We recently connected with Liz Lancaster and have shared our conversation below.

Liz, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

My journey into the realm of full-time artistry was not a linear path but rather a series of calculated risks and hard-earned lessons.

But first, a little about my background – raised in Georgia, I was fortunate to have parents who encouraged me artistically from a young age. In college, I pursued a dual major in Studio Art and Advertising, and like many, took on a stable corporate job after university. As I grew as a marketing professional and designer, I never abandoned my passion for painting, dedicating every spare moment to honing my craft and staying connected to the art community.

So now, let me tell you about my first big career risk:
After several years in the agency grind, a growing sense of dissatisfaction gnawed at me. It was at this point I decided to take a career risk and give being a full-time artist a try. With a few months’ savings and alot of uncertainty, I took the leap, quit my job (on the same day they were offering me a raise – in fact) and embarked on my first true journey of becoming a full-time artist.
Here’s what happened – spoiler alert, it did not go as planned. I dedicated myself to painting and expanding my body of work in my apartment studio. I poured my heart out into my craft, explored techniques from ideas online, and attempted to create a thriving social media page (which flopped). I quickly realized that unlike the structured routines of my previous job, the path of an artist was completely ambiguous. I had no idea what I was doing, and was doing it completely alone. Eventually, I found myself reluctantly returning to a corporate design role.

If I’m being honest, I’m glad that my first leap was met with some failure. I’m still proud of myself for even taking the risk, because it taught me so so much. I re-entered the workforce with a long list of ‘ how NOT to become an artist’.
I refused to view my initial setback as a failure, and used it as a way to lay the groundwork for my next leap. Over the following years, I juggled my corporate design career with my personal art practice once again. But this time – I took things far from outside my own studio – so to say. I began keeping notes, discovering other emerging artists and observing their practice, I went to galleries and networked heavily, I revamped my website and created frameworks for getting commissions. I embraced the idea of “I don’t know what I’m doing”, and used that to find the answers to HOW. This led me to incredible mentors and advice.
Once again, I took that risk. The timing was right to leave my corporate job and pursue the path of an artist again. This time, I felt far better equipped to navigate the challenges ahead with my hard-earned insights, network of artists, and kindling community of patrons.
I am happy to say that I am seeing my art career unfold in front of me today. I am filled with gratitude for the risks and challenges I have experienced to lead me to learn what I needed in order to pursue my passion seriously. I am even kicking off a mentorship program of my own – to hopefully meet other aspiring artists and help them learn more about developing their oil painting craft and business.

Together, we can truly destroy the ‘starving artist’ mentality by supporting each other. I encourage anyone who feels the call to follow their passions to not give up, make mistakes, and maintain a mentality of lifelong learning. It’s never too late to make the leap!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Of course, as I mentioned before – my name is Liz Lancaster, and I am a southern-born artist who graduated from the University of Alabama with a major in Studio art and advertising. I moved to San Diego in 2015 for a career in marketing and design.
Today, I am a professional artist and muralist who specializes in impressionistic realism paintings. I create oil paintings that often depict dreamy portraits and soft colors to transport viewers to a calming place. I once had someone describe my work with a line from a Tom Petty song “”I woke up in between a memory and a dream” – and I just love that.
You can find my oil paintings at group shows across Southern California, as I love to take advantage of any opportunity to showcase my work and meet other artists. I also create commissioned oil paintings to help my collector’s bring to life portraits or places that are special to them through my style.
More recently, I have gotten into the mural game! I am working towards translating my work on canvas to larger walls to revitalize spaces for brands or property owners.
Additionally, like I mentioned before – I am also offering 1 on 1 workshops and mentorships for other aspiring oil painters who want to better their craft and learn more about developing their artistic identity and business.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I love this question – for me, it was all about removing the fear of failure. I had to shake off the idea that everything had to be perfect from the get-go. And this applied to so many things that were critical to my art career.
Taking the same risk again after it failed before, such as starting your art business, is incredibly stressful. But sometimes it takes a few tries. Learning from my mistakes, being open to new avenues and seeking out mentors has helped me to conquer that fear and feel confident on new paths forward.
Even from a technical standpoint, I had to teach myself how to be comfortable with ‘messing up’ a painting. It took practice, and literally forcing myself to brush over a perfect part of a painting and re-doing it, in order to get to a place where I could comfortably experiment artistically without being afraid of how the final result will turn out. In fact, my artwork is starting to become defined by some of my new chaotic methods of applying paint at the early stages of my work!

How did you build your audience on social media?

Of course, I have alot of thoughts about social media. I only have a few thousand followers at the time of writing this, but I have learned alot about how social media can be used to your advantage.
I see alot of artists stress out or feel unvalidated when they don’t have many likes or followers – I really encourage them not to emphasize their social media presence more than their art practice. Instead, think of instagram as a great way to have an easy accessible portfolio of work, and a way to engage with others as you grow your network. 9 times out of 10, instagram is going to remain as a social place for your art, not as a main source of income.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lizlancasterart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lizllancaster/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lizllancaster
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-lancaster-710a338b/

Image Credits

Derek Hall from Derelique Visuals