🪩 Watch: Live interview & drawing class with award-winning artist Peggi Kroll Roberts
Learn from a legend about what it takes to live a fearless, creative life.
Hi friends, I’m excited to share with you the recorded conversation and drawing lesson with award-winning artist Peggi Kroll Roberts.
“Paint a duck and go mow the lawn.”
— Peggi Kroll Roberts on making magic from the mundane
Some of the big insights:
Following your passion is often an unglamorous journey - far from the curated perfection we see in the media. Perseverance through challenges and setbacks is the hidden reality.
We all feel pressure to conform, especially when the work is hard. Finding other people who are pushing to stay true to themselves makes it easier.
On days when your inner critic is especially loud, maintaining any kind of creative practice, no matter how small, keeps the spark alive. Consistency is key for both growth and peace of mind.
A hidden truth: The work you do to eat may not always be the work you do for joy, but that doesn’t mean it has to make you miserable. You can find glimmers of joy in just about kind of work if you look for them. Stringing together these small delights builds a kind of adaptability that's priceless.
Be a decision maker no matter what creative path you pursue.
Consider being the one who openly shares both triumphs and stumbles. Pulling back the curtain on the messiness of the process gives others reassurance to keep going on their own journey.
Please be sure to follow Peggi on Instagram and check out her Etsy Shop! She also teaches online classes at The Blackridge Artists’ School — I am absolutely signing up. I’m pretty sure I learned more in 30 minutes than in my entire undergraduate program…
AI Transcript below (there will be errors!)
Melissa Cullens Hi, everyone, welcome. I'm assuming a lot of you are here because you follow Peggy on Instagram, and she was kind enough to share this this post. So I'll tell you a little bit about me and kind of what I'm doing here with On Purpose.
It's a newsletter for for anybody who isn't interested in playing by the rules, but maybe might need some other people to break the rules together as a community. So my newsletter focuses on learning from people like Peggi, who have carved out lives for themselves, doing the things they love, and building a world around themselves so they can spend as much time as possible, immersed, immersed in what makes them the most excited and the most happy.
So I'm I don't know Peggy. Peggy and I have only met briefly a couple of times. I follow her on Instagram, and I found her art on Etsy, and I think it's just really phenomenal. I'm really excited to talk with her today and learn more about her story, and then, selfishly, I'm just really excited to get a drawing, a drawing class out of this.
Okay, I've just turned the recording on so that we'll have a recording of this conversation to share a little bit later.
So, Peggi, I've had the pleasure of reading through a bunch of the interviews that you've done and listening to a lot of the podcast interviews that you've given over the last few days. I'm really excited to kind of hear your journey. I like to start all of these conversations out with a question about in my process, I'm a researcher, and what I end up doing is I go around and I ask people kind of about how they got into their careers and how they make choices along the way, to kind of understand what are the different pressures that influence our decision making, that often keep us from choosing the thing that leads us with our heart. And one of the things that always stands out is that we get a pretty early definition of success at home when we're little. And so I'm curious, what were your some of your earliest definitions and understandings of what it meant to work and be successful in the world.
Peggi Kroll Roberts Early, early. You mean, like childhood, or just once I decided on a career?
Melissa Cullens Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's start with once you decided on a career.
Peggi Kroll Roberts Well, okay, I was, you know, high school art. A big influence was my mother. She was a very in demand fashion illustrator, and the Midwest, East Coast so but I was kind of aware of it, and yet she had quit for a while with raising four kids. But still it was there, and she was encouraged us. So by the time I started Arizona State University, I thought, okay, nature.
So I was art classes, along with a million other classes, and, you know, kind of floundering, but knew that, kind of knew I end up being, you know, in the field of art and but I was very curious about other things. Uh, by the time I was in my three and a half years at ASU, my mom could see I was still kind of and she was back to painting and taking lessons.
And she'd asked this one painter she was taking from she said, you know, if someone wanted to be in commercial art, where, where should they go? And he said, Oh my gosh, Art Center, College of Design. And I had no idea of this college or whatever, and so I looked into it. I applied. I got accepted. It was I started at the Britain. It was downtown Los Angeles, but they had built this incredible new campus. So I said to myself, Okay, I know what I want to be. I want to be an illustrator, illustrator for whatever. But I really started as a fashion illustrator like my mom.
So I got accepted, and I started Art Center, and it was a year round school. So it was three semesters, and it was, it was wonderful, you know, I was, I had an aunt and uncle helping me pay for it. You know, both my parents and my aunt and uncle were supporting me, and by the time I was I was doing really well. I was awarded a scholarship, and then something, I was in the middle of my fifth semester there, and summer, I had built up a lot of drawing, and spring break was coming up, and so I thought, oh, I'll just this. I'd moved from Arizona to go to this school in Pasadena, California, and I thought, I'll go back to Arizona visit some friends. You know, that's where I was basically raised, and I'll just go hang.
