Meet Cormac Dow

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cormac Dow. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Cormac, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.

I keep my creativity alive by letting it roam free and feeding it constantly. Just doing simple and fun things like taking a bit of time out of each day to let your ideas run free in a sketchbook or creating something completely different from your usual media– my favorite alternative form of creating is cooking and baking– will help your ideas grow and develop. Then, make sure you consume plenty of media that makes you happy and inspires you. This is how you keep my creativity alive and flourishing.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I grew up in the farmlands of New Jersey between a wheatfield and a forested hill that I would wander and explore for fun. When I returned home from roaming, I would tell the stories of my day and the tales that my journies inspired through the only way I knew how. I would grab a piece of paper and my massive magic markers and draw. This could be a picture of the red salamander I saw at the creek or the creature I dreamed up. This ritual of mine brought me so much joy that I knew drawing was necessary to a happy life for me. So I was determined to make it a career.
Later, I moved to Atlanta to pursue this passion. (It was a MASSIVE change in scenery for younger me!) I looked around to find all the artists who had been successful in turning what they loved into a way of living. What I wanted to do. I tried as hard as I could to be just like them. I forced myself to learn digital art and stopped using traditional media. I tried to make my art a reprint of the art I saw online. Every piece I made left me dissatisfied and angry at myself because I couldn’t create what they were creating. I spent that entire year spinning in circles and jumping from style to style without any satisfaction. I was like a dog chasing its tail.
That year tested my love for what I do.
In one of these endeavors, I decided that I needed to become quicker at drawing. So I went into nature and started doing timed doodles in my little journal with a ballpoint pen that I found at the bottom of my bag. (I believe that everyone should do this.) They were weird and scratchy, but I loved them. At that moment, those little doodles were my proudest pieces of art. (You can see these first doodles and how they progressed under the “Doodle Book” stories on my IG.) It reminded me of what I used to love about making art. I needed to find a way of turning my doodles– like what I did as a kid– into a finished piece of art. So I started experimenting and spending time looking at what I liked to see and less at others’ works of art. I took walks outside, looked at old books, mountainscapes, fantastic beasts, and anything else that brought me joy, and used that to inspire my art once again. After making hundreds of different drawings that will never see the light of day, I started to love what I created again. I let my ideas go where they wanted to, fueled by the sights of the forests I grew up in and loved. This taught me how to enjoy making art and looking at it once again.
That was what I wanted to do. And it’s what I continue to do to this day. I take the ideas within my mind and let them grow in my sketchbook with inspiration from what I love to do and see. At some point, I know that the idea is right. That’s when I take my ballpoint pen and bring my idea to life on a piece of paper with a little help from a computer to make it come to life. A trick I learned from all that time doing digital art.
Currently, I target my illustration towards the publication mark– books, cards, posters, games, etc.– but I’m still happy working on other projects. I learned how to animate my illustrations as well to give everything I make a bit more movement and magic. The final product makes me smile even more and hopefully the same for whoever sees it. I still enjoy looking at the masterpieces of all the artists that I dreamed of being before but I now know that they are their own artists. Now, when I return from roaming around the world, I tell the stories on my mind how I know best. I take my little ballpoint pen and begin to draw.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

It’s important to listen to yourself. It sounds cheesy but it’s true. If you hate doing what you’re doing then you should stop doing it. Do what feels good when you make something. This could be on a greater scale as in if you don’t like to make art with paints but really love to sew, then use that needle and thread. Or on a small scale like getting rid of one part of your process that annoys you. And I mean this when it comes to creating all kinds of things, not just art. Of course, this doesn’t mean giving up the moment things get tough. I want people to understand if they are creating something because they like to create it and not because it’s what everyone else does. It’s not sustainable or good to keep doing something if you don’t enjoy it.
Have a community of other creatives. (I like to think of them as my coven of wizards and witches.) These could be friends or colleagues who are also on a journey to create something similar. It’s not easy creating something amazing. If it was, everyone would do it. That’s why we need others in our creative journey. You can learn skills from them in a matter of days that took them months and they can show you how far you’ve come when you’re looking for motivation. Without the friends that I’ve made along the way, I would’ve never gotten this far. It might be hard to find them or drag them out of their corner to hang out– as an illustrator, it can be impossible to find other artists who don’t need convincing to leave their drawing corner– but you’ll be happier and more successful from the work you put into it.
Finally, the greatest skill that anyone who wants to make anything needs– in my personal opinion– is persistence. Everyone has creative ideas. And I mean everyone. That’s not the hard part of being an artist. The hard part is being able to show up again and again to push your creations a little bit further along and closer to the perfect idea in your mind. And when you’ve done it enough, that’s when you become successful. You have to be persistent to continue creating your idea when no one has even looked at your shop, liked your post, or turned you down from another job. But working on what you want to create is the only way you’ll be able to create that perfect idea in your mind. The only way to get there is to be persistent enough to show again and again. That’s why you’ll need to be persistent.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

When I’m overwhelmed, I always have one response. That is to just keep going. This sounds tough and a bit more stern than what I’ve said before but it’s the truth. You have to keep going. It’s the only way to succeed. When everything you have to deal with in a day is constricting around you, you have to keep going. It’s okay to look around and reassess what you’ve been doing and what you need to change. This is still important. If you don’t do that, you’re just slamming your head against the ground while looking for a pillow. If you want to succeed though, you can’t stop. You just have to put one foot in front of the other over and over again. If you’re in that moment right now, I’m really sorry to hear that. But I can tell you that it will get better if you just keep moving forward. Sadly, that doesn’t mean that your perfect dream is waiting on the other side of this hard moment or that there will never be more moments when everything seems to burn. There will always be more hard moments. There’s only one way to get to where you want to be in life and your creative journey. You just need to keep going.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cormacdow.art/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doodles_of_dow/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cormac-dow-60b45a257/