BRAND BUILDING | BRANDING | CREATIVITY | ART

Building Our Brand — Artistic Voyages

It’s been an interesting evolution.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about building a brand and what is involved with it. They say that brands are barely even noticed until they have been heavy at it for 5 years. Five years is what it takes for a regular person to actually pay attention and start to wonder what you are all about.

While we didn’t set out on our nomadic journey to ‘build a brand’ it is something that has naturally occurred over these past 5+ years of full-time travel.

In the beginning

Back in 2017 when my partner, Chris, and I sold all of our possessions to head out into the world to travel full-time, we had no idea what our futures held for us. We didn’t really have a plan of what we wanted to do. Plus we didn’t have a bunch of money saved up. So we knew that we would have to figure out ways to make some money pretty quickly so that we could sustain ourselves.

In the beginning, I had a blog called Just Some Wandering. It’s still there, I just don’t write on it anymore as most of my writing is done here on Medium these days. I also had (and still do) 2 Etsy shops where I sell my designs on Print On Demand clothing, accessories and home decor. Plus we started a Patreon page where we are slowly growing an audience of followers.

We had an Instagram and Facebook account under Just Some Wandering that was focused on our travels, and we both had our own pages for our personal artwork.

From the very beginning, I was always trying to figure out how to marry our artwork with our travel in one solid brand. I knew that Just Some Wandering was not our permanent thing, which is why I never did monetize the blog or turn it into a website. Instinctively I just knew that something else was coming down the line.

The first mural

In June of 2018, after fleeing a civil war that had broken out in Nicaragua, we found ourselves in Samara, Costa Rica with high anxiety and a little bit of shell shock.

We didn’t know it but we were about to enter a stage of our life that was very unplanned and unexpected.

The owner found out that we were artists and wanted to know if we could paint him a scene of 2 Scarlett Macaws in the jungle on a piece of plywood. (There is slightly more to the story but the above article will fill in the blanks.)

Neither of us had ever attempted an actual painting before, and certainly not something this size. Much to Chris’ dismay, I eagerly told the man we could do it. The best part is we got free accommodation in exchange for the painting. I didn’t see why we shouldn’t at least try.

The owner was thrilled with the end result and so were we!

With boosted confidence because of this experience, a couple of months later, we then offered our services to a hip bar in Flores, Guatemala. They had a rooftop terrace and wanted the white walls to be more colorful and exciting. We exchanged food for the time we spent painting this time, and found a cheap rental house nearby.

We painted each day before 4:00 pm, which is when the bar opened, for about a month. With this being just our first actual mural that was painted on walls, and only the second large painting that we had attempted, we appreciated the quiet and solitude that we had while working. Lots of mistakes were made, but we were able to fix them and learn from them without any pressure to get finished quickly or the worry of onlookers.

We didn’t realize it at the time, and neither did they, but the owners of these establishments were the ones that allowed us to become the painters that we are today.

Without their willing cooperation, and trust in us, we would simply not be where we are.

Creating Artistic Voyages

Fast forward to January 2019 and the discovery of Gringo Perdido, a stunning lodge that sits on the edge of Lake Peten Itza near the Mayan city of Tikal in Northern Guatemala. While there we felt incredibly inspired and I had a strong vision of us hosting an art retreat there.

We messaged a few of our artist friends and contacts back in Canada to see if they would be interested in teaching at such an event. Three agreed to teach, so we proceeded to tell the resort and started putting some pieces together.

We called the event “Artistic Voyages.” We designed a logo and a website, had rack cards made, created a promo page, and started some paid marketing through Facebook Ads.

In my mind, this could be a yearly event from different locations around the world.

The plan was to host the event in October of that year, so there was no time to lose.

By April we were starting to get some messages from interested parties. But we needed 10 solid financial commitments (deposits) from people before I felt comfortable confirming the space at the resort. We vowed that we would wait until August to see how things were looking before we made that decision.

Sadly, though, August arrived and we still hadn’t received one deposit. There were still chats happening with a few interested people, but they didn’t translate into money, so we decided to cancel it. We had plans to fly back to Canada anyways. Initially, we figured that we would go back to Canada for a visit, then fly back down to Guatemala just for the retreat. But after we canceled it, we realized that we could freely go to Canada and it was nice to not have to worry about leaving again.

Our Artistic Voyages website sat stagnant and I wasn’t really sure what to do with it.

Then one day, something clicked.

We are on our own Artistic Voyage

We had already been back in Canada for three months when I realized what Artistic Voyages meant. Here I was, trying to figure out a way to marry our art and our travels, and this brand was staring me back in the face.