And I said, you know, I'll just take some drawings with me and get see if I can get an appointment here and there. Just start to get feedback to guide me through, you know, the rest of this journey. And so I my first appointment was with this store called Gold waters, and I just took in drawings from my fashion classes. Yeah, and so they said, Okay, how would you like to do a job right now, you know, and I'm going like, so they, they sent me home with men's like eyesight shirts. And I was visiting my brother. I said, Bobby, please put this shirt on. Let me just draw you. And I drew it. I felt it turned out great. They loved it. They ran it. They paid me right there, and they said, How about another job?
And so this is how I spent my spring break, just working for this department store. And by turning in. I've done another, another couple things for them. And they, you know, I turned them in. They just loved it. And they said, Listen, how, why don't you come work for us right now? And I'm going like, Oh, gee, that would mean quitting school. And, you know, whatever, I'm really sick of being poor.
And I said, Yeah. I said, I'm ready to start. You know, I'm ready to do it now. Yeah. So I packed up my stuff. I had a piece everyone, nobody knew I was this middle of the semester, I have peace selected and put in the the gallery, the school gallery. I clandestinely took that off the wall because I thought, I'm not going to leave this piece.
And I packed up my crap and found a little apartment, and started work right away. And a lot of people thought, Oh, she quit school and she's going to go try and be a golf professional. But I am a golfer. Yes, I'll hear the dogs. And so then I worked for them for about a year and a half, and it was awesome. I learned everything. I learned pay stuff. I learned catalog layout design. It was a real full immersion into real life, working. Yeah, I grew restless. And by this time, my parents were back living in Wisconsin, and I thought my, you know, I want to go, I'll go back there. I'd like to be closer to my family and see what it's like back there. And so I moved back to Wisconsin, and I was very, I had one. I was a very, not, I wouldn't say proud. While I was at our gold waters, I had a couple friends come from Art Center to visit me, and I was so proud. I was I was very proud of myself for taking this on and being doing this, and I had my own little cubicle. And I just remember this one gal who was it just had, you know, she just said to me, “Oh, I could never work in a space like this.”
I was so insulted by that, because I am not a snob. I am not a snob. I have done everything you can imagine, and I have always had an art job ever since I left school in in fact, and there was one reason why this design firm hired me, was because when I moved back to Wisconsin, in this little town, Marinette, there was not a lot of choices, but I Got his job with the local newspaper. I did layout. I guess there were more bars per capita in this area then. So I did layouts for bars and design heads, you know. And then, then I designed a whole section for a new a new section they were doing for the newspaper called Action, which was about the out and about things in town. And then there was a small store that lormans had me do work my friend Sue and I decor. Did the window displays and we drive. So I did that. But also for this newspaper, I did grocery store layouts. I'm placing a head of lettuce and whatever, 69 cents a you know, it's still designing, designing, yeah, and I just, I know many people would have absolutely turned up their nose at that. I was very excited to do it all, which, you know, whatever.
Melissa Cullens What do you think the different? Because I think that there's so many interesting moments in there. So the first you tell us, okay, well, I'm in school. I'm almost done, but Spring Break goes pretty well, and they keep wanting to give me money. And I'm like, money's good, even though the convention around you says you should finish school, you should finish this up. Don't go be a golf professional, right, right? But, and then, and then it's going well, but it's still not quite right. You miss your family, you're a little restless, you make a choice, you kind of go. And I love the idea of, like, I'm not a snob. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna turn my nose up. I'm gonna find something I something. Where do you get that from? Where do you get that that wherewithal to say, I don't care what anybody else thinks I'm doing my own thing.
Peggi Kroll Roberts My parents, yeah, from my mom and dad. They were, they were people that were, you know, my mother was, she loved fashion. She was an incredible draftsman. She had some big insecurities because her hands were very badly deformed at birth. And I mean, it can bring me to tears, but, I mean, she she got real accolades for her work, and was able to hold a pencil, able to hold but she couldn't do things like she, you know, play golf or tennis, but she could hold utensils and pencils. And so she was a very strong person from going through a lot of bullying. Yeah, as a child, my dad came from a very affluent family, and I think he ended up shunning it because it was it there was just a lot of trauma in the family, yeah, divorces, you know, and and, you know, whatever, it made him a man that said, I mean, both my parents had good moral character, yeah. And they just said, you know, my dad, I don't give a one. You know, he was a lumberjack for a while, then went on to become work for Goodyear aerospace in the aeronautical quality control and all this kind of and, you know, blah, blah, blah, he just,
Melissa Cullens Yeah, that makes total sense. And I'll tell I'll tell you too. So I've done about 60 interviews so far, and the kind of research process for my for my blog, and I've only run into about seven or eight people that have truly managed to make that kind of consistent choice towards my pleasure, my desire, my interest, my joy. And they all come from stories like that.
