
@TheGoodChad is an artist and independent illustrator who lives in St. Louis, Missouri. (Chad asked for his last name not to be used in this article.) Chad does most of his work from home but he is also turning his home into art. In addition to his work with paint, markers and tape, Chad put his massive sticker collection to good use and made his very own sticker table.
He is also exploring how virtual reality, digital, and traditional art can be combined to create something that could be described as "magical".
Chad believes that everyone is an artist. His main goal is to encourage everyone to explore their own creativity. “….I really am passionate about being creative today because I feel like for most of my life, I wasn’t encouraged to be creative. I think that everyone has some kind of artist in them—whether that be through visual arts, or making music, or even cooking, or something like that….”
“I was told, ‘Oh! Well, being an artist is not a good career path. It’s not a good job. It doesn’t further capitalism so it’s bad!’” He laughed. “So now, I’m working extra hard to fight those notions….”
“I took a fairly non-traditional path because I did not go to art school or anything like that. I did go to college, but my Undergrad was in IT Service Management. So, I’m a tech person by trade. It’s not a super creative field. I dabbled in design and art here and there… just as a little bit of a hobby. I honestly didn’t even do art that much until I was doing it professionally.”
He added, “But the more I did it, the more I loved it. Then with the pandemic, things started to go a little south with my job…. I got furloughed for three months. Also, I was just not comfortable with the way things were going there. It was just getting worse and worse. So I decided that since I had been doing this on the side for a bit now, I’m just going to do it full-time….”
Part of Chad’s non-traditional path included learning how to draw by watching others on YouTube. When asked about which channels were the most helpful, he replied:
“The one who has been just amazing in the last year or so has been Chris Piascik. You can learn a lot about drawing from him. The main thing he has taught me is how to let go and just be able to sketch. I was always the most scared of the sketching phase because most of the time—especially for me—it’s not pretty, right? I start putting marks on the page and it just looks ugly and I don’t like it—but you have to sort of get through that phase to get to something better…. The real value I’ve found with Chris Piascik’s channel is how to draw without caring. You’ll get there. It’s fine. Another channel that I’ve been following for years is Lucas Peinador. There are great art lessons! He’s just a great concept artist! ….I kind of combine hand-drawn art with digital design and effects and stuff. One channel I really learned a lot from was tutvid. They’re just really well presented Photoshop/Illustrator tutorials. I could really go on and on, but I think as far as learning what’s most integral to my art journey, those three would be my most influential.”
One of Chad’s most popular videos on Instagram explores the concept of “Trash Art”. For him, that means making art that is not necessarily aesthetically pleasing, but it’s fun to do anyway. It now has over 1.3 million views!
“….I’ve really had to embrace that the first step to making great art is making bad art…. I really love to mix mediums up and go wild and combine my art styles—sometimes in directly clashing ways. I try to force it to work. If you’re doing things that you’ve never seen before or combining things that haven’t been combined before, it won’t always turn out so great.” He explained that even if something doesn’t turn out great, people can still learn from the experience.
“Making ‘Trash Art’ is the best way to make great art. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with that because if they make something and they think it looks bad, they get discouraged. They think, ‘I’m not good at this’. You just have to allow yourself to play. Even if you’re a professional, you still have to allow yourself to play a little.”
After posting the video, someone commented that they thought he was literally going to make art out of trash. With that in mind, Chad began saving all of his left over pieces of tape. He admitted, “….I don’t know what I’m going to do with this yet, but they inspired me…. I could make something with this in my art style and it could be bad, but then it will get better. I have some projects in the queue, but I’m going to figure it out eventually. For now, I just have a glob of tape on my table.”
Before creating his “@TheGoodChad” account, Chad became known for @Polyamfam on social media. “….When I did get furloughed from my job, I had a set return date. I knew I’d be back in three months. So I’m like, ‘Okay, what am I going to do for these three months where everything’s on lockdown?’ I had been kind of interested in growing a social media channel. So I started @Polyamfam, which is a polyamory education/entertainment page. It initially started off as just memes. It wasn’t even videos or anything like that. I noticed that people were really connecting with those things. It was like, ‘Oh wow, there’s more here than I thought.’ When I did make that transition from still images and memes to videos on TikTok, it just blew up! My third video—I can’t even remember—but it had 30000-100000 views! It was crazy! I kept doing that… and I decided to take it more seriously with my art account. Now I’ve been growing that and I seem to be doing fairly good at it! I guess I have a knack.”
“One of the things that I talk about in one of my upcoming videos is that I treat content creation and video making as an essential part of my creative process. I know a lot of artists struggle on social media because they make their beautiful art. It’s great and everyone would love it but then they treat social media as this after thought, marketing chore. They don’t put a lot of thought into the presentation even though it’s gorgeous art.” Chad explained that when some videos aren’t as well crafted, they tend not to reach a large audience. This can lead to a lack of sales or new followers.
“It can kind of be a downward spiral, but I treat video making as an essential part of my art from the get-go. Sometimes, I think of a video idea first and that will inspire what I draw. Then it’s all part of one process. I think that’s ultimately why my social media content turns out for the better.”
