We were lucky to catch up with Hannah Richmond recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Hannah, thanks for joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

Learning how to do just about anything takes time. I have personally been continuously learning more and more about a creative techniques since I can remember, I am still not done! Hopefully I’ll never be done learning. I never went to school for art and you luckily don’t have to! When you can’t quite figure out how to accomplish something the best thing I did for myself was read up on it and watch others figure out their own way to solve the “problem”. Becoming comfortable with making mistakes is something everyone needs to learn, no matter who you are. It can take a while to understand how and why your piece came out not quite the way you wanted before you grow and learn. I personally have started to share the things I’m not very proud of and just about every time I do that it ends up being a favorite for others. Taking pictures or even filming yourself creating something works wonders when it comes to understanding how you work.

Hannah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Art is just a part of me. No matter how hard I tried to move forward with a more “realistic” career I would always come back to a career in art. I was diagnosed with epilepsy at about 4 years old. No matter how much my parents tried to allow me live a normal kid life my seizures would always interfere. The one thing that could allow me to connect was drawing, playing piano, photography, painting and making clay sculptures. Art is my comfort.
Being on a computer for hours is not something my epileptic brain enjoys, so I had to walk away from photography early on. That led me back to painting, these days that is my main practice. I mostly paint pet and people portraits. Custom pet paintings is what keeps me afloat and I am able to continue on with my own projects. The look that I enjoy to create is vibrant, whimsical and sarcastic to a point. I have always had a problem with masking my serious thoughts with laughter and it seems to show in my work as well, at least my favorite pieces have that feeling.
For about 14 years I worked at ceramic studios, I fell in love with sharing creative thoughts and watching people learn that they can also create! The process can completely transform people.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I had noticed the resources that are all around me! The people I knew and the artists I met are all amazing resources, my problem was never asking questions. Always be curious if people around you and talk to them, the biggest regret I have is also not keeping in touch with people who were doing what I hope to do. Just following someone on social media is not enough, you must keep a relationship with people and get to know more of your community. This is something I struggle with to this day. Stop thinking you can’t, just try and ask questions before you move on.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My goal is always to prove to myself that it can be done. What that thing is always changes for me. I’m here for the ride and I’m just figuring out where this path will take me. There are so many extremely talented artists that people don’t know exist purely because they don’t have the confidence to push through the crowd. I don’t want to fall away from the future of art as my career or my happiness.
I can’t escape the creative journey, it’s always been there and now I just need to follow through for myself.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Hannahpaintsstuff
• Facebook: Sam as Instagram (hannahpaintsstuff)
• Other: Etsy.com/shop/hrichmondsarts