Ep #12: Capturing emotional landscapes - with artist Orla Stevens

Podcast

Jul 15

In this delightful episode, the wonderful Orla Stevens takes us on a journey through the Scottish landscapes that have shaped her artistic vision - from the mists of the Trossachs to the wild beauty of Orkney. We delve into how she transforms the often grey and green Scottish countryside into explosively colourful works that capture not just what she sees, but how these places make her feel.

Orla also shares her unique practice of incorporating sound into her visual work, drawing what she hears in the landscape and translating music into colour palettes.

We chat about the reality of being a full-time artist, and how you're really juggling two full-time jobs. One of my favourite insights from our conversation is Orla's approach to business and art as mutually supportive rather than competing forces. Her teaching and community-building work creates space for her personal painting practice, showing how both sides of an art business can feed each other.

Listen to the episode here (click the arrow at the bottom right to play), or find it wherever you get your podcasts:

Find out more about Orla:

Orla Stevens is a Scottish artist inspired by landscape and our connections to nature and the outdoors. Working across painting and illustration, Orla’s practice is rooted in curiosity and play, and looks to celebrate the beauty, awe and wonder of time spent in nature, with a focus on capturing how these places and experiences make us feel.

Alongside her creative practice, Orla helps others connect with nature, community, and play through art. This led to ‘The Outdoor Sketchbook Collective’—an online community offering resources and workshops that encourage artists to engage with the natural world.

Visit Orla’s Website
Find Orla on Instagram
Find Orla on YouTube
Find Orla on Substack

Hello and welcome to Zuzu's Haus of Cats Presents. I'm your host, artist Eli Trier, although you can call me Zuzu. And on this podcast, I talk to my fellow artists about the magic of the creative process. We'll talk about what they make and in particular, how they make it. Their rituals and workflows, inspirations and disenchantments, ebbs and flows. We'll even take a peek behind the scenes of their businesses to see how they're using their creativity there too, and how they balance the needs of their business with the needs of their art. If you're interested in getting a behind the scenes look at what makes artists tick and enjoy conversations about art, creativity, neurodivergence and business, then you're in the right place.
Hi everyone and welcome back to Zuzu's Haus of Cats Presents. Today the Haus of Cats is proud to present the wonderful Orla Stevens. Orla is a Scottish artist inspired by landscape and our connections to nature and the outdoors.
Working across painting and illustration, Orla's practice is rooted in curiosity and play and looks to celebrate the beauty, awe and wonder of time spent in nature, with a focus on capturing how these places and experiences make us feel. Alongside her creative practice, Orla helps others connect with nature, community and play through art. This led to the Outdoor Sketchbook Collective, an online community offering resources and workshops that encourage artists to engage with the natural world.
I am so excited to speak to Orla today. I know I say that about all my guests, but I have the best guests. Let's get to it. Join me in welcoming Orla to the pod.
Guest Introduction and Background
Eli: Orla, thank you so much for being here. It's lovely to see you. Can you start by introducing yourself properly and telling us a little bit about how you got to be where you are now?
Orla: First off, thank you so much for inviting me on the podcast. It's an absolute joy. I've had so much fun listening to all of the episodes. It's been absolutely beautiful. Really happy to be here. My name is Orla and I'm an artist and an illustrator. My work is deeply inspired by nature and landscape. And through my art practice, I just look to help other people connect to art and the outdoors and to their own creative journey.
Eli: I love that. Your work is so deeply connected to nature. And I can understand why, like the landscape where you live is just one of the most beautiful in the world. Is there anything in particular, is there a specific landscape or a natural setting that has really profoundly influenced your style? And how has that worked?
Landscape and Inspiration
Orla: Probably to go back to the beginning, I completely fell in love with landscape. It's a passion passed down to me from my parents. Being outside was a huge part of my childhood and that was all about getting outside. We went on so many different camping trips on the west coast of Scotland. The west coast, the Outer Hebrides, the Summer Isles on Scotland's west coast is really what got me inspired in the first place and where I started to just love being outside.
There are a couple of other special places for me that show up in my work. I grew up near the gateway to the Highlands, it's called, in the Trossachs National Park. So that is a landscape filled with mist, hills, loch. It's very green, very grey and very mystical. So I suppose that probably comes into my practice too.
