The Creative Couch with Sam Marshall

In this episode of The Creative Couch, I respond to three thoughtful creative dilemmas from Karen, Jacq and Jennifer, exploring the value we place on our artwork, the challenges of balancing creativity with financial necessity, and how to begin a creative practice later in life.
Karen is a Danish artist who has spent years generously giving her artwork away to friends and family. But after a friend negotiated a substantial discount on eight of her original watercolours, she's questioning whether she should stop giving work away altogether. We explore the difference between generosity and obligation, setting boundaries around pricing, and why it's important to recognise the value of our own creative work.
Jacqui is an artist living with significant health challenges that affect her energy and mobility. Having rediscovered her love of painting, she's now studying, exhibiting and selling her work, but the financial pressure to make art that sells is beginning to affect her enjoyment of the creative process. We discuss separating artistic worth from commercial success, protecting creative curiosity and finding a sustainable balance between learning, making and earning.
Finally, Jennifer writes on behalf of her retired friend Gai, who has discovered a love of acrylic painting and now has a room she can dedicate to a studio. But where should she start? We look at choosing materials, creating a practical workspace and establishing a regular creative practice without becoming overwhelmed by the possibilities.
My Loving Lately this week is Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, which I saw in London with my dear friend Carly. I'm not usually a huge fan of musicals, but this extraordinary production completely blew me away. It was funny, moving, joyful and melancholy, with wonderful performances and an incredible set. It was also a particularly meaningful evening, as Into the Woods was the favourite musical of my dear friend Frances, Carly's wife, who sadly died in July. Seeing it together was a lovely way to remember her.
If you have a creative dilemma you'd like me to explore in a future episode, I'd love to hear from you. Email thecreativecouchpod@gmail.com.
You can find out more about my artwork, workshops and creative coaching at www.sammarshallart.com, and follow along on Instagram @sammarshallart.
Thank you for listening!

In this episode of The Creative Couch, I respond to three creative dilemmas from Viv, Debbie and Sophie, exploring how to recover your creative motivation after an exhibition, how to prepare for launching an art business, and how to simplify a multi-creative career when you're feeling overwhelmed and pulled in too many directions.
Viv has recently finished preparing work for an exhibition and feels completely depleted. With two more exhibitions approaching, she's struggling to find the motivation to paint and wondering whether investing in a mentor might help her move forward. We explore the emotional aftermath of exhibitions, the difference between creative exhaustion and dissatisfaction, and how to recognise when you might benefit from outside guidance.
Debbie has rediscovered her love of art after thirty years and is developing a portfolio of nature and wildlife work following a move to Spain. Because of her current visa restrictions, she has around a year before she hopes to be able to sell her artwork. She's wondering how best to use that time, with so many possibilities competing for her attention. We talk about prioritising the artwork itself, resisting the temptation to build an elaborate business too soon, and developing an audience without becoming overwhelmed by social media.
Sophie is an artist, yoga teacher and somatic coach whose business has developed in several different directions. She's finding it increasingly difficult to sustain everything financially and emotionally, and her own illustration practice has fallen by the wayside. We explore how to identify which parts of a creative business are worth continuing, why narrowing your focus can help you develop greater confidence, and how to reclaim space for making art simply because you enjoy it.
My Loving Lately this week is Youth, the new Sharon Horgan comedy drama, available to watch on NOW. I love her sharp, funny writing and her ability to find humour and warmth in complicated relationships and the realities of getting older.
In this episode, I explore:
Recovering motivation and confidence after a demanding exhibition.
The difference between creative exhaustion and wanting to change direction.
Knowing when mentoring or coaching might be helpful.
Building the foundations of an art business without losing sight of the artwork.
Avoiding the pressure to be everywhere on social media.
Simplifying a multi-creative business and understanding what's financially sustainable.
Making time for a personal creative practice without expecting everything to generate income.
As always, I look at each dilemma through both the emotional and practical layers, offering ideas, encouragement and small pieces of homework to help you move forward.
If you have a creative dilemma you'd like me to explore on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you. You can send it to thecreativecouchpod@gmail.com.

