How to Use Collaboration to Expand Your Creative Reach

In this episode of Creative Juggle Joy, Delores dives into the power of collaboration and how it can help you expand your creative reach. 

As someone with over 40 years of experience in design and teaching, Delores knows that while the idea of being an independent artist is appealing, it’s often through collaboration that we truly grow. 

Whether you’re just starting out or have been in the creative world for a while, collaborating with others can offer fresh perspectives, introduce you to new audiences, and even help you discover skills you didn’t know you had.

Delores shares her own experiences collaborating with family, artists, and even with fellow creatives in the industry. 

You’ll hear about some unexpected collaborations that have opened doors, such as the digital downloads Delores has worked on with other creatives, and how these partnerships helped her reach a wider audience.

Delores also offers practical tips for successful collaboration. 

Whether you're interested in teaming up on a digital product, hosting a creative challenge, or collaborating on a larger scale, this episode will give you the inspiration and the tools to start.

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Transcript

Delores Naskrent (00:00)

Hey there, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Creative Juggle Joy podcast. I'm Delores and I'm so glad you're here with me today. If you're new here, welcome. I'm a designer with over 40 years of experience in both designing and in teaching. I had a 30-year career teaching high school digital art. And I, since graduating, have been mostly

have been mostly focusing on digital illustration. And let me tell you, in all those years, if there's one thing that stood out to me as an absolute game changer in the creative world, it's collaboration. I've touched on this a couple of times in previous episodes. But now, before you roll your eyes, just hear me out. I know the word collaboration can be overused or it can sound like a bit corporate.

But really it's about coming together creatively to make something that wouldn't otherwise exist. Collaboration isn't just a buzzword. It's an honest, practical way to grow as an artist and as a designer. And look, I know that many of us, especially artists, lean towards being pretty independent. Today, I want to share real reasons why reaching out to work with others could open doors

you might not have even realized existed. Now, whether you're just starting out or you've been at this for a while, this episode is for you. You're gonna unpack the why and the how of collaboration.

including some specific ideas that you can take away and explore for yourself, focusing particularly on what we love so much, our digital art. So get comfortable, grab yourself a cup of tea or water or whatever, and let's dive in. So for a lot of us, there's this romantic idea of being an artist, just you, your medium, and a quiet space to create. Totally valid.

I am one of those kind of people. I would consider myself a bit of a loner in that way. I can keep myself occupied for hours, hours, days, weeks, but the truth is sometimes I hit a wall. Things like creative blocks or just some kind of skill gap that I'm having or maybe even just I want to explore something fresh, but I don't really know how.

All of this is where collaboration can really step in. When you meet up with someone, you're not just benefiting from their perspective, you're also turbocharging, well that's a hard one to get out, you're also turbocharging your own creative process. You might learn a new approach, you might have to leave your comfort zone, and you might tap into an audience you wouldn't have reached on your own.

Let me break it down into what I would consider a few of the key benefits. First of all, you get a new perspective, right? Have you ever had a project you stared at for so long you can't see where it's going? A collaborator can bring in fresh ideas, feedback, or even a boost of energy to get you unstuck. I have found for me a lot of times just sharing the artwork in

group I'm in or with people that I trust, I can show them finished or unfinished. I don't even care. I just need help or I just want some advice or just a quick critique. I find that that's often a really easy way to get feedback quite quickly. The other thing that's really fun is shared skills. So say you're an incredible, you're really good at illustrating something.

but you've always wanted to create something completely different, something out of your comfort zone. The first thing that popped up into my mind was animation. Animation is totally out of my comfort zone. However, my sister, I have a sister a year younger than me who has spent her entire life animating. As long as I can remember, she was always working on her little illustrations and she started to work as an animator shortly out of high school.

Partnering with her was super, super fun. It was instant magic and we both grew. I mean, it was so fun because she got me an opportunity to work on a French Canadian TV series, a cartoon that was about summer camp. It was all in French, but I had the time of my life doing this with my sister.