The last place I wanted to say was deeply inspiring was Orkney, which is an island north of Scotland. And I started going there for a number of different creative projects. So it's probably a very meaningful landscape to me that's been inspiring my work because it's associated with all of these creative professional development projects and has been part of lots of beautiful collaborations.
Eli: I love that. And I love the intersection of the natural world and connection and your artistic development. Like that feels very embodied, I suppose, is the word I'm looking for. Like it feels like it's not just so much about nature, but it's also about all of these extra elements as well. And obviously, artwork is never just about one thing. There's a quote from someone, I can't remember who it was, who said that like all art is a self portrait.
Orla: Absolutely, absolutely. That's so true.
Colour and Interpretation
Eli: I'm interested because you mentioned the colours of the landscape as being very green and very grey, but your work is so colourful, like you pull through all of these beautiful saturated colours. And I'm curious, like, where does that come from? What inspires you to choose those particular colours when what's in front of you is often very not shocking pink?
Orla: I think it comes from two things. The first is that when I'm outside and sketching, I really love to get up close and look at nature really up close instead of just looking at a wider landscape as a whole, really go pick up something, zoom into it and look at all the colors within it. You tend to find crazy colors when you look at rocks, for instance, or lichen, all of these different things. They contain much more than they first appear to.
And then the second is my paintings are deeply inspired by nature and landscape, but they're really about how those places make me feel, my emotional responses to those places. And when you see crazy colours showing up in my work that don't naturally look like a place, they're coming from how I'm feeling, how those places make me feel. Artistic interpretation, of course.
Eli: Is that something that has changed over time, like your relationship with these landscapes, with these places and your interpretation of them?
Orla: Definitely. I think it's naturally progressed throughout my career. So when I first started painting, I felt much more drawn, both drawn and also a little bit held to capturing the landscape as I saw it, rather than as I felt it. And then with every year that passes, I feel more brave to venture away from realism and abstraction and to lean into the emotional qualities of place more than the literal representation.
Finding Entry Points to Landscape
Eli: That makes so much sense. Funny, I just recorded a sketchbook tour for YouTube yesterday, and in there, there are some very abortive attempts at landscape. And it's something like I'm a very indoor person. I like indoor things. And every now and again, I'll have a little go, and I'll try and do something landscape-based. And I've never found a way into it. So I'm really interested by the way you talk about like your emotional interpretation of the landscape. It's a fascinating way in.
One thing that I've done because I've worked so hard on trying to find a way into location drawing is I ended up coming up with something I call collecting shapes, which is literally just collecting shapes. And it's funny, I shared this on YouTube and we'd gone on a trip to Amsterdam and I had collected the shapes of Amsterdam. Someone in the comments said like, I actually live in Amsterdam and I can tell where you went from the shapes you've collected along the way.
Orla: That is insane. That's so cool.
Eli: It just goes to show like often what we're trying to convey. You need so little information and you can be so loose and interpretive with what you're doing and you can still get something almost representational across without actually being representational in the work.
Orla: Absolutely. I love that shape gathering idea. I think that's how I also approach when I'm outside. Because trying to capture a whole vast landscape, that's a lot to tackle, right? It's daunting. But if you're going out and you're just looking for shapes or just gathering something, I often feel like a forager when I'm outside with my sketchbooks, just trying to find little bits of information which excite me. And then just run with that instead of this immense, awe inspiring place. Nature is its own art form. I think it's impossible to replicate.
Eli: I love that. Are you capturing the bigness by going small?
Working with Sound
Eli: Something else that you talk about a lot is that you incorporate sounds into your practice as well. So you're not only capturing shapes, you're capturing sounds and things as well. And I know that you've worked with musicians to expand on that idea. Can you talk us through the process of that? Is it synesthesia or is it just, again, an interpretation of how the sounds make you feel? How does it work?
Orla: How did I even start doing this? I played a lot of music as a kid as well and I had an inspirational violin teacher who was really into the outdoors and nature and I think she's been a big inspiration for me. So it always seemed to make sense to just listen and be inspired by sounds in general.
So I think I started by going outside with my sketchbooks and just trying to draw what I could hear in the landscape for like a personal thing, just to try and relax myself. It's just like a very meditative process. For want of a better word, like, it's kind of like self care. There's probably a better way to put that, but you know, like it's very nurturing. Just tuning in and slowing down and drawing what I could hear.
