In this episode of the Plein Air Podcast, Eric Rhoads interviews Richard Sneary, who began painting as an artist primarily en plein air in 2011 after 40 years as an architectural illustrator and architect. Architecture was the first love of his career and formed the foundation of his understanding of design composition, freehand drawing perspective, and the built-in natural environment, as well as many other aspects of his personal and professional growth.
Listen as they discuss:
– Why so many painters – especially watercolorists – started in architecture
– What he was thinking when he quit his successful career as an architect to become a full-time artist (how it was a leap, and a stumble)
– Richard’s advice for others who are developing their art career
– Letting go of tight details and painting more loosely
– The difference he experiences as a painter in regards to being more relaxed day to day versus the pressure of working at an office job
– Why he travels to 11-12 plein air events in a given year (Hint: It relates to what inspires him as an artist)
– Embracing the struggle and his pitch to those who don’t paint en plein air
– The worst thing you can do when painting indoors or outdoors, no matter your level of experience
Bonus! How do you price your paintings (and not set the price too low)? And how can artists use AI for their business? Eric Rhoads answers in this week’s Art Marketing Minute.
Listen to the Plein Air Podcast with Eric Rhoads and Richard Sneary here:
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Related Links:
– Richard Sneary online: https://www.richardsneary.com/
– Fall Color Week: https://fallcolorweek.com/
– Watercolor Live: https://watercolorlive.com/wcl2024
– PleinAir Magazine: https://pleinairmagazine.com/
– Plein Air Convention & Expo: https://pleinairconvention.com/
– Submit Art Marketing Questions: artmarketing.com/questions
The Plein Air Podcast has been named the #1 Painting Podcast by FeedSpot for two years in a row. New in 2023: FeedSpot has named Eric’s Art Marketing Minute Podcast as one of the Top 25 Art Business and Marketing Blogs on the web.
FULL TRANSCRIPT of this Plein Air Podcast
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Plein Air Podcast. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.
Eric Rhoads:
This is episode number 255 – double nickels – with Richard Sneary.
Announcer:
This is the Plein Air Podcast with Eric Rhoads, publisher and founder of Plein Air Magazine. In the Plein Air Podcast, we cover the world of outdoor painting called plein air. The French coined the term which means open air or outdoors. The French pronounce it plenn air. Others say plein air. No matter how you say it. There is a huge movement of artists around the world who are going outdoors to paint and this show is about that movement. Now, here’s your host, author, publisher, and painter, Eric Rhoads.
Eric Rhoads 0:00
Hey there, welcome. Thank you Jim Kipping my announcer and welcome to the plein air Podcast. I’m Eric. Ah, man, it’s been a whirlwind. Here’s the deal. I have not done a podcast in a while. And I apologize for that. But, sometimes life gets in the way. It was real easy during COVID to keep them going. But now that life is happening again, it’s a little harder to be consistent. But I tried to be there every single week. But I had fall color week Fine Art trip to Sweden and Spain. Vacation realism live a lot of stuff going on. I’ll tell you more about that later. My goal in this podcast is to help inspire you to paint outdoors. Why? Because I believe that it makes us better painters when we’re outdoors we’re seeing nature. Plus, plein air is a cool lifestyle, right? So lots of people to paint with hanging out with a chance to be with friends, being outdoors expressing your creativity, and really seeing light and color more effectively. So this podcast is about plein air painting and everything to do with plein air painting and a chance to learn about other artists and their struggle and see what that’s all about. So I’m grateful to you, this show wouldn’t be happening. And we wouldn’t have millions of downloads, if it weren’t for you sharing it. So thanks for doing that. And we thank you for those positive reviews. They help they keep us visible. And we love the comments. So keep it coming baby. At the end of the podcast, I do the art marketing minute to help you sell more art. And today we’re going to talk about a couple of cool things. I get this a lot. How do you price your artwork? And the other is the controversy of AI and how can you put AI to use to actually help your painting career? Well, we’ll dig into that in a minute. So about the trip in October, I was in the Adirondacks all summer because that’s where I live in the summer. And I did my annual fall color Week this year in the Adirondacks, which is unusual. Last time we’re going to do the Adirondacks. And it was the biggest most attended yet. And it was spectacular. We all grew very, very close. We painted daily, we had a lot of fun. And we had all levels of painters, they’re all ages, the youngest being about 30, the oldest being about, I don’t know, 85 or 88. At the beginning, I noticed that there were a lot of new people and a lot of new painters. And so I asked how many were there that were new painters. And I got about 15 or 20 