They all come from people that hit the system in some way. So whether it is through a disability, like with your mom's hands, or whether it's through the trauma that your dad experienced by seeing money not fix problems, like recognizing that that's that's actually not going to give them what they want in life, and having to make some tough choices and make trade offs kind of in an ongoing way, the way that you're describing, like, how do I feel? What do I want more of? What do I not want more of? I'd love to hear more from you on, like, that regulation process and a lot of the interviews I've listened to, I've I hear you talking like I'm even still doing it today. I'm even still turning down. I don't want to, I don't want to paint beach scenes anymore. I'm done painting beach scenes. They pay me a lot of money. I don't want to. Can you tell me more about, like, where, how do you make those choices?
Peggi Kroll Roberts Well, because I hear my parents in the background like I don't want to do that anymore. Well, I mean, I've always had a job. They didn't. We weren't. We were just, you know, a nicer class family. My brothers, there's poor kids. We always had to have jobs to earn money and do chores and but, you know, I hear my dad say, so, you know, don't get into that. Okay, just go do it. Or, you know, just, well, then do it. Yeah. Voice, going, you know, I, you know, I Well, then, you know, go on to the next thing, or whatever, just, it'll work out.
Melissa Cullens It'll work out. I think that. I think that that belief right there is the thing I hear so many folks struggle with. I hear a lot of people even after having a really bad time, I spoke to this one woman who, at some point in her job, after months and months of abuse, was asked to move a two ton pallet inside a warehouse on her own. And she tried, she tried because she thought that's what was recorded her, that's what she needed to do. And even after having left that job, she still didn't quite feel free enough to say, I'm going to do it on my own. I trust myself that I'm going to make it work out. And that's kind of what I'm hearing you say too. Is like I found the newspaper job. People thought that it wasn't a good job, or they were too good for that job, and I found joy inside of it, and I found a way to make it work for me. And I'm curious about just the the kind of like when you're in that spot and you're taking on something new. How do you find that curiosity and that creativity to to get you interested in something?
You just have to listen to that inner voice. It's it. You know, I wake up and I go, oh gosh, that's right, I put something into the kiln last night, go out and hope it's cooled down and up. And then, then it makes me excited, going, Oh, there's one more piece I need to place. You know, what I feel like doing is, I'm going to get a magazine, and I really wanted, I haven't. I need to do an abstract for, you know, just, I kind of reached teaching and teaching, you know, it just, you just have to get so sick of something. I gotta, I gotta change this or, or go get a grocery store. I still need to make money, I'll go get a job that is mindless, but I can daydream Well, begging whatever.
You know, I don't know, it's just, you just have to get so tired of doing something and be find something that makes you excited and that you really get become so present?
Melissa Cullens Say more about that present part. What does it mean to be really present in the work?
Peggi Kroll Roberts Present is everything is else's disappearance, and it's once I start I can work on a series of things, and I can just tell when my mind is wandering, that I that level I see is is escaping. I go, this is I gotta stop right now and find, get, find something else.
So yeah, it's just you have to feel it.
Melissa Cullens You're really paying attention to that kind of internal transition. I was just reading a bit about Rick Rubin and Tom Petty, and the way that Tom Petty would would just kind of, he just start playing his guitar and music came through him. And I think that that quality of presence is what you're talking about, about just making space for the creativity to come into your body and kind of come out. You know, on the other side, it's this Tom Petty.
Peggi Kroll Roberts That's the first concert I sent my son friends to. I said, you have got to know Tom Petty!
Melissa Cullens That’s in the facts! Important, education. I want to hear about shifting away from commercial art when, when you and Ray kind of realized I listened to the interview, that It was on plein air, where you kind of walk through like, Okay, well, you're in Arizona now. You're still doing the commercial illustration. You meet, you meet this friend, and he's teaching at this art school just a little bit down from your house. And you start going, and you just keep going, and you're kind of like, oh, we yeah…
Peggi Kroll Roberts We make we started going back to open sessions, so drawing from the model, which was our favorite thing in art school, anyway, yeah, and we started meeting many like minded people who had a commercial background. Making this transition, we're going, and then we're, all of a sudden, we're going to art galleries, and instead of looking through illustration annuals and that, and we're this is what we want to do. We want to paint.