I don't know if it's synesthesia. I hesitate to call it that because I just don't know. But I think it's definitely through association. I think music and art are quite similar in terms of to express something in music, you're looking for color and tone and texture, composition, all the same things that you're looking to solve or explore in a painting.
When I'm responding to sound, whether that's music or whether that is sound in nature, I'm really just trying to tune into how that sound is making me feel and respond to that. I also get a strong association of colors through sounds. So if I'm listening to like a melody, there'll be a very clear palette that shows up. And just really trying to tune into the qualities of the music. So how it's feeling and echo those same qualities in my mark making and my colors, however I want to express it.
Eli: That's so beautiful. I do these workshops where I sort of, it's a bit like Play Group and they're workshops for making bad art. But basically it's just like playing with materials and with colours and all sorts. And one of the exercises that I do with people there is that I'll play a happy song and a sad song and an angry song and get people to interpret what they're hearing on the page.
And the results are always very interesting. So many similarities between people's interpretations, but also so many differences as well. A song that you think of as being like sad and beautiful and melancholy could be happy to somebody else.
Orla: Totally. And we all have such personal associations, depending on if we've heard that before. Those memories can completely change. It's amazing. I love that you do that. I think that's so interesting.
Textile Design Background
Eli: There's something else that also adds to this lovely mix that you've got going on with your work is the fact that you used to do textile design and surface design. Are there still elements of that that influence your process, your painting process?
Orla: Definitely. So I did a degree in screen printed textiles and surface design. And that has probably entirely informed how I make marks, what I consider to be a drawing, as something more expansive than just like a pencil line. It's also probably inspired me to layer a lot in my work and also to just play an awful lot. We used to just get screens and expose them and just play with how we could place things. And that just really got me started in that making process of just being iterative with things, giving things a go, completely experimenting and seeing what happens.
Eli: I wasn't expecting you to say that.
Orla: Oh, really?
Eli: Yeah, the play and the experimentation. That's wonderful.
Orla: Absolutely. That's probably down to fantastic tutors. I had the most supportive tutors who were very open to us exploring our own things and expressing ourselves. Although it was a design degree, it was very expansive. We could go much more towards fine art than I think a lot of other courses might allow.
Eli: Do you think that you would make the art that you make now without having that background?
Orla: I don't think so. No, I don't think so, because I don't think I would have the same, or maybe I would have found it eventually, but things just really clicked the way that they taught us to draw through mark making, through making textures. And we had this workshop with the bridge was about drawing with thread and drawing with textiles, which was just really trying to get us to be exploratory and just play a lot.
It's something that I really value highly in my work is the play and the actual process of creation rather than what comes out the other end. I'm not really interested in what comes out the other end. It's the process and the doing that is what feeds me in my own practice.
Maintaining Playfulness in Commercial Work
Eli: One of the things that I really admire about you is you manage to maintain that sense of playfulness even when you're working on your illustration pieces. Looking through your portfolio, like there's so much lightness in that. And I'm wondering, like, is that something that you struggle with at all? Like when you're working to somebody else's constraints and brief and it's all very rigid, do you feel that or are you able to just completely transcend that and keep doing what you're doing?
Orla: I think that's probably another thing I learned from my textile degree was working to a brief, working to solve problems for others. And that's something I really love to do. I do sometimes struggle with it, of course, like figuring out what those constraints are and figuring out what the wiggle room is within that. But on the other flip side, I love creative constraints. It's kind of like a playground where you have some rules and then you can just go a bit wild within those things. So if anything, I think it sometimes helps me be more creative because I think it almost gives you a little less to think about.
The constraint tends to be the composition. It might be like my process for illustration is outlining the composition first and black and white so that the client understands the direction of where it's headed and what they're getting. But within that composition, I can play with how things are placed, how things are layered. You can really just zoom in on these little things and focus on those and that is where the play can be found. It kind of makes it simpler in a way.
Eli: I love that you're pulling out that same thread as you do as your landscape with you're focusing really on the little things, on the details, and that's what makes what you do on a bigger scale so interesting.
Orla: I think just trying to make things as simple as they possibly can, as I possibly can. It's what makes things fun and feels light. And then I want to do more of it. And then it rolls from there.
Process vs Outcome
Eli: Well, this is the thing about focusing on the process rather than the outcome is that if that bit feels fun, then whatever comes out the other end is likely to feel fun to the viewer as well.
Orla: Totally.