hands. And so I said, Okay, here’s what I’m gonna do this week for you guys. This is not a workshop. It’s a retreat, but I’ll anybody wants it, I’ll do a demo. And then I will work with you throughout the week. So I set up on the first day I did a demo, knocked it out of the park, it was a decent painting. And then I worked with people critique them help them throughout the week when we were painting together. And it was so satisfying to me. Now I understand why people teach. I don’t teach. But I understand why I how others do it now because to watch the progress of people throughout a week to see a night and day difference. It’s so cool. Now you get that progress anyway, because you’re painting two, three paintings a day, every day for a week. And so, but if you’re getting help, too, that helps. So it’s different. It’s not a workshop, but anyway, so I did fall color week. And what was really interesting this year is that we have a whole lot of new people like 30% new people, and also we sold out real early because we only take 100 people and we sold out I don’t know four months, five months early, and a lot of the people who normally go wait too long normally to register and they can usually get in but not anymore people we were already like 45 or 50% Sold out 55% sold out for next fall color week because we’re gonna do it at a Sylmar in California. And we’re selling out early, so I don’t know anyway, what I did after fall color week is I drove to the Adirondacks because we have dogs and they can’t fly because one of them long story diabetic and blind. So then we flew to Sweden, I met I took my wife Laurie. I met Peter Trippi, the editor of fine art connoisseur. And we went to Mora Sweden. And we had another friend another couple join us. And we went to the Zorn Museum and John Theatreland, who is the director there spent two full days with us. We saw everything including behind the scenes things that people don’t get to see. Part of the museum was closed, we got to go to the closed part to see things we got to see things that were normally in storage 100,000 items that Zorn had collected everything like the costumes, we could touch. We had to put white gloves on it. We could touch the costumes and I actually saw his shoes, little things like that. I know it’s crazy. You got to be a real Zorn freak to do that which I am. And I asked John I said I saw his four color palette sitting there said John, can I lift it up? Can I take a picture with it and he let me so again, I had white gloves on and I got my picture taken with Zorn’s palette. So we started talking about Zorn’s palette. And he said, you know it’s myth. Zorn did not use a four color palette. He he started out when he was young. He went to to Madrid and he saw the work of Alaska’s and Velazquez painted pretty much in four colors, because that’s all there was. And he fell in love with Velasquez. And so he decided to start learning for color painting. And he did do that he did a number of them, but most of his paintings throughout his career were not for color. And but every time he did a self portrait every time he was in a photograph that he knew was going to be published. He had his four color palette. It turned out that was his PR gimmick. But he really wasn’t a four color painter. They just did a new book. They did all these studies, samples, et cetera, X rays of all Zorn’s work and they actually built a creative book on his palate. It’s called the technique of Anders Zorn, which is not on Amazon. It’s only available through the Zorn Museum and Maura. I have my copy on the way. I didn’t want to ship it. I mean, I didn’t want to carry it. And it’s spectacular. But anyway, he was not just a four color painter. So get over that. All right. I mean, you could do it if you want. Then we went on to our fine art trip from fine art connoisseur magazine in Stockholm and we toured Stockholm we saw privately we saw the Stockholm museum, we went to Nick Alm’s studio, we went to the studio of … is a great watercolor painter. We went behind the scenes in some museums. And then we did the same thing in Madrid we had privately privately. We were in the Prado privately. We had one full hour before the museum opened in there privately I did a selfie in the museum with the empty halls. It was amazing. The only people in there were us in the security guards. And we did the same thing. It’s sorry house. We did the same thing at a couple other museums. And we also had some private we went to this private home with one of the best collections in the world. It was really really cool. So I got to hold actually got to hold Zarn paintings in my hands. It was really a nice trip. And then after that trip, I took a week off I went to my orca I painted in my orca and had a really really terrific time. I actually in one of the books that I bought when we were in, in Spain, they were holding there were two different because it’s 100 anniversary 100th year anniversary of Zorn’s death. They had like 30 exhibitions Zorn going on in Spain and two of them that we had not planned on seeing we got to see both of them were plein air exhibition. So it had all his plein air studies, his plein air work. Some of them were little tiny studies. Some of them were he did one that was like six feet by six feet on location and he did in one