What up, Clint?
Clint Dang.
So for 2024, I wanted to start something new for Top Shelf
hijinks.
I wanted to include guest spots for the podcast.
So to start the new year off right,
and for my very first guest, none other than Nicole Carmody.
She is my graphic designer.
She is my painter.
She is a creator.
She is brilliant.
And she recently changed her business name to Evil Eye Design.
She is on Instagram and Threads.
Her handles and URLs are in the show now,
so you can check out her work.
And without further ado, let's do this bitch.
Nicole!
Hello, how are you?
I am good.
How about you?
I'm good, feeling a lot better.
You sound better.
Not that we talked when we were both sick,
but I know you were at strep throat,
so I can imagine you weren't able to talk at all.
Yeah, barely.
It was just, oh man.
Anyways, I'm glad we're both feeling better.
Oh my goodness.
And I'm glad you didn't give it to your son, so that's very good.
I know.
OK, so let's get started.
You are my graphic artist.
You did my logo, and I fucking love it.
Thank you.
Yes, I found you on Instagram.
You just kept showing up on my feed, so that's how I DM do.
But tell everybody about yourself.
Like, what got you into art?
I guess let's start there.
What got you into drawing and what artists, I guess,
what artists?
Or what inspired you to follow this as your passion?
I feel like at the age of four, art just naturally came to me.
And ever since then, I've been creating art,
and my inspirations are usually modern art, abstract art.
Like, the artists such as Picasso and Salvador Dali,
sorry, those are my two favorites by far.
I also love Van Gogh.
I mean, there are so many genres of art that I love,
and I just try and combine every genre that I
love into one piece or separate pieces.
And overall, I'm very diverse with my art.
I would agree to that.
And when I went to your, I guess, your exhibit,
is it called exhibit, I guess?
Yeah, or it was just.
It was called a showcase.
A showcase.
OK, so I went to your showcase, I don't know,
it was a couple of months ago.
Yeah.
The two pieces I bought, that totally
describes what you said, how you like to combine
different type of arts into one.
Yeah.
Yeah, so that's what I liked about those two pieces.
And it's funny you mentioned Picasso because he's the only one.
Well, I like other artists as well, or painters as well.
But I like his colors and just the way his stuff was not
I guess not like the other artists.
So he's my favorite painter of all time as well.
Yeah, his lines are very bold.
And that's what grabbed my attention.
And I like to add bold lines into my own art.
But also, it's just nice to be inspired by artists
from the past, even though, what's it called?
Even though selling paintings, I feel like it's just not
a trend anymore compared to back then.
But sometimes I do sell paintings.
It just depends, you know, who wants them.
Oh, OK.
Yeah.
So that's the last one you did then, or is there one
that I guess you can speak on that you've done recently?
Or the one I finished recently was like the Van Gogh
inspired sunflower.
And I added like a resin coat on top of it
after the painting was dry.
And it has like a glossy look.
So resin has like a glossy look.
You have to wait for it to dry for about a day or two,
and then bam.
OK.
Yeah.
So I put a video up on my Instagram about that.
OK.
And did you already post the painting or the piece
on your Instagram, or it was just that little story?
It was just the real, the video.
Oh, the real.
OK.
So I'll look at that again.
That way we can have the listeners look at your stuff
as well.
Of course.
Yeah.
So OK.
So my next question, I have a couple questions.
Yes.
So and also thank you for being my first guest.
Oh, yeah.
My podcast.
Of course.
So yes, we're both fellow Capricorns.
Just so everybody's aware.
Of course.
So what type of mood are setting do you
prefer to be in when you're looking for inspiration,
I guess, for your type of work?
I guess if you're just drawing for yourself.
And then also the type of mood or inspiration
you're looking for, I guess, if you have a commission piece.
So when I have a commission piece,
I prefer to be alone in my room, blasting my music.
I just don't want any interruptions.
I don't want anyone trying to, like,
you know, not let me focus on my concentration.
You know what I mean?
Right.
No.
Yeah.
I totally understand that.
Yeah.
I'm like, no, please don't bother me.
I'm busy.
And I just like to be alone in a setting where I can just
blast my music, let go of my thoughts,
and put it all down on paper, canvas, procreate app, whatever.
OK.
So yeah, I was just going to ask about,
is there certain apps you use?
I guess because I know a lot of artists now use apps,
I guess, to get inspired or to start their pieces,
or maybe end their pieces with.
I usually just like to use procreate.
It's so much easier.
Honestly, it's so much easier than using Adobe Photoshop,
and it's way cheaper.
And it's just overall an easy app to use for creating
digital illustration pieces.
OK.
And I feel like nowadays, digital illustrations
are more popular.
And you can put them on anything.
You can get them printed out as a print,
or put it on a canvas tote bag or a t-shirt.
I mean, you can do the same thing with paintings, too.
Take a picture, blah, blah, send it to a file, whatever,
and bam.
But I'm sure I guess if it was an actual painting,
it would probably take more steps to get it to where you need.
I guess if you wanted to print it on canvas, or not canvas,
I'm sorry, like on a bag, et cetera.
I guess a hoodie, I don't know.
Yeah.
And then also just the quality of a digital illustration is
a billion times better.
Yes, a billion times better.
That's yes.
Oh my gosh.
So yeah, that's why I like to do the digital illustrations,
too, when it comes to tote bags and stuff like that.
Yeah.
And I still, I fucking rocked the, so Nicole did,
I guess, a special for, I think it was, was it Christmas,
or I think it was for Christmas, or maybe it was for Halloween,
but you can get two for 20.