Eli: I don't know. Have you ever made something where you didn't enjoy the process, but you liked the outcome?
Orla: Rarely.
Eli: Me too. And I think other people really react to that as well, like the pieces that I've really laboured over and have hated every moment of doing it are the ones that even if they look nice people just don't respond in the same way. You can feel it. And conversely the ones that I've had an absolute ball making but don't look as nice as they should, are the ones that people are like, oh my God, I love this one. And I think all artwork has a sort of energetic frequency. Like it carries the process of making into itself as a finished object. And I think that's what people connect to. It's about as woo as I get, I think, but there's something almost metaphysical about it.
Orla: Absolutely. And like from a practical sense, if you're feeling good, you're much more likely, I think, to be able to access either more focus or whatever you need to develop, I think. It's just so much fun.
New Series and Technical Exploration
Eli: So looking ahead, I know that you are working on or have just finished a new series of work. Can you talk us about like what aspects of that you're really excited about? What are you exploring? What recent discoveries and experiments are you doing? Just tell us all about it.
Orla: I am at the beginning stages of a new body of work. This new series of work, I should probably preface by saying has come after maybe a year of almost breaking my practice, relearning, going back to the drawing board and going very deep on technical things, just so much learning and has been feeling quite tricky to navigate, but in a good way. Like I'm very thankful I've had that year to go really deep and unlearn, relearn parts of my practice.
Finally, now after all of those months, I'm feeling like I can start to bring these threads together. And I'm feeling really excited again to take this project forward. So this project, I'm working a lot from memory. I'm working a lot from film photographs, film footage that I've gathered, my sketchbooks where I've forged all of my ideas from. I'm stirring all of these things together.
And my technical focus right now in the studio is exploring how I can scale up my marks with watercolour and ink, which are two relatively new materials for me, which I'm having so much fun exploring. And because those mediums are more unforgiving than acrylics, I have been loving the challenge of them and exploring how I can be brave with these more unforgiving materials, how I can layer them together and how it can really channel like loose wild abandon into my work. So that's what I'm exploring and figuring out right now.
Eli: That sounds so exciting. I love that the practice, the fact that it's a practice of being an artist means that you're constantly learning and evolving and going in new directions and you have the opportunity to go back and relearn something that you feel like maybe you already know and you find so much more in there. Like every time you go back to it, there's new stuff to pull out and then it all informs the work moving forward.
Orla: Totally. That like last year of breaking my practice and relearning was really like, I had figured out what I was really passionate about and what I wanted to go deeper with. And that's what that year was dedicated to was like understanding fewer things, but better or deeper.
Eli: What sort of stuff were you focusing on during that year?
Orla: I was stripping things back to like studying colour a lot, trying to understand colour theory a lot better and deeper, studying value, studying composition, because I wasn't trained as a painter, I was trained as a designer. All of these things, like we didn't really cover them in uni. So I've been teaching myself along the way. And yeah, really colour was the big focus.
Eli: Colour is so, it's such a dense subject, and so many of us think, start off using colour very intuitively. And then once you go into the theory of it, like, oh, that's why I'm doing that particular thing, or that's why I find that so pleasing. And there's so much that... colour is one of my special subjects, like I absolutely love it. It just it's so exciting and so scientific in a really lovely nerdy way.
Orla: Absolutely. I absolutely love it. And I feel like I've just dipped my toe into that and then applying it to my practice now. And I'm sure I will be, I've got so much more to learn. But yeah, a lifetime's worth of work, I think.
Eli: And this is the practice. This is the job of being an artist, isn't it? It's just accepting that you will never know all of it and we could try and learn as much as we can along the way.
Business Challenges and Solutions
Eli: So switching gears a little bit, obviously you are a businesswoman as much as you are an artist. And I know that something that a lot of artists struggle with is the business side of being creative. So what aspects of running an art business have you found the most challenging and how do you navigate those?
Orla: The first thing that was probably most challenging for me was learning what I need as a person and as a business owner and as an artist and figuring out the ways of working which suit me just as a person and that has taken so much trial and error.
When I first graduated I gave myself three years to just try anything I could, throw things at a wall and see what sticks. So I feel like for the first few years although I was working full time as a creative person doing loads of different things. It wasn't like I had a business in the sense I do now. It was like, you want to design me an album cover? Okay, yeah, I'll do that. Do you want to facilitate this workshop? Yep, okay, I'll do that. I had those couple of years to explore and experiment, try all the different creative jobs to understand what I need energetically, how I like to work, when I like to work, who I like to work with.