I almost slapped my forehead! Of course, Artistic Voyages perfectly described who we were and what we were doing. Our art and creativity were carrying us around the world already.

We were on our own Artistic Voyage.

I immediately got busy rearranging our website and making it line up with us and our travels. I knew that it would be a great place to track our travels and I hoped that we would have more opportunities to paint murals in the future.

If nothing else, I hoped that our dream to host art retreats would some day come to fruition.

A new chapter

In January 2020, I got rid of, or stopped working on our Just Some Wandering social media pages, and switched my attention over to Artistic Voyages. It’s amazing to look back now and realize that we had no clue what was coming down the pipe for us. Not only did Covid appear, but we never could have predicted how our creativity would take center stage during that time.

The borders to Morocco closed just a few days after we had arrived at a hostel to paint a mural in March 2020. They soon closed the highways down as well. We were literally stuck where we were and had no idea how long we would be there. But the owner didn’t mind us staying, in fact, he expected us to, which was nice, and after we finished our original mural for him, and the reason for us coming there, we just kept painting and painting and painting.

We ended up staying there for 2.5 months before they finally opened the highways up again and we were free to travel around the country.

It was so interesting to have this ever-growing creative project in front of us that distracted us from what was happening in the world. We both focused fully on our painting and though we certainly struggled with our emotions occasionally, the creative outlet really helped us to not feel overwhelmed by the current crisis. At least it did for me.

Chris is always as cool as a cucumber in these situations.

Thank god one of us is! Ha!

During this period, and without meaning to, we really took the time to hone in on learning skills and trying things that we normally wouldn't have had time for. I learned that I could paint wood grain after the owner asked me to paint a cement wall to look like wood, and I also surprised myself by painting some pretty realistic-looking plants.

Looking back, we can see that this crazy time gave us the best opportunity to really advance our painting skills.

From there, and after the highways opened up again, we painted another mural in Rissani, Morocco at a friend's hotel. We spent 5 weeks living at the edge of the Sahara Desert in the summer! It was 45C (113 F) with no fans and no air conditioning! We then flew to Turkey where we stayed in Istanbul painting murals in a hostel for 2.5 months. From Turkey, we flew to Egypt, then traveled through parts of Sudan.

Life changes in an instant

We then spent 7 months in Uganda where we had our biggest transformational experience yet. We painted murals in two different communities in Uganda, and in the second one, we found out that the nearby village was quite literally starving. Covid had killed their tourist economy, drought had killed their crops and they found themselves very desperate. Not to mention that the Ugandan government instituted a transportation ban while we were there as well. This made getting supplies for anyone very difficult.

Thankfully we were able to do some fundraising and brought them some food and fresh water for a few weeks. Words can’t describe the personal transformation that can occur when we are exposed to such circumstances.

The world teaches you very quickly what you are capable of.

We would end up painting a few more murals in Uganda on a second visit in 2022 when we stayed for an additional 5 months. This included a large one at the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Center (UWEC) in their visitor center. We had life-changing experiences here as well as we got to know the animals around the property for 4 weeks while staying on site.

We also did a project at a nature resort where we incorporated a tile mosaic into the design. The wall that the owner wanted us to paint was crumbling at the bottom and I knew that paint would never stick to it. After getting a staff member to do a fresh coat of cement over the lower portion of the wall, I set about breaking tiles and creating some hillsides and a bit of a landscape scene. We then painted above it and incorporated the mosaic design into the overall image.

In 2022 we flew back up to Turkey and painted some artwork there plus we did murals in Bulgaria and Greece.

Until this point, we had never been paid for our murals. They were all done as some sort of exchange, for either food or accommodation, or both. Which to us, is payment enough. When we can get free accommodation, especially, our overall monthly costs are reduced dramatically as we travel around.

Our first paid gig

However, March of 2023 brought us back to Canada for a visit. Once here, we were reminded of a project at the local Canmore Legion. We had briefly discussed this possibility on our last visit to Canada back in 2019, but we had arrived at the end of the summer season, and we had no intention of trying to brave a Canadian winter just so we could paint a mural the following spring.

Plus, we now realize that the project was much too big for our limited mural experience at the time.

But this time, with the vast experience we had painting murals during the previous three years, we were ready. One thing lead to the next and before we knew it, we had gotten our first paid mural job and we were pumped. It was an honor for us to be able to leave something beautiful behind in my hometown.

And now, that job has led us to another one that we are working on, plus there are more irons in the fire for future projects.