hour of figures. It was just amazing to see. So I got some books and in those books, I found out the locations that he painted. So I went and found those locations in Majorca and painted his, his locations. It was really like a bucket list trip. Anyway, we’re gonna get to our guests in just a moment. Our outline, I came back from Spain, I hosted realism live. And that was really cool. It was a huge conference. Next one coming up is coming in January, it’s called watercolor live. And it’s just around the corner. It’s four days, including the essentials day or three days, if you don’t want the essentials day, but everybody does both. And it is turning out, it’s going to be the biggest one we’ve ever done bigger than even when people were daring. COVID. It is the now the largest watercolor conference in the world larger than anything in person or online. And we have some incredible masters 25 Plus masters teaching. So it’s pretty cool that after that we have the plein air convention coming up in May. It’s already so big that it’s going to be the biggest plein air convention ever. And we at this point only have 75 seats left unless we can figure something out. So that’s coming up in May and then and then what else I’ve got a trip to Japan I’m taking that’s pretty much sold out. So I can’t bite you on that. But you can go to the next thing, whatever that turns out to be. Also if you are not a subscriber to plein air magazine, we would like that if you would consider it. We have print and digital digital has 30% more content for the hundreds and 1000s of you who are listening around the world digital is good alternative because you don’t have to wait for the mail. But everybody else in the States gets both you can go to pleinairmagazine.com. Okay, come on up after the interview with Richard, I’m gonna answer your art marketing questions, you can email your questions to me at [email protected]. So Richard Sneary began painting as an artist, primarily outdoors and plein air in 2011. And after 40 years as an architectural illustrator and architect, he started drawing when he was five or six he did dogs and horses at first later cars, planes, buildings, and whatever it was, he was interested in architecture was his first love of his career and formed the foundation of his understanding of design composition, freehand drawing perspective, and the built in natural environment, as well as many other aspects of his personal and professional growth. And we’re gonna talk about that in a minute. Richard, you are an amazing, man. Welcome to the plein air podcast.
Richard Sneary 12:41
Thanks Eric Good to see again, it’s nice to see you
Eric Rhoads 12:46
you and I had a lot of time together. When you were here in Austin, one of your videos, we got to know each other pretty well during that. I asked you this question then. But I’m going to ask you this now, why are so many architects? Why have they become such great watercolor painters?
Richard Sneary 13:02
I think we’ve learned that way. when, when I was in school, I think I started noticing that, I didn’t really notice it until I was probably Junior, So and my professor that year was Curtis B singer at University of Kansas. And he’s a, one of the right arms of Frank Lloyd Wright and an extremely talented, expressive person. And he sort of started suggesting we tried to do one of our presentations in watercolor. And I think that was first time I tried it. And I thought, Oh, my God, this is tough. I did it did one, was wasn’t worth much, but it was okay. nobody else was doing any better. But, we still had a lot to learn at that point. But so I did it that time, and I didn’t really try anything like it and for quite a while, at that point, but when I got out of school and started talking with other, architecturally educated people and architects, I kept finding that they were, some of their presentation stuff would lead into washers doing things and ink washes and stuff like that in my, in my first year in design, actually, the first thing I did was an ink wash, wasn’t what I would have called a typical watercolor. But it was in a way it was just, monochromatic, grays and blacks and so on. And so, I think we were always getting opportunities to try different things that Kansas when I was there and they seem to make a habit of very,, do it and pencil do it, me do it and something else and, and I took an interest in all of that and The, I didn’t really grab onto the watercolor too much, I tried it at that junior year, and I may have tried another one or so but I don’t, don’t remember it unless it was just a wash again. And so I just, went on, got out of school and started doing, sketching and sketching illustrations for the people I worked for, usually only on things that, I was working on, because I got pretty used to the fact that they kept wanting me to do presentations for them. And when I was still a student, and working in Kansas City, in the summers, I can remember learning to use pastel and stuff like that, and we’d always be in a hurry to get things out, and they had to have everything big, then because you couldn’t get photographs quickly enough for meetings. So we would, use these new pastels, that they still sell now that are, about three inches long or so and we’d get a whole bunch of boxes, and break them in half on some of them, others would be left Hall and then others would be break into different pieces. So we had the ability to get different strokes, we take sketches that we did on an eight by 10 piece of paper, less, in some cases, blow it up at the retro dealer down the street, to four feet by six feet, or something on that order, but pretty, pretty good size, sort of work in a meeting. And then we take this pastels and just fill it in, and an hour or two at the max. And so I learned to sketch pretty quickly that way and at a big scale. And as things moved along, people wanted more and more out of me. And I started doing airbrush stuff in New York when I was there, because everybody was excited to have something that looked like an airbrush helmet to Kobe illustrate,
