NCU Podcast #09: Lucy Chen on Painting Healing Depression, Courage as an Artist, and Freeing Yourself up for Expression

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Lucy is an oil and oil pastel painter. Her paintings are in private collection throughout the world in Australia, China, France, South Africa, Finland, Germany and the United States.

In this episode we discuss her creative process, how painting helped heal her depression, being courageous as an artist, and her method for being more expressive and freeing yourself up.

Episode Highlights

2:15 Lucy discusses her origin story for becoming an artist

4:11 How art helped Lucy heal from depression

10:54 Lucy describes her style and how she discovered it

13:50 Techniques Lucy likes and when she likes to use them

16:50 Tips on being more expressive in painting

20:53 Why it takes courage to be creative

27:28 Why Lucy painted the Empress tarot card first

31:16 Lucy describes creative process

35:14 Lucy’s thoughts on when a painting is finished

37:56 Advice for anyone who wants to be an artist

40:32 Lucy’s highly shareable

46:50 The lightning round! The questions aired in this episode:

• What’s the most important part of your creative routine?
• What part of your creative process do you find most satisfying?
• When I’m hard on myself about my work I remind myself…?
• What is something that some might consider a curse that is actually a blessing to you?
• I needed to learn this to be where I am today?
• Do you believe in being creatively blocked?
• What do you do to unblock yourself?

Lucy Chen Quotes Worth Remembering

“Darkness just grows bigger and bigger inside until you can’t ignore it anymore… On the surface it seemed like I had a family, I could perform, do things, but mentally I was really not right… I really needed to look into myself and pay attention to myself.”

“This process of painting self portraits was like if I was at the bottom of a well or the bottom of a pit, each self portrait was a step up the ladder that got me out of the pit.”

“Probably all humans have the urge to create something rather than always consuming things.”

“When I look at my painting I want a kind of positive feeling… even when I’m painting dark things… what I want to bring to my work is a sense of beauty and a light side even to the dark things.”

“Do what you want to do and our style comes out eventually, it’s like handwriting.”

“Painting yourself on the canvas is a way of saying that I deserve to be painted. I deserve to be made into a piece of art.”

“People need courage to go in front of the mirror, look themselves in the eye in the mirror, and actually say I love you.”

“It takes courage to try something different, to try to push your comfort zone a little bit.”

“I told myself that this is going to be very different than what I have been doing, and I told myself I need to have the courage to try it, to do my best and see what happens, and it will help me grow.”

“It’s a good thing that we feel nervous because we’re probably excited as well, and that takes us out of our comfort zones.”

“Once you move out of your comfort zone the world grows a little bit bigger for you.”

“Many women have blocks to receiving or resistance to receiving—receiving pleasure, receiving abundance. Things that seem to come to you easily or naturally, if you don’t have confidence you’re probably blocking it or repelling it, because to be able to receive the takes the belief that I deserve it, I am good enough, so I deserve this.”

“Keep painting no matter what. Life might be difficult, things might come up and you feel like you can’t do it any more—you feel like other things are more important, more urgent—but you just have to bring yourself to keep creating, keep painting no matter what… And if you stop for days, weeks, don’t feel guilty about it. Whenever you remember, whenever you feel the urge to do, it just do it. Sometimes we just need to push through the resistances.”

“The answer is probably already in us, but we need a tool to tap into our inner knowing.”

Mentioned in This Episode

• Acrylic Paint
• Self Portraits
• Alla Prima
• Old Master Titian
• Henri Matisse– “Creativity takes courage.”
• Louise Hay– Mirror Work
• Tarot Deck
• EFT Tapping
• Empress Tarot Card
• Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness by Rachel Pollok
• Paul Gardner “A painting is never finished it simply stops in interesting places.”
• Leonardo Da Vinci (biography)
• Melinda Cootsona
• Savvy Painter Podcast (share worthy)
• The Creative Tarot: A Modern Guide to an Inspired Life by Jessa Crispin (second share worthy)
• Meditation

Connect with Lucy

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The post NCU Podcast #09: Lucy Chen on Painting Healing Depression, Courage as an Artist, and Freeing Yourself up for Expression appeared first on Next Creator Up.