And it was just really a humbling experience making the transition, because it took us, you know, I don't know, 345, years, yeah, but we, you know, we started by just starting to paint, you know, we were doing our illustration. We kind of planned where Ray would, I would be the last one to take an illustration job. And as he was getting out there, and boy, before the kids were up, he was out in the landscape. He worked so hard. I painted the kids, because I love the figure and so building this body of work having really nowhere to really approach yet, yeah, you know, galleries were no, not really. So we started doing those outdoor shows, like the outdoor shows in Arizona. We did the veil bale Creek Outdoor Show, The Beaver Creek. So this went on for 345, years, and some experience, I mean, but, oh, it just so it's humbling. It's very hard work. You have to have everything prepared, load the car, have a canopy, have it and and then you're there with all these other people that are, you know, it's such a mishmash of things, and you just don't know what's going to happen. And some, some were in these beautiful venues. Other like, you know, grocery store parking lot. You were determined, and it was just like, I've been so embarrassed.
He still claims I walked in with dark glasses and a scaf, and I go, I don't remember that at all time to hide or disguise myself, but it truly was humbling and and then, I mean, as we kind of learned the ropes, we had some really successful shows, like in Vail and Beaver Creek, and that's how it was a Vale show, where a gallery invited me to show them their gallery, so I was so excited about that. Yeah, things like that happen. Yeah. I mean, we definitely had shows where the only question we got asked was, where'd you get your friends?
At times we were so broke, and it's just, I don't know. We're staying with Ray's aunt and uncle. I really need to share this. And so I was doing the kids this was and Ray was doing this three day show in what was it? Tell you ride or whatever, down the road somewhere. And he came back. I said, How'd it go? This is the last day we I didn't sell a thing. You know, having it took every ounce of me not to burst out crying, because I was going to be too embarrassed in front of his aunt Charlie and Uncle Don and anyway. So it was like, okay, whatever. We just made it fun for the kids. But it just got better and better, yeah, and we got into more galleries, and so we could, you know, change that. Yeah, people, you know, I go, Hey, start that way. Do whatever you do. Have to have a lower price point. And now, through all the humbling experiences I've been through, I did have a plan if the absolute bottom dropped out below us with the gallery. Thing is, I kept, always doing small watercolors, not putting them out there. Oh, I said, Okay, I can always go back to the Outdoor Show and keep my price point on these very low, because they're not out in the market. No one knows, right, right? So I had this plan, in case the apocalypse or whatever. So it was okay, let's figure out the next thing. I mean, it wasn't this big, long, okay, let's make a chart. It just was this big, long thing that, well, okay, this, we better do this next Yeah, yeah, you know. But we were always drawing and painting, always.
Melissa Cullens Always, always, I think what, what I want to pull out from that is like, there are two things like, number one, the media tells the story of, like, you know, you too can walk away from your corporate job and open a bakery in a small upstate town, and it's going to be so easy. And, you know, like the the picture of following your dreams often looks like it's going to be a vacation, like a permanent beach vacation, and it I think that people get started and then they find out that, oh no, this is going to be harder than anything I've ever done. And go ahead, please.
Peggi Kroll Roberts I do think some people have had the fortune of having that happen. But definitely, most of us have it. Yeah, I mean, it's, well, okay, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Melissa Cullens No, I just, I was just going to say, I think that it's really helpful to hear the stories of when it wasn't working well, and just the I'd continuing to go at it and getting those little bits of momentum, and those little bits of momentum and those little bits of momentum, and I'm curious, like, in those dark moments, like, what? What kept you from being, from being like, all right, it's just watercolors forever. I'm just going to do these little watercolors. That's going to be it. I'm not going to try anymore, because it can get it hurts. You know, you put so much time and effort, and then someone comes up. It's like, I don't care about the art, but the frames are great.
Peggi Kroll Roberts You know, Ray and I are by nature, and I'd say trouble. I've parents and brothers and sisters, like we're scramblers. Yeah, you know, I'm a scrambler. So okay, I'll do this. And I'm having glass doing it and work. Okay, I'll do it here, because this isn't working well, whatever. I don't care what they think. So it's, it's, it's, you have to really have, I don't know. I guess you just have to believe in yourself and not worry whether I probably made some huge marketing mistakes in my life and a I haven't had this career path, plan into the a plus galleries, and I peruse those, and I'm not impressed most of the time.
Melissa Cullens Yeah, and whatever it's yeah, you're consistently choosing yourself, even in that circumstance, instead of looking to those A plus galleries, because that's what I did so much at my cruise. I'm going to get into that agency, because that's where the smart people are. And if I can put that little badge on my chest that says that I have been at that agency, then everybody's going to know that I'm good enough, instead of just believing that I was, you know, from beginning, sorry.
