The Intermediate Plateau

Stan and Marshall talk about the frustrating "intermediate plateau" a stage where artists feel stuck. They explore causes like boredom, complacency, and unclear goals, and give advice on how to push through using feedback, mentorship, passion projects, and risk-taking. SHOW LINKS (some contain affiliate links): Animal Anatomy For Artists by Joe Weatherly (Foreword by Marshall Vandruff) - George Woodbridge (Mad Magazine Artist) - Jack Davis (Mad Magazine Artist) - 23 Habits for Artists - Draftsmen S1E14 - Mastery by George Leonard - Marshall’s small artwork from his 30’s - Rembrandt (photo by Olivier Middendorp) - Leonardo da Vinci - When by Daniel Pink - Masterclass (Ron Howard) - Masterclass (Mira Nair) - Masterclass (Martin Scorsese) - Masterclass (Margaret Atwood) - Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly - Think Like a Freak by Steven D. Levitt - Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt - Kristian Nee’s youtube channel - Kristians Podcast with Marshall - “What Every Artist Needs to Hear (But Nobody Says)” - Stan’s Anatomy Course - Anatomy Course Drawings (only on screen briefly for how much work went into them) - Pinocchio (1940) - Frankenstein by Bernie Wrightson - The Upside of Quitting - Freakonomics Radio - Cops TV Show (1989-present) - Sexy Beast (2000) - Kimon Nicolaïdes - Learn to Draw - Marshall Vandruff - Stan Prokopenko - instagram.com/stanprokopenko Kristian Nee - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You can listen to The Intermediate Plateau online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Intermediate Plateau is an episode from Draftsmen by Stan Prokopenko and Marshall Vandruff .

This episode is 67:04 long.

This episode was published on Jul 22, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Draftsmen when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.