And that's probably information that you get if you work in different careers, if you approach art business later in life. But because I just tumbled out of uni and started trying to feel my way from there, that's the path that I took. So that was my first challenge was figuring out what I needed and how to structure that into my business, which is what I've been doing over the last probably two years. It's probably when I've started to find more direction with that.
Managing Multiple Roles
Eli: It takes such a long time. And I think particularly with artists, there's this real tension between what the art needs and then what the business needs because you're juggling two full-time jobs. And I think there's such a misconception of being a full-time artist means that you're in the studio all day, every day, you're just making art. And I mean, I'm lucky if I get like one full day in the studio every week. Like there's so much other stuff that needs to happen. How do you manage that tension?
Orla: That's exactly the same for me. If I get a full day a week in the studio, that's doing well. Something which really helps actually this came from Laura Horne's podcast. And I've started to implement this advice recently. And it's made such a difference, which was have different modes of working separated. So not to expect yourself to feel creative after a morning of emails and admin. Like, I'm not going to feel or do my best painting practice after that. So trying to group different ways of working together and keep the painting its own day or its own afternoon. That has made a massive difference to managing those two jobs, I think.
Eli: It's such, it's two such different head spaces, that sort of creative, open, the sort of state that allows for the flow state to happen, and then the very focused, often very computery, like linear business state. Something that I've just started doing is separating out my time into months, because I have chronic illnesses and all sorts of things, my energy fluctuates wildly. And I find if I've got a whole month to focus on something, then I'm much more likely to get so much more done.
So I have a month where I'm creating content. So YouTube videos and writing and all of that kind of stuff. And I create content in one month for the following, it's three months worth of content altogether. And then I have a month that is just about art. And obviously there's emails and admin and stuff that creeps in, but my primary focus is art. And then I'll have a month where I'm doing business development stuff and networking and reaching out, pitching, doing all of that kind of stuff. And it means that you get to completely focus. I really struggle with context switching.
Orla: I was going to say that takes so much energy.
Eli: And just being able to completely like, okay, it doesn't matter if all I do is like one sketchbook page this week, because I know I've got a whole month coming up where I can completely immerse myself in just making.
Orla: That's so good. I think I want to work towards that. I've started getting there by planning some things into my month ahead, or having a little bit more structure. Up until recently, things have been every week is different. Like I don't really know what's coming until today and I'm deciding what's happening, which in itself is quite exhausting. So trying to plan further ahead and look at my business as a long goal rather than immediately fighting fires all the time or week to week. So that's starting to make a big difference and I am working towards where you are with larger chunks of time. That sounds dreamy.
Eli: I mean, I've been trying to do it in chunks of one week at a time, but I never know how I'm going to feel on any given week. And if you plan like, I don't know, filming a YouTube video or something, okay, that's going to happen this week. And then you feel like crap. Then the next week, there's something immediately coming up afterwards. And I was just really struggling to maintain everything.
Orla: And I imagine that gives you more intention with what you're making as well. And I'm working on my, how do I put this? I'm working on not getting overly distracted and constantly adding things into my business and trying, cause I get so excited. Like we just want to create stuff, right? But there's not enough hours in the day or enough versions of ourselves to do that. So trying to stick to the core things which make us happy and focus on them.
Eli: Exactly. It's a real practice of essentialism, I think.
The Outdoor Sketchbook Collective
Eli: So one of the things that you do as part of your business is the outdoor sketchbook collective, which is where you're helping others to use art as a tool to connect to nature, which is just gorgeous. I love this whole idea. So can you tell us a little bit more about that? Like, what is it? What does it look like?
Orla: So I started the Outdoor Sketchbook Collective around the same time, maybe just after I started my YouTube channel, which was about a year and a half ago. And I started it because I wanted to use art as a way to help other people connect to themselves, to nature, and also form more community as well.
The Outdoor Sketchbook Collective, it's really based on my own practice and has a very strong emphasis on play. Cause I just think that unlocks the start of everything. And if we all had more play in our lives, we'd all be a lot more happy and connected in general. So it's an online platform and I share monthly resources. I have video tutorials, blog posts. I do a little audio blog post as well, like a little mini podcast, written guides, whole bunch of different things that I share each month. We also have our online workshops and co-working sessions as well. So just informal ways to actually meet people about the things that light us up and explore new ideas.