Five Years In

It occurred to me in June that the first mural we painted in Samara was painted in June of 2018. All the while I had been thinking that our “Artistic Voyages” brand wasn’t created until January of 2020, but really, it started when we painted that first mural. So here we are, five years in. And I can feel it.

Suddenly, we are getting more attention. Suddenly, people are seeing what we are doing and are finally understanding what we are about. Suddenly, it feels like all the pieces are falling into place.

It’s true what they say, it takes 5 years to be noticed.

Future Plans

While it is easy (and legal) for us to make money in Canada, in other countries it is more complicated. We love the idea of “Spreading Love Through Art” and know that we still want to paint free murals for places that we stay when we head back out into the world. It is our gift to share, and we take great pride in brightening up spaces and bringing joy and happiness to the lives of people who get to witness both the finished product, plus the process of us painting the art.

But it’s also nice to be paid for our efforts and while we are here, we have no problem with that!

I can see that our future will include more paid work, and finding the delicate balance of deciding who pays, and who doesn’t, may get tricky. But we will cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, we are taking things one day at a time and are allowing the pieces to fall into place as easily and as naturally as we can.

A small speaking engagement is on the horizon for us, as well, so that may lead to new and exciting opportunities. Plus we are starting to build some merchandise that is focused around key pieces of our murals.

Spreading Love Through Art

Not only does the artwork do its own job of spreading love, but the art itself has brought us to some very interesting places. It has brought us to an island in the middle of the Nile River in Egypt, to a starving village in Uganda, and all the way up to the edge of the Black Sea in Bulgaria, to name a few. As we continue to move around the planet, we will always be allowing our art and creativity to lead the way.

Lessons learned

I have been a serial entrepreneur for most of my adult life but I have never been so focussed on building a brand. Most of my past endeavors have been small businesses that last a few years before I get bored and move on to something else. But, finally, since pulling the plug on my conventional life, I can see all the pieces of who I am coming together into this brand.

This is one that will stick around, that is for sure.

Here are a few lessons that I have learned in this process:

• You need to be good at something before you will be taken seriously. Find any way that you can to hone your skills, even if it means working for free.
• Don’t go out of your way to try and get people to see what you are doing. Sure, do your social media posts, but screaming from the rooftops about who you are and what you are about just leads to burnout when nobody is listening. Just keep showing them what you are made of and they will start to notice one day.
• Build a life around your passions and the things that you love to do. Taking on a life of full-time travel was instrumental to me having the time and space to be able to even consider painting murals. This would have been impossible in my past life.
• Give yourself permission to enjoy the ride. Stressing and overworking is not good for our overall health. Life is short, make sure you enjoy what you are doing and cut the stuff out that doesn’t bring you satisfaction.
• Have patience in the process. Stick to the plan, keep doing what you are doing, and eventually, you will find yourself where you set out to get to.
• Even when we accomplish one goal, there are always more on the horizon. Don’t get overwhelmed by your end goal, just focus on each task at hand and you will get there eventually. Where ever ‘there’ is.
• Don’t over-plan. Life has a way of unfolding in a miraculous way if we let it. Trying to control every aspect of your life will lead to burnout and frustration when things don’t go your way. Try not to worry, relax more, and sit back and watch things play out. You will be amazed at what happens.
• There are no hard and fast rules about how we should be living our lives, let alone building a business and a brand. Do what works for you and try to drown out the noise and chatter from others that are trying to tell you how to do it. What works for some, surely doesn’t work for everyone.
• Have the courage to just try. If we hadn’t attempted that first mural in Costa Rica back in 2018, we quite simply would not be where we are today. Each mural project is a challenge for us as we discover new things to paint, but by stepping up and tackling projects head-on, we ourselves discover what we are made of.

Wrapping up

Artistic Voyages was not created in the typical way that most brands are. It has been a constant and steady evolution that has brought us to where we are today. We haven’t bought followers, we haven’t made it rich in an instant, and we have had more than our fair share of struggles through all of this. But we have kept going and have put one foot in front of the other, and it has now led us to our dream life.

None of us can predict the future, and we never know what is around each corner, but we all must find happiness in doing what we love, and we MUST keep reaching for our dreams.

If you like my writing and want to read more, subscribe to Medium through my referral link (I will earn a small commission) to get full access! Plus sign up here to get my articles by email. We would also be happy if you considered leaving us a tip using the link to Patreon or Ko-Fi below:)

We have been nomadic since 2017! Join our journey by hitting these links:

Website | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn| Patreon| YouTube | Medium | Twitter | Ko-Fi | Unsplash