A day in the life of… Sean Murray
Discover how the freelance artist and teacher has achieved equilibrium in his working day
“I wake up at 7:30am and make coffee while I’m packing my son’s lunch and getting him ready for school. The weather in Florida is really nice, so I’ll sit on my back porch with my iced coffee and draw in my sketchbook.
At 9.30am I’ll go inside and move to the computer. In normal times I’d be sketching at a coffee shop. Drawing in my sketchbook warms me up creatively for the day.
From 10am to 12:30pm I have my most productive time and generally work on freelance projects when I’m not teaching. I teach three classes a week, mostly juniors and seniors, so a lot of my afternoon is having one-onone mentorship sessions on their thesis projects and holding office hours. My productivity crashes around 3pm, so I try to go for a walk, bike ride or do fulfilment orders from my online store. Shortly after that, my son arrives home from school and we do dinner and play a board game together as a family. After my wife and son go to sleep, I have my second most productive time period, from 9:30pm till 1-2am, and then start all over the next day.
When I was freelancing full-time, I would balance five or six clients at a time and there wasn’t a lot of time for my own projects or my family. Teaching has enabled me to have a more balanced life, where I can equally focus on family, art, teaching and my freelance work.”
Sean is from New York but lives in Florida. He’s worked on projects like Carnival Row, Trollhunters, The Rise of the Titans and Dungeons & Dragons Online. See more of Sean’s art at www.seanandrewmurray.com.