Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Rowan Pippin. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Rowan, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

For me, my most meaningful projects are the ones which feel like a collaboration – either between myself and the client, or with other members of a team. I love the creative energy that can be generated through a spirited back-and-forth, where everyone involved has a mutual respect for one another’s ideas as well as a shared excitement for the final product. Those projects feel the most meaningful because at the end, the final result is more than the sum of its parts; it’s an encapsulation of a partnership.

Rowan, 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 began doing art from a young age, as can only be expected when one of your parents is an art teacher, but I actually pushed back on becoming an artist professionally (or going to school for it) for a long time – I was worried that doing it professionally would suck the fun out of it and make me hate it. I know this is absolutely a thing that happens, but fortunately my experience has been the opposite – every time I work on art for a client I feel more fulfilled and more excited about what I can do and what I might do in the future. In the past I have done storyboards and technical diagrams to help clients visualize end products – such as water features – or for use in instruction manuals, as well as brand identity and packaging design. My top priority is in understanding the client’s goal and vision – whether they want something clean, minimalist and modern or something stylized and specific to a certain vibe or era – and then finding a way to integrate that into the final product. This can be challenging sometimes if a client wants something that is inherently contradictory (i.e. minimalist and detailed, or describing a full, detailed illustration for use as a logo), but working together to streamline their ideas into a final product that contains the heart of those ideas is in itself uniquely rewarding.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I don’t consider myself artistically talented. I know a lot of people say that – they feel it undermines the work they’ve done, and that talent is just skill resulting from effort applied to an interest over time. I think it’s important to note that even the most talented artists are still very skilled, and had to work very hard to get to where they are – but it’s doing everyone a disservice to pretend that talent itself doesn’t exist; some people just learn things quicker, and apply them better, and–while they too are working hard–may get 10x farther than someone working just as hard as they are.

Art’s never been easy for me – and I still don’t consider myself exceptionally good at it, I’m just stubborn. I’ve had to pull crushingly long hours to get to where I am, and I’m still very cognizant of folks my age and younger who are more skilled than I will ever be. I have had to make peace with that, and compete against myself instead of constantly comparing myself to other people. This isn’t easy in today’s art world – I was rejected from an art’s conservatory program in high school twice; when I finally got in I was constantly told I should quit, that I had “no vision”. After that, I went to college for art for three years before dropping out because being told constantly that the work I enjoyed and the work I wanted to do “wasn’t art” took its toll–took a year off, worked retail, went to a different school that seemed to fit what I wanted to do better. And it was better, and I learned so much (and got my degree)– but even there I found myself working longer hours than just about anyone else in my cohort, with not much more to show for it.

One visiting artist said something that stuck with me – he was quoting a professor of his when he was in college who was essentially telling him to quit, who had said “you work twice as hard to produce work that’s half as good”. He didn’t let that destroy him; he took it in stride, and let it drive him, and he’s incredibly successful and skilled now. So I try to let it drive me, too. Breaking into the arts industry is not a cake walk; it’s a lesson in resiliency. I do freelance work, but I also have a full-time job on top of that, because I find it’s a lot easier to do art when you’re not panicking about paying rent. And doing a full-time job on top of working 20-30 hours a week on freelance work or portfolio projects is a challenge in and of itself, and it comes with its own sense of shame and failure (when it shouldn’t).

If there anything I would want a young, hopeful artist to take from me, it would be this: there’s no shame in taking the scenic route. There’s no shame in taking longer to get to where you want to be, artistically or professionally. You haven’t failed, and you can’t fail if you’re still trying. If you want to quit – that’s okay. And if you’d rather just do art as a hobby – that’s okay. There’s no shame in either of those things. But if doing art and knowing it’s your Job (with a capital J) and that you’re going to get paid for it and that folks value your work and trust you enough to hire you to do it for them – if those things fill you with fire and make your heart sing, keep going. It’s not easy, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I had known so much about the industry that was more opaque to the public back then that really isn’t anymore – so it’s sort of a complicated question, right? The resources available to folks now are so much more accessible than they ever were when I was first starting out, and that’s incredible. But I think the biggest thing that people still get caught up in even now is this idea that the tools will make the artist. They always want to know what brush set someone’s using, what programs, what tablet, what kind of computer, what brand of markers, etc.

Listen – my favourite tool in the whole world right now is a plain black pen and a pad of stickynotes. That’s the best way in the world to just knock out a dozen ideas without getting precious about it, without worrying about messing it up. Tools are great – don’t get me wrong – but it’s important to learn that they’re time savers, not solutions in and of themselves. They complicate things, and when you’re just starting out, the last thing you need is something to make things more complicated.

And that’s the real challenge – because it’s so tempting to try and just use these shortcuts to get to the end result you want faster, and then get frustrated when your piece doesn’t look like the work of the artist you admire who uses the exact same brush pack you downloaded. It’s because they’re at a stage in their artistic journey where if they wanted to, they could do it without the brushes – it just takes longer, and in this industry, time is money. So learn to do it from the ground up – the resources are there, and in so much more volume and variety than they were even ten years ago, and most of them are free!

One of the best resources for learning how to draw and paint I can recommend is the free library from Matt Kohr on Ctrl+Paint.com; he put a ton of work into it and it’s incredibly thorough (although some of it is a little bit dated, as far as photoshop is concerned, it still works overall).     

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ixoreus.artstation.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/incorrigibleixoreus/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rowan-p-497a62104/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/red_thrush

Image Credits
Photographs of Oak City Hot Sauce in the wild are courtesy of Oak City Hot Sauce.