It was so fun for us to work on scenes together, characters, and I knew so little. She taught me so much and it was one of the favorite collaborations I ever had. She's the one who brought together those little animations I used for my greeting card challenges. She knows so much and she is an absolutely amazing and super talented person that

I consider brilliant. So that was super fun as a collaboration. Now, one of the things about collaborations that are great is that they can introduce your work to a whole new group of people. When you team up with someone, their audience becomes part of your audience. And suddenly your work is getting seen by more people. That's a win-win. And that's exactly what happened when I collaborated with the Lasercraft Fest.

And I recorded a couple of little classes showing pattern repeats in Affinity Designer, even though they're all everybody in the membership of the person who I was helping were Illustrator users. She said that there were a handful of people who were not Illustrator users and who had both Illustrator and Affinity Designer. So it was a perfect opportunity to

share some of the people from her membership who came over to mine just out of curiosity and took the classes with me. I even had a couple sign up for my membership through that partnership so it was really great. Another thing that was great about collaborating her, quite recently we did another thing together and it was a lot less pressure working with her so she was present obviously on the call and I was

demonstrating and the collaboration was kind of split because she was asking me specific questions about things I could demonstrate in Illustrator and it was really fun to work with her. So it was one of those situations where I don't know if I will get a whole bunch of people signing up because of what I taught but what if I get one? What if I get two? What if I get ten? You just never know.

So many things that compliment what we offer can be very valuable to somebody else. A good example of this would be how Kaylie and I work together on our launches. And I think that we have specific skills that our specific audiences need to hear, but me sharing with her audience and she sharing with my audience.

and so we get the benefit of having both audiences. It can be a really great and very rewarding experience to do that. Let's keep this grounded and I'm going to give you some examples because trust me, collaboration doesn't have to be as complicated as it sounds. It can be as simple or as adventurous as you would like. And I'm going to just give you a couple of crazy ideas here. And now imagine teaming up with a musician.

So maybe you create the album cover art or design animated visuals for a music video or partner with a poet or a writer to create illustrated works that bring their words to life. One partnership that comes to mind for me is my sister again with her animated films that she produces. And she collaborates with a cousin of mine who is a professional

sound engineer. He is a musician as well and between the collaboration of her video and his music, that was an amazing collaboration. They worked together in such a way to create a wonderful film about my grandma for existence, for example, and there were many

examples of my grandma actually talking or the sounds that would be happening in the background of a big family event. So that was a really interesting sort of cross-discipline collaboration. Now I've also seen artists who host social media challenges where they either create something with their followers or they collaborate on a themed project with other other creators.

For example, if you're working with Procreate or Affinity Designer, you could team up with someone to create a collection of pre-made brushes or templates to sell. I've done that more than once and it has driven traffic to my site. I sometimes will offer a premium product for half price or for a dollar and sure as shooting, people will come in and they'll buy that, but they'll also buy something else.

and often at full price. So that has really worked out well for me. Now for a larger scale idea, imagine collaborating on a digital mural or creating an art installation with other artists in your local community. It's a way to make your work bigger than you thought possible. I did a collaboration with 11 other artists and we produced giant murals and the murals were

four by eight foot plywood pieces, four pieces together. So the murals were eight feet high by 16 feet long. We painted individually whatever we wanted to paint and those murals were put up throughout the city. They were auctioned off. This is the way it worked is they auctioned them off and made a certain amount of money from them. And that

person who bought it donated it back to the city and was, you know, their name would go on it like a little plaque and they will have or would have at that point been supporting their charity of choice. So that was a really cool project. And eventually the murals were sold off again and private people bought my mural, which I thought was really neat. And they hung it on the outside of their barn, which I thought was really fascinating.

Other favorite things I've done is co-creating courses and workshops. I've personally seen so much success when I've worked with others to design educational resources, for example. Maybe because I've been teaching for 40 years, but I'll always argue that lifting others while you grow yourself is one of the most rewarding things you'll ever do. I'm going to give you a few of what I consider practical tips for collaboration success.