So I got the Bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein
for my grocery bags, and I got that for my co-worker as well.
And she fucking loved them, by the way.
Oh, thank you so much.
Yes.
I am going to have another special coming up soon.
Oh, cool.
Just stay tuned.
And also, there's going to be a new business name
and logo.
Oh, OK.
So I'm not going to be considered Nicole Carmody,
does that art and design anymore?
It's going to be Evil Eye Designs Incorporated
by Nicole Carmody.
OK, well, what better way to announce that than on a podcast?
Right.
If you're one of the first to know, so.
Well, congratulations.
Yeah.
What's for this on?
Because of the new year?
Yeah, you know what?
I just need to change.
I need to really get on it with my art stuff.
I have to simplify my stuff.
OK, well, that does it.
So are you there?
Yeah, yeah, I'm here.
OK, it went quiet, so I'm like, maybe she dropped off.
OK, so you're going to still, well,
you'll give me all your social media handles at the end,
so I can put it in the show notes.
But is your Instagram going to remain the same, I guess?
It's just going to have the name update problem.
Yeah, I just changed the name like maybe 10 minutes ago.
Oh, OK, well, look at you.
Yeah.
Congratulations.
I'm just going to make some steps
and of changing some things around.
And I got to get on it.
OK, so speaking of things on, and it's
a brand new year, what do you have?
Is there anything specifically planned or goal-wise for Evil Eye?
You said Evil Eye by Nicole Carmody.
OK, do you have any other, I guess, now
that you rebranded, relaunched, what
are your goals, I guess, for 2024 for Evil Eye?
I definitely want to get some shirts printed.
OK.
And sell them.
And sometime down the line in the near future,
maybe open up a business.
I like it.
Yeah.
OK.
Yeah, hopefully they'll happen.
I just got to, because obviously,
opening up a business doesn't happen overnight.
Right.
It's baby steps that create the progress.
And then to get you where you need to be,
as far as your vision goes.
Right.
So I feel like one of my inspirations
is my dad, because he is a business owner of his own car
consulting company.
And he was working for Nissan for many years.
And he retired.
And so now he's got his own business.
He actually also is a partial owner of a few dealerships.
And.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So he's really worked his way to the top.
But it took a good while for him to do that.
Right.
Like I said, businesses, they don't happen overnight.
Right.
Well, at least you have good inspiration,
and you can get wisdom from him.
Oh, yeah, definitely.
So I feel like my dad is one of my inspirations.
My mom is one of my inspirations, too.
She's a very hard worker.
And.
Well, good.
Yeah.
She's a teacher.
And I mean, I don't know how she does it every day.
Teaching all those kids.
I don't know how she does it.
What grade does she teach?
She teaches fourth and fifth grade combo.
Oh, wow.
OK.
Well, yeah, that takes a lot of frame.
I know.
I don't know how she does it.
Lord.
Good for your mom.
Yeah.
And then she'll be retiring this year.
Woo-hoo.
Oh, even better for her.
Yeah, good for her.
OK.
But yeah, I mean, I feel like my parents
are very supportive of my art, so that's very nice.
Good.
I'm glad to hear that.
That's always a definite plus.
Yes.
It's a plus.
The other question I had, I don't have many more,
but I know you had mentioned music.
Music plays a big part for me as well when I create or when
I write.
Yeah.
So when it comes to you and music,
is there a certain genre that you need to listen to,
or I guess it's depending on the piece or the commissioned
art or your project that you, I guess,
you need to start from scratch?
I feel like it's all of the above.
Like it just depends on the mood, the setting, the piece.
Depending what the piece is, I'll
change it to like some Travis Scott or Metallica
or sometimes Frank Sinatra.
Like my music taste is also very diverse, just like my art.
Yeah.
Because not only that, like liking diverse genres of music
and art and every other type of art,
it makes life way more interesting and less boring.
Right.
And it shows a little piece of you, I guess,
when you're creating it.
It adds that depth or dimension to where you can reveal a little
bit about yourself.
Right.
But not really keep the person guessing.
Exactly.
Yep.
So true.
OK.
Well, I want to thank you for joining and being my first guest
for Top Shelf Hi Jinks.
Woo-hoo.
Let's do this.
I know you said it's Evil Eye by Nicole Carmody.
What are all your social media handles?
I know you have Instagram.
That's where I met you.
Do you have any other social media handles?
I do have TikTok, but I never go on TikTok.
I also have a Facebook page, but I
think I'm going to just discontinue the Facebook page.
So Instagram and threads would be the way to go.
Oh, OK.
You know what?
I need to start posting on there, I guess.
I don't know.
Yeah, I feel like I do too.
I was just going to ask how active you are on there,
because I'm more of a Twitter girl.
I'm old, and I've been on Twitter forever,
so that's what I'm doing.
But I don't know about you, but I've not
been active on threads at all.
Yeah, I sometimes go on it, but not too often.
Instagram is my main source of.
Oh, OK.
Oh, yeah.
So I have that.
I will put that in the show notes for everybody
so they can check out and they can check out your work
and friend you.
And then Nicola's open for commissions, guys.
So if you have specific, I guess, pieces
that you would like her to create for you,
she's more than welcome to take on the project for you.
Yes.
And you can hit her up on Instagram.
You can message her, and you guys can go back and forth,
because that's how we started.
And now we're in contact all the time.
Oh, I know.
Yes, I'm always open.
I always, I can make it happen.
I can make your piece happen.
You just got to let me know.
There you go.
OK, Nicole, thank you for joining.
And yeah, thank you for your time today.
All right, thank you.
Have a good day.
All right, bye.
You too.
Bye.