In this episode of The Creative Couch, I respond to three thoughtful creative dilemmas from Suzanne, Ella and Jane, exploring how to rebuild creative confidence after it has been badly damaged, why observational drawing can feel so mentally exhausting, and how to move from constantly taking courses to developing a creative practice of your own.
My Loving Lately this week is Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth. I really enjoyed this one. Hepworth is brilliant at combining darker psychological suspense with sharp, funny writing, and I loved spending time with Mabel as a character. The Mother-in-Law is probably still my favourite of hers, but this was a really enjoyable read.
Suzanne returned to art around four years ago after more than twenty years away from making. Her creative confidence was badly damaged when she was younger by comments from an art teacher and later by a boyfriend, despite the fact that she had flourished on her foundation course and been offered a place at a prestigious London art school. She has gradually found her way back through drawing, painting and sketchbook work, and recently entered three drawings into a local exhibition. But rather than feeling proud, she found herself comparing the achievement with the creative life she might have had and questioning whether her varied body of work means she still hasn’t found her artistic identity. We explore the power we continue to give old voices, why imagined alternative lives can become such damaging points of comparison, and why cohesion often emerges through making rather than being something we have to decide in advance.
Ella works a day job to support her family and loves drawing and painting from observation, but finds that the intense concentration involved can leave her mentally drained. While other people describe art as relaxing, Ella often finishes a drawing session feeling even more tired than when she began, which makes her wonder whether she is doing something wrong or simply needs more practice. We explore the difference between something being restful and something being restorative, why observational drawing genuinely requires a huge amount of concentration, and why creativity doesn’t have to give you more energy than you started with in order to be worthwhile.
Jane loves a creative course and has taken many over the years, from online classes and retreats to workshops at West Dean and other venues. But she is beginning to feel that she wants to move away from constantly being a student and develop a more independent creative practice at home. She has plenty of skills and ideas, but without the structure and accountability of a course, her own practice can become very stop-start. We explore why being the student can sometimes feel safer than directing your own work, how courses can quietly become a form of creative procrastination, and why developing an independent practice involves learning to make your own decisions and turn up for yourself.
In this episode, we explore:
• How to rebuild creative confidence after it has been badly damaged
• Why old voices can continue to shape the way we see our own work
• How to stop comparing your current creative life with the one you might have had
• Why cohesion often emerges through making rather than being forced
• Why observational drawing can be mentally exhausting
• The difference between something being restful and restorative
• How to work with your natural energy rather than against it
• Why being taught can sometimes feel safer than directing your own work
• How creative courses can become a form of procrastination
• How to build more structure and accountability into an independent creative practice
Each dilemma is explored through both its emotional and practical layers, with ideas and exercises you can apply to your own creative practice.
If you have a creative dilemma you'd like me to explore in a future episode, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at:
thecreativecouchpod@gmail.com
If you're feeling stuck in your own creative practice and would like support, you can find out more about my creative coaching, workshops and artwork at:
www.sammarshallart.com
You can also find me on Instagram at @sammarshallart.