It's just art as a community builder is so powerful. We all have this innate creativity inside us and there's something magical that happens when you're doing it in communion with other people as well. It's such a rewarding thing to make space for and it's just such, I mean, art can be such an isolating thing and running these art businesses, you probably feel like yourself as well, like working by ourselves all the time. So it's just so nice to be able to connect with other people and make more time for these important things.
Balancing Sharing and Privacy
Eli: So how have you found incorporating that into your business as well? Because that sounds like something that is quite labor intensive, quite energy intensive. Have you found that you're still able to get into that solitary state as well? Because I think that's also important for a creative practice. Do you have parts of your process that you still keep private or are you sharing it all through that medium?
Orla: I think I was sharing everything and I'm currently navigating the right amount to share in my practice. The painting collection that I've started that I'm working on right now, I have not filmed any of the process of those early stages of the work. And that's feeling really nice and just letting me have the head space to explore and actually develop my own practice. And then what I do at the end of each month is I make a private video for the Outdoor Sketchbook Collective members. And I just chat basically a chatty informal video of what I've been up to, but I'm not sharing the entire process of the creation. So managing those boundaries, I think, to help manage those energy levels.
Eli: I think there's something, it's something that I've really been struggling with, but certainly considering is the idea of sharing the process of making as a means of connection and marketing and getting people excited about the work. Because a lot of the time for me, sharing my process feels like, I don't know, sharing a video of me on the toilet. Like it's so private and so personal. So I end up doing sort of auxiliary work that I can share. But then I'm doing two lots of work. And what I've come to is the same idea that you have. I do a monthly studio diary on my YouTube where I tend to talk about what I'm doing rather than showing what I'm doing.
And I'm not quite happy with the balance of that yet, but I'm always interested to see how other artists are managing that because I don't know if anybody else feels quite as exposed as I do when you're sharing your process.
Orla: I think I definitely feel that exposure when I'm in this stage of my practice, when I'm discovering new things, when I don't feel, when I am figuring things out, I don't feel ready to share that. I feel more comfortable sharing my process when that's a process I have done a billion times, it's just like breathing. And that's where that's fine to film and share the process. And when I'm in this stage, I've been on my YouTube, I've been focusing more on like teaching style videos or chatty style videos, like you say. And maybe once this is off the ground and I'm feeling really confident in my process again, maybe I'll be sharing and filming that and putting it online wider. But I think we've got to go with those ebbs and flows.
Eli: Absolutely. And I think the work is fundamentally changed by knowing that it's going to be observed. I don't know, it's the energetic thing again as well. I think there's something, I don't know if it's restrictive. I think it's just like, there's a vibe that just feels off when maybe you can't be as completely uninhibited as you want to be if you know in the back of your mind that someone's gonna be watching this in the future.
Orla: That's interesting. At the moment, I've been feeling that less and more just like I don't have the capacity to manage my camera, think about filming and go. That's a whole other thing. That's been the main problem which has stopped me from filming this process. It's like, I just do not have head space to figure all of these problems out in my painting and move my camera around and plan a video at the same time. Not gonna happen.
Eli: It's such a balancing act. And I don't think people realise, like when you're just watching somebody on YouTube, like sharing their work, like there's so much behind the scenes, which is why I do this podcast so we can talk about it. And like learning to talk to camera as well. I mean, I must refilm my talking to camera sections, like at least 10 times before I get it right.
Orla: You always sound so confident and calm in your voiceovers, you know, you're just like, practiced and that's because you do it. That's because it's been practiced at least 10 times.
Eli: I just rely on editing, which is difficult because when I talk, I wiggle around like one of those blow up men outside petrol stations. So my editing is like, woman, I'm over here and then I'm over here and it's, yeah, it's a whole thing.
Orla: I find it really hard talking to camera because I feel like I'm quite a slow thinker. Like, I really love writing because that lets me process my thoughts at the pace which they come. But when I'm talking either live or to camera, it's like, I find it really hard to get the words out. So practice is the only way.
Eli: You would never tell. Like all of the stuff I've seen from you has just been beautifully delivered. So whatever you're doing, it's working.
Rituals and Workflows
Eli: Do you have any rituals or specific workflows or anything like that around your work or are you very pragmatic and just like, let's just get down to it, make the work?