Elizabeth is in here, and she says, “Peggi has an amazing, consistent work habit and discipline. I think she downplays that.”
Peggi Kroll Roberts I would like for you to respond, please, amazing, gosh, because it's, it's not going to happen. If you don't, yeah, it's just and I have to fight through really some very tough, tough emotion, things that just go do it. And it's I found it works, just like cleaning a kitchen, and that is, I go, Okay, I this kitchen. I can't base it, but I'm going to just get one cup into the dishwasher. Just do that much, and pretty soon I'll do two cups. Have to trust the momentum will and then my momentum is built. And then I'm psycho cleaning the stove, and, and, and it's, I'm seeing progress, and it's and, and it, it's the same thing. If you don't feel like, I don't feel like drawing, I don't, oh, God, this big painting is iron. And I've been staring at this huge canvas at the left of me right now, and I'm going, so I just took my thing, because I like to cover a canvas first time. Whatever. I got only a third done. But I started, yeah. So now I well, so you just cannot. Sometimes divine inspiration happens nine, I don't know, 90% of the time it doesn't build, yeah, to build the momentum, yeah, and it is not easy.
Melissa Cullens It's not easy. It's not easy. It's not easy to get up on do it on the days that you're tired, and get up on the days and do it where you don't feel like it's working. It's really hard, but it's great advice to just pick a small thing to kind of get started with and let the rest of it take take over. I could talk to you for the rest of the afternoon Peggi. I truly like I'm just having so much fun. We're at we're at 40 after so I'm going to shift this over. I've got one last question for you before we wrap it up. You have three children. You managed to do all of this with four children. Was there? Big party at Peggi’s house. Everybody's all over the place. I'm curious if you if you could hope that of like one thing that they learned from you in your life about what work is and what matters about work, what would it be?
Peggi Kroll Roberts Well, what comes to mind is writing. Comes to mind is right ways, is the words be a decision maker, whatever it is it, I guess I mean, it just all comes from this, my first fashion class at Art Center, and, and it kind of crosses over into anything and and you can go, Oh, should I make that mark? What just be a decision maker and make it for better or for worse? I mean, you can whatever you can, over, tear throw it out. And as far as building momentum. I mean, some days can get really, you know, dark, but I go, Peggi, just do let me see if this works.
Melissa Cullens Ooh, we're gonna try. We're gonna try for the second camera Mark, if you're there, yeah, I'm here. All right, let's see.
Peggi Kroll Roberts What do I click on?
Mark Alright, so Peggi, you'll want, by the way, Peggi, that was fun hearing your origin story. I've never heard all of that. Oh, I guess you're a tough old broad. That's great. That's great to hear. Okay, so we want to click on share screen on the bottom middle, And then advanced, which is on the top middle, there's a little tab, and then content from second camera lower left, yeah. Then go ahead and click Share.
Peggi Kroll Roberts Can you see this? Everyone that looks magical, perfect overhead shot right there. I can have a really dark day, and I will go, I'm, I'm, I don't know what it is, whatever. I go, Look, just, just go out, just do two pages, and then you can be done for the rest of the day. Go take a drive. You have to get the dog to the vet. You gotta do, I got someone that does interruptions. Well, yeah, people here and interruption, oh, I'll go back to it. No, I gotta immerse this. Doing just a page like this, or a page like this, will change my attitude 100%
Melissa Cullens yes, yes, yes. That makes complete sense to me. I really I'm the same with the interruptions. I love the story that you told about painting the children in 10 minute increments, because I have a little guy myself and there's it's just hard to get hours of time.
Peggi Kroll Roberts I can’t go back into it, because the zone is never the same. Over a painted bird with a lawn, whatever paint wheels of fortune. So that will just absolutely change my spirit, and I can go back to I can be in a good mood, and then I can deal with my chores in an upbeat way.
Melissa Cullens Yeah, yeah, oh, I love that. I love that it's, it's not just a matter of, like, this is the thing to pursue for the sake of pursuing it, but that, but that kind of continual way that the action of creating is renewing. And it's not just renewing for the creation, it's renewing for all of the other aspects of your life as well. And I really feel that awesome Peggi, I like I said, I've there's i There's a million stories you haven't told. So maybe you'll come back for part two, but I'd love to move into the drawing session, if that's okay with you.
