We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Leeanne Brennan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Leeanne below.

Leeanne, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

My card deck, The Epic Bones Affirmation Deck, is the most meaningful project that I’ve worked on to date. It started in an unexpected way, and was not supposed to be a card deck at all. The origin of the deck was me simply wanting to return to a personal daily creative practice after 10 YEARS of not doing any art for myself. Prior to the deck the only art I made was for my day job as a motion designer for an innovation consultancy. It wasn’t until I had my first child, and left my full-time job to Freelance that I realized something was missing – my personal art. So I challenged myself to make a drawing a day for 30 days. Originally, I set out to make drawings about gut health…but the topic slowly took a twist towards mindfulness and manifestation. As I approached 30 days of drawing, I realized I could keep going, and I discovered I really liked the new topic I was pursing, so I stayed the course and after 100 days, I had a pile of drawings about mindset and manifestation. The reaction I was getting from them on Instagram was so beautiful. People wanted to buy the drawings – So I figured the best way to package them up to the world was to create a card deck with my favorites from that 100 day project. This card deck kicked off my online shop where I sell art prints and decks, and inspired my coaching business, where I help other creatives get back in the groove with their personal work.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was born into a family with generations of artists – so it was no question whether I would pursue art – the only questions was what type of art. I went to Rhode Island School of Design for Film / Animation / Video and shortly after started working at a video game company as a character artist for best-selling games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. After a few years there I realized I didn’t really like video games, and wanted to return to the storytelling part of filmmaking – which is when I stubbled into using my skills at an innovation consultancy creating animation and video to communicate new to the world products and services. When I had my first child, I decided to leave my job. It was during this time at home that I realized a piece of me was missing. I had attached my identity to my job title at work, and when I couldn’t flaunt that side of me, I felt an emptiness that was hard to pin point at first. I eventually realized I wanted to return to creating personal artwork for myself, rather than for a company, but it all seemed so overwhelming. I had many starts and stops because the projects I crafted for myself were to big and complex for someone who hadn’t had a daily practice going for an entire decade..and had a toddler to care for. It wasn’t until I had my 2nd child, that I realized I had to lower the stakes and pare back my style to suit my current season of life as a mom. This is when I started my drawing a day practice that eventually morphed into an online shop selling products and a coaching business helping other creatives get back in the flow with their creative practices or projects. I’m most proud of the fact that the art I create and the programs I run help people meet themselves where they are at and shift their perspective to tailor their creative goals to fit their hectic life that does not require late nights or hustle. Creatives are waking up to the fact that they can have a slow, gentle approach to their personal work that all gets to build organically over time into something amazing, and they are feeling so good along the way.

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

Social media is a big part of my story because it was what gave me the initial accountability and visual progress marker to keep going. When I first got back into my personal artwork, I made a new Instagram account, and made it private, because I was so scared to share my work with the world. So at first it was serving as a holding tank for my art, where I could have the satisfaction of posting a drawing and feeling that sense of productivity. As I saw the drawings stack up in my grid, I started to feel more confident. I even started to like a few of the drawings I made, and after a while, I made my account public. A few random followers started to trickle in. My following started at 0 just like everyone else, but I kept posting not for the vanity metric, but more for myself. If I were to give anyone advice, I would say don’t worry about how many followers you have, just keep posting as a way to solidify who you are, what you believe in, and strengthen your voice – because this is the foundation of your business whether you are on social media or not. Social media helps us understand who we are by putting into words and images our perspective and what we stand for. Also, you do NOT need to have a big following to make money. At the time of this interview, I have 1,820 followers, and my business is generating legit money. I’m anticipating by next year I will not need to Freelance anymore. So keep posting from a place of integrity and what you believe in, and everything will fall into place.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My mission is to help Creatives who have a busy day job or challenging life circumstances lower the bar with their personal creative goals. So many of us try to take on these big, complicated projects, and the pressure and expectations just crush us to the point where we give up and circle around in a shame cycle until we muster up the courage to try again. I’m here to say it’s ok to compromise on your creative goals, it’s ok to purposefully scope your work so that you are intentionally doing less than you are capable of because that’s when it will feel SO good to do – when it’s easy. When your creative work feels easy, that’s what makes you want to return to it the next day, and the day after that – which builds consistency. When we are consistent – success is inevitable.   

Contact Info:

• Website: www.epicbones.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/epic_bones
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/epicbones

Image Credits
Leeanne Brennan