Eric Rhoads 17:00
you were what were you designing you were designing residential, commercial,
Richard Sneary 17:06
commercial in all these cases? So yeah. When I was in New York, where is a lot of educational stuff, because I was working for purpose, and well, at that time, north in New York and White Plains. And so I was always being asked, but I said, I told them, I said, I’ll work on the projects I’m on. If I’ve got time, I’ll work on yours outside of the office but other than that, I’m not going to bother with them. And if it’s interfering with my work, so they sort of learned at that point to either have me on their team, or wait, bide their time. So most of the architects …
Eric Rhoads 17:47
Most of the architects I’ve gotten to know, and who are who are artists, most of which are watercolor artists are extremely disciplined people. And I’m wondering, I always heard that architecture school was about the toughest thing anybody could go through equivalently tough, maybe tougher than medical school in some ways. Because of the, the hours and the demands, and, and which is trying to prepare you for the real world.
Richard Sneary 18:16
Right? What are your thoughts on that? Ah, yeah, well, that’s an experience in itself. I mean, you’re working day and night, that staying up all night trying to get projects done. And, your professors are encouraging you to do this, and see another opportunity to make a change, they’ll say you could change that you got time so we fall for that what is good advice, but the issue was, it’s, it was always it’s never too late to get the right thing done. So you’d end up staying up all night to three nights in a row. And it’s, it’s like, was a it was, you still can fix it. You still were 20 Yeah, yeah, that’s right. So part of the issue with American Society of architects, so illustrators, that originally, this American Society of architectural perspective is, which is ASAP and we always sort of made fun of that it was a great name, actually, everybody loved it. But the architects really made fun of it, because that’s the way they wanted it as soon as possible. And they were just as bad out of school as they were in school, with our professors constantly encouraging us to change. They wanted to change something in the last hour. You’re constantly trying to keep up. So yeah, it’s a pain in the neck, I was five year program. I was in it seven years.
Eric Rhoads 19:47
I’m not gonna focus too much longer on architecture, but I understand from a friend of mine, I think we probably talked about this, that the architecture schools had gone 100% CAD, and that they were finding that when people lacked drawing skills, they were not as successful in the world. And so he was telling me his daughter who is in architecture school, has to take drawing classes, life drawing classes, and is required to do a certain amount of drawing every day throughout her four year curriculum. Because they, they need to be able to sketch on a napkin with a client and say, Hey, this is what it’s going to look like. And they found that these kids didn’t have the skills, because everything was, you know, on CAD, or on an iPad, and you couldn’t always have an iPad.
Richard Sneary 20:39
Yeah, that’s true. I mean, they went to what they call the VE D program, it late 60s, through quite a bit of the 70s. So people were doing architecture getting degrees and for years, and when I went to work at the University of Kansas, that was one of the first things we started talking about was, how do we get these kids to do anything, and I told them, I said they experience in, in the profession is that you’re putting kids out there don’t know anything, that they’re not, they don’t have enough experience of what you know, design and drawing and everything else. And so we started looking at changing it and it was a matter of hours is what was the problem was they thought they could get it done in four years, like everything else was next to impossible to get it done. And five, that’s all time. So we started increasing drawing and stuff like that when I was in school it was like, we had our own art professor. He was a sculptor and a painter. He was like, an oasis in the middle of all of this highly technical stuff. And we, every time we were there twice a week, whether it’s sculpture, painting, or whatever, life drawing even. It was like a relief, it was like being in an oasis and away from everything, and your mind was freer. And you had so much fun. And I’ll never forget that it was the best part of college.
