We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Laura Ramm-Browning a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Laura, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
I love creating with every fiber in my body. Whether its my main craft, drawing or some wild ADHD project I saw on Pinterest. I’ve always had the desire to create something! It’s taken me 32 years to realize you can learn almost anything you put your mind to.
I’ve always had this thought in my head when I see something I like, “I can make that”. I’m not alone in this either but saying you can make something is completely different than actually making it. So why do some seem to be good at everything they do? I think it comes down to a few things. Learning the basics, as well as being able to fail and to analyze.
I’m sure it’s annoying for younger artists or creatives to hear, “You need to learn the basics” all of the time. I used to find it absolutely frustrating growing up. I just wanted to jump into a project and immediately start creating: To get my hands dirty. But as I’ve learned by trial and error, not having a good understanding of the basics will ultimately hurt you.
With drawing it’s very straight forward. The basics are Form, Value, Perspective, Composition, Line and Color. Now, I will be completely honest, I still struggle with all of these. Though, I don’t feel like less of an artist because my perspective drawing skills aren’t 100%. It just means I have more to improve upon.
As you start to learn the basics, you’ll notice your mistakes more and more. Sometimes I’ll get halfway through a drawing and notice the entire thing is wrong! But sometimes I don’t notice until I’m completely done. At this point you have a few choices: Be happy with what you were able to make and move on, or fix your mistakes. You’ll have to ask yourself, “is fixing this worth my time?“. I will completely abandon a piece of art and start over with either a new version or a new project, if need be. I don’t ever get mad at myself for not seeing those mistakes until later. It just means I was able to grow and see them now.
Knowing your limits and accepting them is such a good skill to have. Your limits can change but understanding what you are able to do and what you are not can help you grow further in the long run. One example of this is that I can’t draw backgrounds as well as I can people. So I know when I focus on drawing backgrounds, it’s going to be harder for me and I’ll probably get it wrong. I allow myself to have the room to learn. Be dedicated to your work but don’t be so hard on yourself that you feel like you’re failing. You’re not. You are just honing your skills.
There will always be someone better than you and that’s perfect! That means you can study their works and try to understand what makes their art so much better than yours. 90% of the time I’m just studying other people’s art, observing my surroundings, and trying to understand all of the basics in what I’m looking at. I also do this with my own art. I start to look around the piece and I will see lines I absolutely love and others that could have been fixed. I then apply this to my next project. Constantly improving.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Laura Ramm-Browning and I am the artist for Lulu’s Art Creations. I create vivid dark fantasy illustrations. I have a love of color, inkwork and the macabre. I sell my art online and at various conventions around Texas. All of my prints and stickers are made in house and my various blankets and shirts are created with a POD (Print on Demand) company called Printful. I’ve been selling art this way for several years now, each year becoming more and more successful. Selling was hard at first and each time I would set up my booth I ended up figuring out a new way to display my products to draw in more eyes.
I started making art ever since I was little. My strongest memory is when I was in kindergarten my great grandma showed me how to draw this bird sitting on a branch. I think I would draw the same bird over and over again for years. I’ve always been surrounded by art. On my mom’s side my great grandma Estelle and my grandma Dorothy were avid oil painters. There were at least a thousand paintings in my grandma’s house that they made over the years (I’m not exaggerating, hundreds upon hundreds of paintings). On my dad’s side, my grandmother Jane
As I started to get a little older I fell in love with anime. My neighbor and I would watch Sailor Moon together. I loved their outfits and the various colors each one had. I loved it so much I started to teach myself how to draw their faces. Then I would try to draw other characters’ clothes, or their faces and so forth. I knew then I would always want to create art but I didn’t know what kind.
I went to college to be a 3D modeler. I got my associates degree in Game art at Austin community college with a certificate in Illustration. I grew up watching my sister, Christy, play different video games like Banjo Kazooie and Kingdom hearts. And my group of friends all loved games and anime. We would draw various comics or characters. Unfortunately this isn’t where I ended up. A week before my last class ended my grandpa passed away. For an entire year I struggled with anxiety and depression. At the time I didn’t know that’s what it was.
I could never get myself to fix my portfolio and at the time entry level jobs in the game industry were scarce. I didn’t want to let go of being a game artist. I had put so much effort into it and I knew I could make something of it. After struggling to find a job I started working as an assistant for my mom’s real estate business. My art started to manifest itself into something else. I started to create more illustrations and paintings. Then one day my friend Chloe invited me to set up with her at an art show. I sold nothing! But I had the best time. Something in me sparked and I knew this was truly what I wanted to do.
I didn’t become a successful convention artist overnight. Heck, I still struggle with it and I’m still learning. I put in a lot of hard work and I struggled with a lot of ADHD and depression. I had to learn how to be my own social media manager, my own agent in finding shows, and my niche. Not all shows are good shows. I used to take my art to holiday shows and bombed! Understanding the type of person who would want to buy your art is 80% of the job. I had to learn how to take product pictures to post on my website, to write descriptions, and how to display my art at my booth.