Peggi Kroll Roberts That sounds great. Um, what, I'm what I decided to do is, uh, what is, what? One of the things that had absolute biggest impact on me and something like this, something like this is my first fashion class at Art Center with a fashion illustrator named Gregory time. He it was always drawing from life. It was always drawn from actual fashion models that he would have come in because they loved him, and they do these things for him. And the first thing we had to do was have a number. I should have brought up number 11 exacto knife, you know, those with the little pointy Yeah, right, yeah. And we all sat on the horse, had a wood drawing board, yeah, had a big stack of paper sitting in front of us, had to put a piece of paper up there. Had to take our knife and just start drawing with the knife.
Yeah, yeah. So and, you know, talk about an exercise that made you fully present. You couldn't hem scratch, you couldn't poke and hope you couldn't guess at it. Well, maybe this one will be right, and that's why that one thing came up was be a decision maker, because that's what he said to us. He said, I want to make you decision makers.
That was an epiphany, yeah, okay, couple true epiphanies. So anyway, after that, after we did that for a week or two, then we had to bring in one of those big fat black Sharpies, not the little pointy nib, the big fat chisel. And then we had to draw with this and become very present, yeah, because you start trying to hope that one of these, I mean, you just get a big old and it made you really look at angles and directions and line lengths compared to line lengths of curves compared to straight. I mean, it just gave me, and then I embraced it so much that I embraced the some of the, I don't want to call them errors, some of the wonkiness that would happen. So I have a selection of things here, and I'm going to treat each drawing as if I have an exacto knife in my and then how much time do I have?
Melissa Cullens I'm happy to stay on with you for as long as we want to go. We've got about 13 minutes to the top of the hour, but we can continue. Maybe, if folks want to vote here, first of all, Peggi, you tell me how much time you have, and I'll make, I'll make it work.
Peggi Kroll Roberts I'll just, I'll build this one page. And how about that? That
Melissa Cullens Sounds perfect. That sounds great. And for everybody here, you know, y'all stick around as long as you can. We're excited that you're here, but we also understand, if you, you know, you've got other things that you've gotta go do
Peggi Kroll Roberts Well anyway, Ray and I. Mark is first and above all, an incredible painter. And as the world has changed so much the internet, he has guided us through and he owns the Black Ridge artist school, which hosts my workshops, and so anyway, so I'm going to, I'm going to say, start with this other photo right here of and I'm going to show you how we had to approach it. So that's my reference. So I place my pen, and I've got an exact and I'm going to go, okay, like this. Let's see that angle that comes. And I'll go inside and out or not. Let's see that goes there. There be a decision maker, for better or for worse, you're married to this. I mean this, I have never changed My drawing style since
So I'm pretending that, I mean, I've got an exact reminds, I can't sit here. I just have to. So that was so I'll do another one. Let's see. I'll draw this little soccer gal. Okay, so again, I'm going to take, I'm going to bear, I'll show you one other thing I use. Okay, I am sure of this. I'm going to go like that. There's one knee.
Let's see. And I boy. I always look at the big silhouettes.
Melissa Cullens Peggi, Elizabeth is asking us in the chat to share your landmark points on the figure
Peggi Kroll Roberts That's I'm going to do that. Yes, I will do that next.
Melissa Cullens I see you drawing the shadows too, you know?
Peggi Kroll Roberts Oh, yeah, I'll draw whatever, or I'll go over. So here's, you know, and then whatever, something like that.
Okay, now for landmark, one of my gurus is a man, a deceased painter, illustrator named Andrew Loomis, figure drawing for all it's worth a must have book. Or if you don't want to buy the book, you can download it for free as a PDF file and store it on your whatever. But I look, I don't want to have to click, click, click. I want to be able to get to the page. I like a book. So if I look at these two little girls, Mary and Gemma, this is our daughter, Dr Fred, Gemma. And now I do this because when I paint a location, and I have to work very quickly, and those figures are there and gone, maybe they're five seconds or whatever, or they're walking, I quickly go by the Andrew Loomis eight head, ideal figure, yeah.
Now not all of us are eight heads. Some are seven and a half. Some are nine. Some of those runway models, but they're the vicinity. I go like this. I'm quickly looking out there. I go, Oh, there's, there's there, there, there she is, right there. I divide it right in half. Then I take this and I'm making these marks, like, bam, bam, bam. Yeah, about these, you know, just quick, quickly, yeah.
And then I go, Okay, there's her head, oh my gosh. Here's her arm here. Now, elbows at the waist, but her arm is out here, so I want to make sure. Okay, breast, bit of waist, about waist, belly button, oh, bottom of the torso. Oh, knees are about here. Maybe they're a little above, maybe they're a little below. And then I go like this, and then I make a waist, bottom of the torso, Bikini Bottom, towel.