Eric Rhoads 22:14
So, you made a leap. I mean, this is a big leap, you decided one day that you were going to quit a successful career as an architect, after doing it for a lot of years, and make the leap to becoming a full time artist. What were you thinking?
Richard Sneary 22:39
Well, I’ve been through that, and 74 and 75, I went through that recession, that put more architects out of work than any other profession. My firm was one of them. And, you know, so I, I knew I had to change. And when I did that, I started teaching at University of Kansas for seven years. And then I also started illustrating quite a bit, there’s always doing a little bit of it. And, then the illustration took off. And then I quit teaching and 85. And putting all my time into illustration. And I did well at that.
Eric Rhoads 23:20
And you were illustrating buildings for architects. Right?
Richard Sneary 23:24
Right. Right. So, you know, all over the world.
Eric Rhoads 23:29
The idea was, you would do a watercolor painting or drawing of a building in its environment, which you couldn’t really get the same sense in a CAD world.
Richard Sneary 23:41
Heavens, no. I mean, it was hard enough to get it trying to get it from the architects, you had to envision it, you had to pull photos from a man, you had to go online and find stuff. Fortunately, some of this stuff is occurring … or you can find books. And so you just, you’d have to, you know, invent it.
Eric Rhoads 24:02
So you became a professional architecture illustrator, after leaving architecture as an architect, and then at some point, you made a leap into fine art.
Richard Sneary 24:15
Yeah, it was kind of a stumble. So well tell me about that. Well, I mean, another recession. So in Oh, eight, the bottom dropped out. And no one when the World Trade Center was hit, and so on at 911. Things dropped off then it scared all the developers and so things tailed off them but we’re still staying pretty busy. By the time Oh, eight hit, it dropped out for almost everybody. I was still staying busy and stayed busy till probably the end of 2010. And then I did just piecemeal stuff. People call that an end of 2000 tan, pink, I had a friend or two in illustration business that had switched over into doing plein air work or painting only Tom shower was one of them that had done it. Well, yeah, right, not too far after 911. And he started, you know, taking workshops and stuff like that and started trying to develop his style that’s pretty popular now. And other friends, stork white out of Maryland, Baltimore, he was working in a firm there, and he stayed busy up till he retired from the firm, a few years ago. But he had a firm that was providing stuff all the time, but everybody else was sort of losing work. And back at the end of 2010, I sort of decided, when I went on a trip to Italy, and Bill hook out of Seattle, then now he’s out to North Carolina, kind of arrange for a thing. So our, and our wives went there and had a great time and Civita Demone ratio and just little west and south of Oviedo in between Florence and Rome. And had a great time just painting outside and drawing and stuff like that. And, and I’ve been doing a little of that during the, the, the AASA I conferences, we would draw on paint on Saturday before the awards banquet, and then we’d bring those all in and put them up for silent auction and people had bid on them. And, that kind of stuff. And it got my interest. I like to paint it out here I like to draw out here. And I did one of Unity Temple, I sat inside there. And I was surprised nobody ran me out.
Eric Rhoads 26:56
The Unity Temple is a Frank Lloyd Wright.
Richard Sneary 27:02
You know, I sat in there and drew for two, three hours and got the watercolor done another thing and I’ve never seen the painting since then, since I put it up for auction. They, I think they set a record, but midnight on the dang thing. So I was falling in love with that. From this first time I started doing these things and 89. And then I started taking workshops. And 97 and 2001 98 2001 2005. You know, all that.
Eric Rhoads 27:39
So how important is that in the development? You have today? It’s a different world because you have things like what we do with these online conferences, you have videos, which were less available at that time. And of course workshops. So obviously, you found it helpful. Is it to somebody who’s looking at developing their career, what’s your best advice for them?