In this episode of The Creative Couch, I respond to three thoughtful creative dilemmas from Meg, Kathy and Taura, exploring how to grow a creative business when time is limited, how to make peace with returning to art later in life, and what happens when you're trying to find your own creative language rather than simply follow someone else's process.
My Loving Lately this week is The Golden Hours by Louisa Young, the new continuation of The Cazalet Chronicles, written by Elizabeth Jane Howard's niece. I've really enjoyed returning to the world of the Cazalet family and spending time with these characters again.
I also mention my Super Seconds Sale, which goes live on Saturday at 11am and runs until Monday at 10pm. I'll have a large selection of prints, test prints, seconds and older pieces available at reduced prices, including work from deep in my archives that hasn't been available for years.
Meg has built a substantial creative practice around watercolour and linocut while home educating three children, renovating a house and running a smallholding in rural Ireland. She sells her work, exhibits regularly, teaches monthly linocut workshops and produces a wildlife calendar each year, but she is beginning to think about what the next chapter might look like. She would eventually love to have her own studio and teach more, and is wondering whether online teaching could be part of that future. We explore the difference between ambition and urgency, why growth doesn't always mean adding more, and how to build towards a long-term creative vision without overwhelming the life you already have.
Kathy is 67 and returned to drawing after retiring from a 40-year career in healthcare. She originally studied art, but damaging comments from her professors destroyed her confidence and she moved away from creativity for decades. Now she draws for hours, works with fabric, builds things and always has a project underway, but sometimes feels she missed out on a lifetime of making art. We explore grief for the creative life you might have had, the danger of idealising the path you didn't take, and how to stop regret about the past from taking away from the creative life available to you now.
Taura has moved between sewing, craft, painting and digital art and has a long-standing dream of designing her own knitwear. She enjoys learning through tutorials, but finds it much harder to take those skills and apply them to her own ideas. She often has plenty of ideas while doing other things, but draws a blank when she sits down to work and can become frustrated before a design feels resolved. We explore the difference between learning a technique and developing your own creative language, why the messy middle can feel so uncomfortable, and how experimentation can help take the pressure off the finished outcome.
In this episode, we explore:
• How to grow a creative business without simply adding more
• The difference between ambition and urgency
• Why comparing your capacity with other artists can be so unhelpful
• How to test online teaching without building an entire course
• What it means to grieve an unlived creative life
• How to make peace with returning to art later in life
• Why someone else's judgment doesn't have to remain your verdict
• The difference between learning techniques and developing your own creative language
• Why the messy middle is an essential part of making original work
• How to experiment without putting pressure on every idea to become a finished piece
Each dilemma is explored through both its emotional and practical layers, with ideas and exercises you can apply to your own creative practice.
If you have a creative dilemma you'd like me to explore in a future episode, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at:
thecreativecouchpod@gmail.com
If you're feeling stuck in your own creative practice and would like support, you can find out more about my creative coaching, workshops and artwork at:
www.sammarshallart.com
You can also find me on Instagram at @sammarshallart.

A quick note before we start: I accidentally recorded this week’s episode without my usual microphone, so the sound is slightly more echoey than normal. Everything is clear, though, and I decided it was better to share the episode than record the whole thing again!
In this episode of The Creative Couch, I respond to three thoughtful creative dilemmas from Hope, Kathy and Gina, exploring privacy and openness online, the ethics of using other people’s images as artistic reference, and whether improving your technical skills can sometimes interfere with the very qualities that make your work your own.
Hope has been making work inspired by landmarks in the village where she lives and running community workshops locally, but she has been reluctant to share much of this online because she worries about giving away too much information about where she lives. She knows this caution may now be holding her back from making local connections and sharing her work more authentically. We talk about the difference between choosing privacy and allowing fear to make those decisions for you, and how an ‘openness audit’ might help her work out what she genuinely feels comfortable sharing.
Kathy is a tapestry designer and weaver who has used the Sktchy app for many years as a source of photographs to draw and paint from. One particular photograph inspired a large tapestry that became deeply connected to the time of her parents’ deaths. She would now like to exhibit it, but the original image is still recognisable and she has been unable to contact the person who uploaded the photograph. We explore permission, acknowledgement and artistic reference, and whether being transparent about where a piece began can allow her to exhibit it without feeling she has ignored the contribution of the original image.
Finally, Gina is self taught and wonders whether her lack of formal training is actually part of what gives her work its particular character. She would like to understand perspective and colour better, but worries that learning the ‘correct’ way to do things might interfere with the slightly unconventional way she currently works. She is also questioning whether making bright, idyllic work feels frivolous when there is so much difficulty in the world. We talk about learning selectively, trusting the visual language you already have and whether choosing to notice beauty means ignoring everything else.
My Loving Lately this week is The Land and Its People, the new book by David Sedaris. I’ve loved his writing for years, particularly the way he finds humour and absurdity in ordinary life while still allowing something much more poignant to sit underneath it.
I also mention two upcoming workshops here at my new studio. There are currently two spaces available on my Multi-block Linocut Workshop on 10 and 11 October, and one space available on my one-day Etching Workshop on Saturday 24 October. All the details and booking information are on my website.
If you have a creative dilemma you’d like me to explore on the podcast, you can send it to thecreativecouchpod@gmail.com.