That's how I'm doing it out in the field. And then maybe here's Gemma, and she's up here, here, Gemma's a little shorter. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to bring drop it down, because there's seven and a half you gain and lose the length in the legs. Yeah. I go back up here, and I go like this, okay, there's Gemma base, doo, doo, doo, elbow, at the waist, at the crotch, always knees, weight bearing, foot for the most part, and Then the bottom of the torso, waist. Let's go here.
Melissa Cullens So those marks kind of create wayfinding for you
Peggi Kroll Roberts Exactly. And it's just the maybe a little above, maybe it's a little below, but, and then it's this outside contour that says everything about whether they're slender or and Then the next thing I do is I go at after I get a driver, okay, what's my light? Yeah, just, I'm working. This is wash.
Melissa Cullens We've got a question the chat here for you. Peggi, what do you use the same process, this thinking process of kind of cutting through the figure when you're painting as well? Yeah,
Peggi Kroll Roberts I do. Yeah, it's, it's just, it's so resonated with me that Mary, so what I want to do is I just want to know what is in light and what isn't right, because then that will guide all my values. So here's Mary. Well, that's in shadow. There's no source light hitting there. What else is in show this arm under here, her neck, that shoulder has some light on it. Cast shadow I and it's important to me to know the difference between a horn shadow and a cash show. This is all in shadow. There's no sunlight hitting this towel anywhere. So that's important. This arm, just the top of the arm is getting a little bit of light up over the shoulder. This angle here, then form shadow cast from her rib cage down to her bottom. Form because her bottom turns away from the turns away from the light.
Melissa Cullens Peggi, will you tell us the difference between a form shadow and a cast shadow?
Peggi Kroll Roberts Yes, in a nutshell, I just get this in, okay, make the head a little bigger, so now I know where my values have to go, okay, where they have to fit. Form shadows work like this. Cast Shadows work like this. If my sunlight is coming from here, doesn't it make sense that this is going to be in shape or here, right? Yeah. Light can only travel in a straight line. It can't go and bend so it hits this and then it stops here, because it can no longer turn, and because this is a solid object, blocks the light, you get a cast shadow. Yeah, okay, generally, not always, not always, form shadow edges are generally softer than hard cast shadow edges. So that's the difference, because then they each have their own vocabulary, yeah, if the lights coming from underneath, well, this makes sense that it's going to be that's a shadow. If it's on, then maybe it's casting a shadow of only it's against, okay, yep, so. And here's my form shadow because light can't reach it. Here's my cast because light is blocked.
Melissa Cullens Thank you for that. I can't wait to send it for all your classes. I feel like this is what I'm going to do now, just going to come to these classes.
Peggi Kroll Roberts Mark has his black Ridge artist school, for anyone who wants to take some of these. I have these master classes and then these other smaller classes. They're on the Black Ridge artist school.podia.com.
Okay. Anyway, there's a whole list there. But um, so with that said, then, then I'm ready to go in and do define some of these things. So if I'm going to do her flesh in shadow. And by the way, I'm working with a super limited palette. Here it is. You don't need much more. I mean, I can get all I want, almost everything I want. I mean, I you know, I can't get like daylo bruises, you know. But so for example, if her flesh is her flesh is dark, I want to make sure it stays within that value range. Okay, so that's about the same value, right?
That's just simple massing, yes. Now I add light. I want that obviously. You know, looking at this, it has a lighter warmer.
Melissa Cullens Is anybody else getting goosebumps just watching this happen? I just it's truly magical.
Peggi Kroll Roberts I'm not kidding. It'd be nice if I had a CAD red light out, but this is going to have to do because I'd rather be off on my color than off on my value.
Peggi Kroll Roberts I'm not going to just, you know, I'm just going to put nice big masses in. She's got a little fleck there, little bit on here. I'm going to bring it all the way down, because I become a dinner, yeah, then it becomes, then this starts telling me what it needs, as opposed to that. I mean, copy that and think that's going to what with the trees back there. You know, I need to now make a painting out of it. Her hair is darker than her flesh, her hair in shadow is darker than her flesh and shadow, right? So now I'm starting to compare, compare, compare. So I will go like this, just simple. I so that registered starts to play in, okay, uh, her swimsuit is yellow. Let's make it turquoise, like that.
Peggi Kroll Roberts Well, it's gonna be our turquoise in the shadow right and light. Now I'm going to add some light to that, and we'll little tie up there. And so now it starts to and now I can finesse it. And maybe I can make this a little maybe I go, Oh, I just gotta make that a little darker than what I see. Maybe I'll just soften that edge in there. What if I put an accent in here, so it separates the legs and so, so And let's see, there's an occlusion or an accent here, that where the arm goes, so it's building and building. Otherwise, I can just, I can just visit a two value painting, if I'm not, yeah
Peggi Kroll Roberts The thing, the thing to do is to think like this, but paint like this.
