Rooted is all about the people and the places that make us proud to call our community home.
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With almost 30,000 subscribers on YouTube and multiple viral reels on Instagram, Marianne Vander Dussen is using social media to share her love of art and educate tens of thousands across the globe.
“During the pandemic I started live streaming painting tutorials out my home studio as a way to build community when we were all on lockdown,” says Vander Dussen, who is based out of North Bay.
“That was really a launch point for teaching online. I started with an iPhone set up on a cheap tripod I picked up on Amazon. My filming setup is much more sophisticated now.”
Vander Dussen’s video tutorials on painting in oil, acrylic, and gouache have resonated with people across the globe.
“With one YouTube tutorial, I was able to reach over 400,000 people, and that’s when you start to really clue in that you are in a global market. It's not about teaching one or two people at a time, it’s about amassing a large audience to tune in to what you’re doing ... and that’s what moves the needle,” she says.
Vander Dussen says less than 6 per cent of her traffic comes from Canada, with significant viewership originating in the United States, India and beyond.
“I’ve been fortunate to connect with emerging artists around the world through this work. I have a Facebook group that I moderate of about 1,700 artists from New Zealand, France, Portugal, South America, and more. That space is an arena to showcase your art and receive unconditional support, because everyone needs a cheerleader,” she says, adding that her goal is to lift people up and give them a reason to continue pursuing their artistic dreams.
“We have so many critics in our lives. The last thing anyone needs when they are trying to grow their creative practice and become a better artist is to have someone make them feel small, or like they don’t have potential. My job is to lift people up and say keep going ... and I take that very seriously.”
“Every time I release a video, my hope is to get just one person who feels like they can do something new as a result. Supporting just one artist somewhere in the world feels like a win,” says Vander Dussen.
Recently, her work has caught the attention of the company Stillman & Birn who manufacture the sketchbooks Vander Dussen uses. She says, “They want me to test out a new product that they are launching so that they can share my work. They're sharing my most recent tutorial to their email list as well,” Vander Dussen says, adding it’s very exciting to create these kinds of partnerships.
Vander Dussen has a Masters of Education, as well as a Bachelor of Education, both from Nipissing University and a Bachelor of Arts Honours from Queen’s University. In addition to her YouTube productions, Vander Dussen teaches part-time at Nipissing in the Bachelor of Education program as well as selling her acrylic and oil paintings, of which there is currently a wait list for commissions.
“As much as I am a teacher, I am equally obsessed with learning. One of the things I did to ensure my storytelling and teaching techniques are maintaining an edge in a competitive international market is that I took a course on how to properly use Instagram specifically as an artist. My third reel after the course ended up going viral. Remaining fluent in media and adapting my teaching content to match various algorithms and platforms ensures that my message remains relevant for a contemporary audience.”
Vander Dussen’s artwork consists of flowers, birds, and landscapes of North Bay and the surrounding area, some of which she says she does freehand.
“I teach people how to feel empowered in their painting practice. I coach them through times of vulnerability, and I’m very transparent about the fact that I make mistakes when I’m working. A lot of what I do as an educator is just storytelling; essentially, I show my audience that this is how I paint, this is where I messed up, this is how I fixed it, and here’s how you can too.”
Her audience has appreciated this as well as one YouTube commenter @cscott8334 posted on Vander Dussen’s latest video, “Marianne, thank you for showing us how trial and error makes for beautiful results if you persevere. Makes me feel better about my own attempts and workarounds.”
Vander Dussen says, “I get these kinds of responses from all over the world, which is incredibly encouraging. When you take away our differences in language and culture, we are all just humans who are passionate about the craft, curious about how we can become better artists, and that connection is such an amazing thing to experience”
The mother of twin five-year-old boys says, “That is what drives me to get up every morning at 5 a.m. It’s become the fuel that pushes me to go forward and feed that obsession. As a child, they tell you to find something you love and you will never work a day in your life. Well, I do work – I work at this a lot - but I love it, and I cannot imagine doing anything else.”
Vander Dussen has been drawing and painting since as far back as she can remember, but never went to school specifically for art because she says, “I didn’t think I could make a career out of it.”
Professionally, she worked in luxury real estate as an executive assistant in Toronto from 2009-2013 before coming to North Bay to pursue her degree in education. After completing her Masters in 2016 she began to paint more seriously and looked to YouTube to refine her skills.
“I really wanted to pay it forward for some of the learning that I had done through YouTube. I wasn’t sure how my videos would perform, but I wanted to act as though each video had the potential to go viral. I created an “Introduction to Acrylic Painting” eBook that took everything I knew about acrylic painting and offered it for free to my viewers in exchange for their email address. So far, my email list is sitting at about 6500, and for every single video I release now I include a link to that,” Vander Dussen says, adding she doesn’t look at other content creators as competition and is therefore very comfortable about being open and honest with her work.
Vander Dussen says the success online has not been without trial and error.
“When I look back at the first video I posted about acrylic painting, I don’t think it’s very good. The audio is bad, the shots are overexposed, there’s just so much wrong with it. But the second one I put up was of three large peonies. Halfway through I looked at it and thought ‘I just know that this is going to do really well.” I released it...and nothing happened. I thought to myself, ‘well I guess I was wrong.’”
Vander Dussen says that slowly, over a period of a few months, the video started to snowball and she went from fewer than 200 subscribers in April of 2021 to over 2,000 in August 2021.
“YouTube sent me a notice that a video was going viral. It was the Peonies video that really got the ball rolling, and the channel itself is closing on one-million overall views. In the world of YouTube and social media, I’m still small potatoes, but I approach every video, tutorial, reel, and post with the same focus and intensity as I would if I had a guarantee that it would go viral. I want my audience to receive the best possible learning experience, and it’s my responsibility to ensure that I’m evolving to provide it” says Vander Dussen.
Vander Dussen says the online social platforms are all competing with one another for views and trying to navigate all of that is a continual learning curve. “There is still so much to learn about all of this, but I have a growth-focused mindset. I’m sure that I can and will learn, I just need to do the work.”
If you have a story idea for the “Rooted” series, send Matt an email at [email protected].
