We recently connected with Haley Leeper and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Haley thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I have been a full-time muralist, artist, & illustrator for the last 5 years.

Haley, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’ve loved drawing since I was a child; creativity and art have always been something that come easy and fun to me. I went to college for fashion and worked in that industry afterward, but still longed to be the person that was doing the illustrations on apparel, instead of just creating the designs. I began painting in my free time, started a podcast to help learn about how people created businesses from their passions and began showing my work more often on social media. As people began requesting commissions from me, I naturally took the leap into working completely for myself.

Today, the main things I provide are murals for businesses & homeowners, illustrations for awesome companies, licensable artwork, and abstract paintings. Most of my work is inspired by my adventure travels and thus brings an authentic fun vibe to the colorful creations I make. The people I tend to work with are those who prioritize happiness, good energy, and making each day exciting. With my work, I hope to motivate people to follow their passions in life, whether that’s through having one of my fun murals or paintings on their wall, or by seeing me living out my dream as an artist who travels the world.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Social media has been huge for my creative business, as it is where most of my clients find me. One thing that is very important for building your social presence is to post consistently and often. A lot of people have the idea that if they show a painting once, they can’t ever show it again – but that’s wasting so much opportunity! With one painting, you should be able to create a week of posts (carousel of process photos, bts reel, materials used reel, photos of it hanging in your living room, etc.) You might think people will get tired of it, but on the contrary, people love stories behind art and seeing how it’s created, so you’re only doing yourself a disservice to snap one pic and store it away hoping it sells. And if anyone does get tired of seeing your work, they aren’t your target audience anyways!

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

At the start of a journey as a freelance creative, it can feel next to impossible to know what to price. Around the time I started painting murals, I took a quick course on pricing and that alone helped mold my mindset around pricing into what it is today. It’s easy to think that trial and error is a cheaper way to go, but often, investing in learning from someone with just a tad bit more experience is completely worth it and the return on investment is huge.

These days, I have my own full mural course available online to help people who are starting out in murals and want to make a good income.

Contact Info:

• Website: haleyleeper.com
• Instagram: @haleybhop
• Facebook: @haleybadenhopart
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/haleybadenhop
• Twitter: @haleybadenhop
• Youtube: @haleeps
• Other: tiktok: @haleeps