Now, I'd love to tell you that every collaboration is smooth and easy, but the truth is it takes a little bit of finesse. It doesn't have to be super complicated though, but here are a few of the tips that I've picked up along the way. One of the things that's most important is having clear communication. So before you start, talk about expectation. Who is bringing what to the table? What's the timeline? Who's handling things like expense or selling the work?

The clearer you make these points up front, the smoother things will go. I also recommend that you work with what you've got. So you don't have to find someone famous or ultra established to collaborate with. Sometimes the best partnerships are right under your nose. A friend, a local designer, a student, or even someone you admire on social media. Keep an open mind. Next, I'd say be open, but stay true to you.

Collaboration is about blending creative visions, but it's okay to gently assert your artistic identity. Work in a way that feels respectful to both of you for sure. Now, I also recommend that you think digitally. Like for me, Procreate and Affinity Designer are so collaboration friendly with cloud sharing and export options, even if you're working remotely.

it's incredibly easy to share files and build something together. So, you know, I do that a lot with like the card challenge, for example, where I provide card layouts. I provide all kinds of different goodies like brushes and textures and things. And I demonstrate the use of those. And I find that for me, the collaboration is incredibly rewarding. I have students who post

the work that they've created with my assets. And sometimes I have to look twice to see if it's my stuff there because they've used it so differently than the way I used it in the first place or suggested that the use of in my video and it's better or it's just different. So it's interesting to see what other people come up with with your assets. So think about that, how fun that would be.

Okay, so before you start brainstorming every collaboration idea under the sun, let me remind you of something important that this is just like, I'd say just like creating a passive income. It is a long game. Building a sustainable artistic career does take time and collaborations are just one of the many steps that you might take along the way.

Each connection, whether it's leads to a big project or just teaches you something small, is part of the bigger puzzle. And trust me, I've been in this business for decades and not one single project has ever made my career. It's been a mix of trying new things, building relationships and just taking one step after another. I've spoken many times about

collaborative project I did with the college of in my town. The college was looking to put their nursing programs online for the first time ever and one of the biggest contracts I've ever gotten in my life was to illustrate an entire anatomy and physiology course. Had you asked me five years earlier if I would ever do anything like that I would have been you know no that's I just don't that's not something I do but

Lo and behold, that opportunity presented itself. And that's just one of the big things that I look back on and think, you know, that was that was pretty cool to get that job. Let's focus on something really practical. I think this is something that you can start generating income from today, and that's digital downloads. Both Kaylie and I really believe that digital downloads is a great way for artists to

create some sort of a passive income. Here's where collaboration can come into play. Partner with another artist to create unique design packs. Think textures or brushes for procreate or quick use templates for affinity designer. I think it would be really fun for me to work with somebody who does digital planners and I would supply maybe a bunch of stickers. So think about those kind of things that you might possibly be able to do.

You could also work with a photographer to create combined photo illustration sets, or you could team up with another creative to launch completely fresh and themed products like clip art and do-it-yourself kits for other designers. I've seen somebody on Etsy who has fantastic card making kits that she must do a heck of a great business with because she's got hundreds of different kits.

All of these things are simple, they're cost effective, and they're honestly such a great way to dip your toes into what collaboration can look like. Collaboration isn't about just that one time thing. It's about a way of thinking and working and a way of growing as an artist. It's about lifting each other up, sharing what we know, and realizing that together.

We can create things far greater than we could ever have done alone. So here's my challenge to you. Think of one person, just one, that you'd love to work with. It could be a friend, it could be an artist you admire, or someone in a different creative field entirely. Reach out to that person, just start a conversation. You never know where it might lead. So that's it for today's episode of the Creative Juggle Joy podcast. I hope these ideas have given you some

inspiration for creating possible collaborations that work for you. If you found this episode helpful, I'd love for you to leave a review or to share it with someone who could use a little extra motivation. Don't forget to subscribe as you never want to miss an episode and join my email list and Kaylie's for updates and weekly tips. I'll also have some exciting courses coming up.

and I will be announcing a lot of those soon. I usually do my recording in March and April. So stay tuned for those new things coming up and until next time, keep creating, keep juggling and keep finding joy in your process.