For the most part, Chad tries to focus on one video at a time. He discovered that doing things in batches doesn’t always work.
“….I also feel like I need to have a new piece of artwork for every video, which is not the case! It’s very silly, but my brain will not stop being like, ‘Well, you’ve got to make something new!” You can present things you made before in different ways and it’s fine. ….I’m hoping to get more of a schedule going because I’m a little bit all over the place! I go through periods of consistency and inconsistency.”
Chad noted that he hit a “creative block” with @Polyamfam and has only posted 2-3 updates there in the last 10 months. However, his art account is much more active. That being said, he doesn’t have a goal in terms of how many videos he would like to post on a weekly or monthly basis.
“For me, it’s more about the habit and being in that routine of creating all the time. Like I said, if video making is an integral part of my creation then it just goes along with it. As long as I stay in my creative flow, then I can make pretty consistent videos. If I get out of that routine, I could not post for like, a month!”
The video for his sticker table and the project itself took several months to complete, which is understandable due to its size. Chad estimated that he used at least one thousand stickers!
“My sticker table kept getting delayed because I kept thinking of new things that I wanted to do. That’s the thing with my projects. I have ADHD and it will either be done in two hours or three years! It feels like there’s no in between! I’m starting to get into the habit of actually finishing things, even if I started them awhile back—which is good!”
Chad said his inspiration for the sticker table came from a need to see his stickers every day, rather than all of the boxes he had been storing them in. Additionally, he didn’t want to use sticker albums because they would also end up on a shelf.
“So, I just put them on a table. I was kind of experimenting with some resin work and that was the best way for me to see them every day. I just obnoxiously put them in the middle of my work space! I found a table on Facebook Marketplace. I did it as cheaply as possible. The resin was definitely the most expensive part! I started coming up with a strategy of how I wanted to place all of the stickers. That was the fun part—figuring out how I wanted to put this puzzle together. I didn’t want stuff all bunched up in certain areas. I wanted it to be cohesive chaos!”
“I bought some cheap, background stickers to give it a consistent colour palette and I think it worked out well.” He continued.
“I discovered throughout this process (I did a lot of YouTubing) that resin does not stick to vinyl and almost all of my stickers are vinyl! I thought, ‘Oh no! This is going to ruin it!’ That’s part of my art process. If something’s not going to work, I figure out how to make it work. I found this acrylic top-coat sort of thing. That would stick to the vinyl and then the resin would stick to that and everything would be fine. Thankfully, it worked out! I did a little test piece and it worked.” He suggested that other people could try varnish instead of resin, but they should also do a test piece first.
Now that the table is finished, Chad is most excited to work on his “mural sketchbook”, which is actually a series of wall paintings that will be completed in his home.
According to Chad, “….I have this spot in my house. It’s a little archway that’s in my sunroom—the same room where I made the table. This little white archway was perfectly cut out. I thought, ‘You should put murals on there.’ So that’s what I decided to do…. No matter how pleased I am with the mural that I put there, I’m just going to paint over it and do the next mural….”
So far, each mural has been more advanced than the last. Initially, Chad tried paint markers and then wall paint and now he is throwing virtual reality into the mix. This is something that he hasn’t seen many artists do. However, he wants everyone to try it for themselves!
“With the first one, I used POSCA Paint Markers. With the next one, I really upgraded. I’m using great brushes. I’m using wall paint. I’ve been using my VR headset to paint murals! It’s kind of insane and a little bit magic! ….It’s a wild process because people traditionally use a doodle grid or projectors or they just use free-hand to put murals on the wall, but there’s this program you can get for The Quest (2 or later models) called ‘Contour’. I took a picture of the space just so I could get the proportions right and then I did the design on my iPad first. Then I just drop that image file into the VR. Essentially, I just put it up on the wall and trace it with paint! You can make it any size you want. It will stay there. You can change the opacity and with how it overlays, you can effectively kind of see through your hand, too. ….I think people can make incredible things that they never thought they could do before and they can throw it up on a wall in no time.”
“It’s insane! I love it so much and I am so excited to share it! I see other incredible muralists and I’m like, ‘Y’all need to be using this! This is crazy!’ I always get way into the details after the main thing is done but the main mural took two hours to put up! This is wild! I think it’s going to be great for the channel. To me at least, it’s very interesting to watch! It blew my mind!”
As previously mentioned, Chad will be painting over each mural in order to make the next one. He acquired a “very strong white” paint that seems to cover everything from black to bright yellow. Recently, he began doing in-person markets where a fellow muralist advised him to “go for the good paint and not the cheap paint”, which has helped him in many ways.
Finally, in terms of his own advice for others, @TheGoodChad cautioned creators to be aware of burnout. “There are things we can do to at least mitigate burnout. A lot of people just go all in, right? I kind of did too! I might not recommend that. If people go all in and put everything into it, it might be harder than they think. Then it’s like, ‘Oh no!’ They make a mistake and they don’t enjoy it anymore. Just take it slow. I think if you have a creative passion, a willingness to learn and infinite patience it will work out. Patience has been the hardest part for me. I had to develop it.”
For more information, please visit www.thegoodchad.com.
Photo courtesy of Chad.
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