Depression and ADHD are not easy to talk about or to deal with. With my ADHD I’m constantly coming up with new ideas. So much so I have an entire book of notes and sketches I will never get around to addressing. I would get overwhelmed with all of these new projects I wanted to create, but I never had the time to make. Yet my brain was full of ideas for each one. A lot of days I became overwhelmed and paralyzed by this and would end up binge watching tv. It took me a while to realize that I need to focus on one project at a time.
But that didn’t actually happen until more recently when I was forced to cope with a massive amount of family grief and trauma.
In the last 5 years, I lost my grandpa, my grandma, my sister and recently my aunt. Each causes various forms of grief, depression, and stress (which affects my ADHD symptoms). I didn’t know what to do with myself. My sister’s death was the hardest. It was sudden. We had just lost my grandma and my mom was recovering from heart failure that put her in the hospital for 2 weeks. We all had just started going through my grandparents estate and clearing out their 50 years worth of hoarding and thousands of original oil paintings. I got a call at 4am. She was gone.
After the Immediate fallout, I found myself wanting to create. I was lost and I felt disgusted with myself, because up to this point I’d struggled with creating and now all I wanted to do was create. I wanted to create all of the art that I told my sister I would make her. I wanted to show her. But I felt so guilty for having this inspiration. Why would my sister’s death give me so much drive? That’s the thing about grief/depression: it never acts the same or how we think it should. It’s taken me a while to realize it was ok to want to create art when you’re sad. It actually helps: it’s cathartic.
I had started making some new pieces of art here and there and focused all of my effort into them. I still had a million ideas in my head and I still kept getting stuck in this loop of needing to create all of it but never having the time. So why bother? I started to get this feeling that I just don’t want to be sad anymore. I’d just been feeling down, depressed, hopeless, I didn’t want to die young like my sister having felt like I’d done nothing with my life.
My mom always tells me, “the way you eat an elephant is with one bite at a time“. When I sat down and focused on one piece of art, I’d feel better. So I took that lesson and decided to work on one project. It wasn’t easy at first. I kept falling into the loop. But I decided to choose the easiest one to get going. I started writing a graphic novel. When I say easy and I don’t really mean easy. I just meant I didn’t have to learn a bunch of programs in order to start, and it had little to no start-up cost. I’ve had this idea floating around in my head for about 10 years.
I created a small writing group with 2 of my childhood friends and I just started. At first I just made a document that had all of my ideas for this story and world in it. Later on I started an outline. I had no idea what I was doing. I just started writing out scenes that kept playing in my head. Once I had a general guided outline, I started writing the scenes.
Each new scene I added I thought of a new plot or twist for my characters. What’s nice about this story is that I can funnel my emotions into my characters. I can let my characters feel the same sadness or joys that I feel. I don’t have any grand expectations for my story. It would be nice, when it’s done, that my readers can connect with the characters. Understand their own struggles but I am not making this for that sole purpose. I’m making this for me and I’m wanting to share my experiences with others. So if they’re also dealing with depression/grief or ADHD they have a guide to help them. I’m allowing myself to just write, and enjoy the process.
I’m very excited to get into the actual art of it but I do want to finish writing the first draft before I do. So far I’ve started creating a few character designs and a simple map. (You will not believe how helpful it is to have a map of your world when you’re writing a fantasy graphic novel). I’m almost to the halfway point of my story and I am excited to see how it will turn out.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I don’t feel like I have a specific goal or mission driving my journey other than creating what makes me happy. I have been through a lot, especially as of late. What drives me to create is the fact that I am able to create and that I need a way to deal with some big emotions. I don’t think art always needs a mission to be created. An example for me is my graphic Novel. I honestly needed to create it to focus my mind. To process my grief, my adhd, the stresses of being there for my family and to deal with the nitty gritty of going through a loved ones estate while also dealing with losing another loved one. My advice for artists feeling like they need to have a reason to create is to stop looking for reason. It will come to you. And the reason could be as simple as “I want to feel good”. I felt guilty wanting to create after my sister died. I thought to myself “I should be feeling sad… why am i feeling joy?“. “Is there something wrong with me?”. Humans can only take on so much grief and sadness at one time. I’d been dealing with a ton of grief before she died. Afterwards something in me clicked and I just didn’t want to be sad anymore. It didn’t change overnight. I still find myself crying my eyes out at times and missing her and my grandparents. It will be with me forever but I don’t have to let it take over my life.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I wish I had access to all of the Youtube, TikTok and Instagram videos on creating art. I am thankful for them now but growing up I think I would have excelled far faster than I did if I had those resources. Being able to study so many different artists and their techniques has been a game changer to me. Having another artist break down anatomy or perspective has helped me see the flaws in my own works of art. If you are just starting out or want to learn more just start watching all of the videos you can. Start sketching what you see. Understand why someone put a line in a certain area or colored in a certain way. As you progress you will understand it more and more.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LulusArtCreations?ref=seller-platform-mcnav
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luluramm/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Lulusartcreation
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjz77OqijUktbsHcFFTo7bg
- Other: https://linktr.ee/luluramm