Orla: A bit of both. Sometimes it has to be pragmatic because sometimes you just need to make yourself sit down and do the work. My routine is probably punctuated by the marketing, the creation of the YouTube videos, the workshops I run, the resources I create. So those are like the things that have the practical deadlines, which give me rhythm throughout the month. And then my painting then has a space to be like, to happen when I have the energy for it and when I feel ready. But equally, that is paired with giving myself the generosity to have that energy space. And then also going, right Orla, sit down and get yourself with the paintbrushes out and do something because starting is the best way to keep going as well.
Eli: There's something you said that I really love, which is giving yourself the generosity to do that. And I love that because I think so often we are driven by these things that have to happen and they're often external deadlines. Like even if they're self-imposed, like they're for somebody else or something else or to achieve a goal. But to be generous with yourself, to allow yourself the space and the time to work on the things that are important to you as well. I think that's a really lovely way of putting it. I like that very much.
Orla: I think it's, I mean, we're choosing to do this because we love it. So we need to make that time. And sometimes that takes more time. Sometimes that means we need to be in the right mood. Sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it means knuckling down and it's just figuring out yourself and figuring out when to be strict with yourself and when to be more open.
Eli: The way you describe it sounds really organic and I think it's really, I don't know if it comes from your deep connection to nature but there's a very natural element to that in respecting the ebbs and the flows and understanding that productivity is a cyclical kind of seasonal thing, just like everything else. We're animals, like we work in cycles.
Orla: Totally. Creativity's a cycle. It means you have a fallow period.
Eli: I think that's a really valuable counterpoint to this sort of all of the productivity advice that we get, which is so linear and so mechanical. And you must produce the same amount every single day. You must constantly be growing. You must be doing, you know.
Orla: I think on that actually a big reason why I wanted to start the outdoor sketchbook collective. Firstly, I absolutely love teaching and I love sharing and I love connecting with people. And secondly, like having that as part of my business from a practical sense, gives me that space to have more space in my painting practice and helps me be more creative in my personal work. So it's figuring out how both art and business can support each other.
Eli: And it's such a different attitude to, I want to do the art, but I have to do the business. And I think there's this lovely symbiotic relationship that comes when you accept the fact that the business is there to support the art and the art is there to support the business. Like, they're both important. They're both creative. They're both beautiful things to build.
Orla: Exactly. And it's just figuring out what lights you up in both areas and then taking that forwards.
Eli: Leaning into the joy of it all. Because it can all be fun.
Orla: Exactly.
Final Advice
Eli: So our last question, this has been such a wonderful conversation. And I want to wrap up with the question that I ask everybody at the end, which is what advice would you give to artists who are interested in doing this full time, like making creativity their full time gig?
Orla: Oh, that's such a good question. Something I probably would have loved to know sooner was to think about my why behind my work and try and instill that across everything in both my practice and in my business. Kind connects back to that last point and finding the joy in everything. Just figuring out really what inspires you to keep coming back every day or as often as you do, what's going to keep you wanting to do this for years and years and years. And what do you want to share? What do you want to bring more to the world and make that your business.
Eli: Beautifully put. I love that.
Closing
Eli: All of this has been such a joy to talk to you. What you've shared has just been magnificent. So thank you so much for sharing your time and your knowledge and your insight with us today. If people are interested, which I'm sure they are, and they want to find out more about you, where can they find you on the internet? Where can they get more of you?
Orla: Well, first off, thank you so much for having me. It's been such a beautiful conversation. I've had so much fun. And it's been lovely to hear more about you and your practice as well. And to find me elsewhere, you can find me, my website is orlastevens.com. You can find the Outdoor Sketchbook Collective over on Patreon. You can either search my name, Orla Stevens, or the Outdoor Sketchbook Collective. And on YouTube, Orla Stevens, Instagram, Orla Stevens. Nice and easy.
Eli: And I'll put all those links in the show notes for everybody as well, so you can just click through and find all of those. Thank you so much, Orla. This was such a treat.
Orla: Thank you so much for having me.
Outro
Eli: Oh, Orla is such a delight. I could talk to her for hours and that accent. Oh my God. If you are as captivated with Orla and her story as I am, then make sure that you come over to the show notes at Zuzu's Haus of Cats dot com. That's Haus spelled H-A-U-S forward slash podcast and that's where you'll find all of the show notes from today's episode and get all of the information you need to follow Orla on the internet. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye bye.