Melissa Cullens Say more about what you mean by that?
Peggi Kroll Roberts Well, I'll show what I mean is I think, think value first, I should have done this black and white, think value then relate your color to the value.
Peggi Kroll Roberts One thing I did with this is the power of the values have. I mean, this is my photo. So you think of the value scale as 10 steps. I raised the value key way up, but stay in order with the, you know, the darks of lights. This is a more natural key, but again, in order, so I made it a darker key. This is a little more natural to this, where I kept the whites a little lighter, but they they're all paintings in themselves. Then I try to focus where I got as did as much Chroma as I could. Yeah. So essentially, you want to become well grounded in the fundamentals. And I'd say one of the most important things would be composition, drawing, value and color. They all have their subheads. How to compose with, you know, color has your intensity, warm and cool. That hue, you know, blue, red value. You've got a 10 step value scale where you really try the more you can limit your to three values in a painting. Look at sergeant, look at MC Wyeth. Look at all the greats and Andrew Wyeth, all the wise anyway, drawing. Draw cake and you don't drawing is important. I draw a little more representationally, but I look at Egon Schiele compared to Amadeo Modigliani, compared to David Park, compared to anyway, all these drawings are so fabulous, but they're so individual, Yeah? So you find your voice there too. Yeah, absolutely.
Melissa Cullens Thank you so much. What an incredible gift. My last thought for you to round us out, I have a quote from one of your heroes, David Park, and I just wanted you to respond with your Peggi with your Peggi wisdom on it says, As you grow older, it dawns on you that you're yourself. Your job is not to force yourself into a style, but do what you want.
Peggi Kroll Roberts Yes, if you find yourself that is the kiss of death is to be trapped in someone else's format. I've been there when I was trying to I mean, here I'm an illustrator. I knew myself as an illustrator. These are just some of the styles I had done. Gotta show you, for example, here's a boot ad I did for um praise in Green Bay. So I did draw all those boots. Uh, what's that?
Melissa Cullens I just laugh at it. It's a great.
Peggi Kroll Roberts I did a ton of these for a magazine called Women, something, you know, exercise illustrations. Oh, this was one of my reference. CNN, really. So I did a lot of things like this. This was and we had reps, so I did a lot of black and white. I did, got to do a lot of editorial, which was the most fun for me, because I could interpret the story. Yeah. I did things, some things that were really tight for Honda, yep, I have drawn cat litter boxes, um, I have, I wanted to quick say, too, um, you know, I love watercolor, I Love collage. I love that. I love, I love cosmetics. I did a whole this is very different. I did a Arizona lottery annual report, blah, blah, blah.
So where was that leading me?
Melissa Cullens Don't get stuck in your don't get stuck in somebody else's form.
Peggi Kroll Roberts That's right. Thank you. So as an illustrator, as a painter, I'm going, Oh, what do I want to paint? What I want to say? I don't know. So I took some workshops, and then I was trapped in their format. Then I was trapped in their format nicely. Oh, would, would mark make a mark? This is Mark daily. Mark, have made a brush stroke like that. You have to work your way out of that. Yeah, I want to, you know, there's all these whatever. So you gotta listen to them, yep, and just say, Screw it. I'm going to do this.
Melissa Cullens Be a decision maker.
Peggi, you're you're a gem. It's a shame that I live so far from you. This has been an absolute joy. Thank you so much for your incredible generosity with your talent, your wisdom and your just great stories, I feel like my whole weekend is going to be better for having got to spend this time with you this afternoon. And thank you so much to everybody here who's joined us for this. It's great to see all of y'all, and I hope this has also been, you know, expansive for you too. Oh,
Peggi Kroll Roberts Thank you for hosting me, and thank you everyone for joining and thank Mark for helping us.
Melissa Cullens Massive. Thanks to mark, massive. Thanks to everybody. Alright, y'all have a wonderful weekend. This is going to be coming out. The recording will come out on Tuesday. Forward it share with your friends. Tell everybody about Peggi, everything she's doing. Let's all go buy her art from Etsy or anything else she wants to send us to sign up for some classes with Mark. And I really appreciate it. Y'all have a good one.
Peggi Kroll Roberts One other story someday I'll tell which was a massive jump for me was, you know, I'm still in a couple of galleries that I love, but I did open an Etsy shop for a, I mean, that's a that's a big story anyway,
Melissa Cullens For the next one, for the next one, awesome. Thank you, Peggi, have a great day.
Peggi Kroll Roberts See y'all soon. Everybody. Bye!