots of questions about how to get started, which is understandable because I had tons of burning questions at the beginning too! I honestly didn’t realize how accessible the entry into mural work was until I actually took the leap and gave it a shot.

In this five-part series (awwww yeah!) I’m going to walk you through some of the most important things I’ve learned about mural work, starting with some common myths that hold creatives back from getting started. The other articles in this series will tackle things like technique, supplies, and finding walls and clients, and I’ll be rolling them out over the next week. By the end of this series, my hope is that you’ll have the knowledge and confidence to try painting a mural of your own in 2020.

I love doing client work and it’s still my bread and butter, but even with the best self-promotion, I have very little control over when someone has a good project for me. Whereas with other income streams like online courses and in-person workshops, I’m in control of pretty much everything, from the subject to the time and monetary commitments.

Diverse income streams give me the ability to generate income more predictably vs. wondering when it’ll come to me. When I first started freelancing I was content to do client work but when I experienced client work slowing down slightly for the first time in 2016, I realized I had to figure out some other ways to make money! I started with workshops. And, because workshops were such a win for me, I started looking for other ways to supplement my client-work income.

(I’m writing about this because I wish someone had explained the benefits of diversified income stream to me earlier! Would’ve saved me a lot of stress and confusion.)

I’ll get back to workshops in a minute. Lemme just lay out the basics of a diversified income stream for you, and why I get a lil’ passionate about it.

Hey y’all! I’m Josh Ryan and I do a lot of things and take a lot of naps. I’m a full-time UX designer, part-time artist/illustrator, author, creator of a couple side projects (Introflirted and Cool Pop Pop Art), occasional comedic pro-wrestler, and probably a few other things I probably forgot about.

How do I do all that and still manage an average of 1.32 naps per day? It’s all about focus, efficiency, and execution. I know that sounds like buzzword snake-oil seminar stuff, but stay with me.

Even though the decision to start teaching my own workshops completely transformed me and my business, the number one question I get from other artists is, ‘Is it really worth the time and effort to put together and teach workshops? Are the benefits really worth it for my creative business?’

While I could wax poetic about the myriad of ways workshops have benefitted me (increased confidence, added revenue stream to combat slow freelance months, etc), I thought it would be powerful to hear from a different perspective: an artist agent.

Ryan Appleton has been my agent for the past three years, and as an agent, it’s his job to keep a close eye on the pulse of the creative industry. I asked him a few questions about workshops and why they might be beneficial to modern working artists. Here’s what he said:

Today, I’m gonna tackle a big one - self doubt! This is by far one of the things I get asked about most, especially from visual artists who are just starting out in their careers. It can be TOUGH to maintain a positive outlook (and workflow) when you’re struggling with self-doubt, but even the most seasoned visual creatives grapple with self-doubt from time to time!

Although there is no “magic bullet” to get rid of self-doubt once and for all, there are a few super helpful techniques I’ve learned over the years to get self-doubt under control. The more practice you have doing these things, the better you’ll get at quieting that ugly, negative voice inside your head.

Inspired by one of the signs I designed for my Adobe Insiders project, I created this tutorial to show you how to create a neon sign effect in Adobe Illustrator. In this tutorial, I'll show you my tips for making your sign look more authentic and how to create a natural looking glow.

“How do I find the confidence to…share my work on Instagram consistently? Try new mediums? Pursue art professionally?” The list goes on. Creative confidence is a topic that I get asked about all the time. In order to create a career that you love, you must first start with loving yourself.

Earlier this year, I made a post on Instagram about celebrating yourself and your accomplishments. I asked my audience to be brave and publicly share a "win" or something they were proud of with me in the comments section...and the results were amazing! People shared incredible accomplishments, both big and small, and others even joined in to cheer each other on. 

So you have an idea for a passion project? Amazing! But an idea is just an idea unless you put in the work to bring it to life. You've heard me talk about the benefits of having a creative passion project. I've gushed over the impact that they've have had on my career. Having the idea for the project is the first step, but actually making the project is the most important part of the process.

Once you have your big idea for a passion project, I know it may seem like a daunting task to bring it to life...which can cause you to put off the project completely (been there, done that). But not anymore! I've partnered with Wix to show you the exact things to add to make your passion project website more effective (and how simple it is to make one with Wix's templates + website builder).

You’ve heard of all the awesome benefits of having a creative outlet on the side, plus you’ve got SO many good ideas jotted down in notebooks, sticky notes, and random scraps of paper around the house. You talk about turning those ideas into wonderful things, but all that talking hasn’t translated to much, well, making.

You tell yourself that *tomorrow* will finally be the day you’ll start working on that project...but that was yesterday, and now it’s 8pm and you’re halfway into a bottle of red and an episode of Game of Thrones, so tomorrow will *really* be the day you start. This cycle repeats for a minimum of 34 consecutive days before you end up on this blog post.

Whatever the reason, you still haven’t started working on a passion project.

Whether you feel like it’s a lack of time, money, or motivation that’s getting in your way, I know how awful it feels to have tons of ideas but nothing to show for them. However, I want you to know that passion and ambition are powerful enough to overcome any roadblock.

This is a design talk disguised as Beyoncé song lyrics. Or Beyoncé song lyrics disguised as a design talk. YOU ARE SMART. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. YOU DESERVE HAPPINESS. WHO RUN THE WORLD? YOU.