Richard Sneary 28:05
I tell them take a workshop. You know, I was in a different place. I mean, I told you I did a lot of sketching when I was a young architect, and that kind of thing. And I did quite a few sketch illustrations. But as they got better and more demanding, they demanded more of me. So they wanted more finite stuff. But so by the time I made this decision to go into plein air and 11, I was doing some pretty high end illustrations and that tons of detail and, you know, took forever to do them. I can remember a friend or so asking him to handle that take you it’s really good illustration you’ve done and said, I think I must spend 100 hours on it. … I didn’t spend that long, but I spent a long time nothing. I mean, doing a plein air thing is, it’s like, it’s a sketch and you’re like you’re cheating. But so it took me a while to make the transition from and I’m still making the transition from doing really fine. detailed illustrations to getting into being a little freer and sketchier with my plein air painting.
Eric Rhoads 29:26
let’s talk about that. Because isn’t that hard to let go of?
Richard Sneary 29:32
It is hard to let go of his you know, mentioned Stewart, why, Stewart is always sketched, in his illustration style is always in a sketch mode. So his ability to make the transition was quite a bit quicker. And he bought Eastern only watercolor Staebler when Eastern and I think it was 2009. Yeah, so yeah, that’s pretty big achievement.
Eric Rhoads 30:00
what is your best advice in terms of how to loosen up? If if, just if that’s important to you? And you’re getting too illustrative or too detailed? How do you overcome that?
Richard Sneary 30:14
Hopefully, before you finish it, or before you get started, so you know, you, you start out with an idea of what’s there if you, I think Paul Crowder and many people, and I’ve done it and a lot, but not so much as Paul does, and a few others are doing little studies, first little thumbnails and stuff like that, to kind of get your focus on where it is. But I’m pretty good when I’m paying attention at getting a focus on something and seeing what I want, I tend to like things that are complex, the issue is usually trying to make them simpler, and, trying to do everything in detail is kind of insane, people would say, well, you’re still doing it. But I’m not really I’m really loosened up from where I was when I started. And, I can get quite detailed, but I usually try to keep it in the area focal area, and I’ve tried to the washes I put on are usually pretty mixed, pretty interesting mixtures of various colors and tones and cools and warms and so on, depending on what it is I’m painting. And I try to keep that loose to a degree. And the more I can feel like it’s a sketch when I’m done with some articulation, the better off I feel. And you’ve got to keep practicing it. I can’t say that I practice nearly as much as people younger than I am. Because, I get tired, you know, a little easier.
Eric Rhoads 31:50
Oh, stop. I don’t want to hear this.
Richard Sneary 31:54
It’s kind of like, when when you’re a kid, you’re playing baseball one time, then you’re playing football, and the next time you’re playing basketball, you like the variety, I like variety. So when I get done with this at the end of the year, I take it easy to a degree. So and when I did
Eric Rhoads 32:10
So you said you do a thumbnail sketch but when you’re doing your plein air paintings, or you’re going directly brush to canvas or brush to paper, you’re not sketching things in
Richard Sneary 32:21
Yeah. It’s a slight lines and most everything you can see of mine, you can some of them come through strongly and you know others you can’t tell there’s a line there. Just depends on how I’m painting, how much value and all that kind of stuff.
Eric Rhoads 32:38
But you have an aha moment when you started going outside more and realize that things were different.
Richard Sneary 32:46
Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I mean, as soon as I started doing that, at our conventions, I started realizing how much I saw color. And how much more relaxed I was while I was painting and drawing. I wasn’t over a desk trying to worry about it. I was outside try doing. It was like, even if I didn’t do well. You know if I didn’t like it when I was done. I had a great time. Yeah. I sit at a desk and work all the time. I have a hell of a headache at the end of the day. Hardly ever do that from outside.
Eric Rhoads 33:20
you use you started out doing sketching, you did some pastels, you ended up doing watercolor. But you’ve stuck with this medium. I assume you’re not doing other mediums, right?
Richard Sneary 33:32
Yeah, I mean, you know, once I started doing the watercolors that probably started in the 80s, I started getting a feel for them. And it’s an illustrator and there’s so much to learn with them. They’re just with every kind of painting. But watercolor is a particular characteristic that it’s hard to match and anything else.
Eric Rhoads 33:56
Well, you talked about playing football and basketball than some other sport. And I find personally as a painter that I get bored. And but I don’t just get bored with subject matter. I get bored with mediums. And so, you know, I painted oil for the last 20 years when I started painting. And I the first I ever did was watercolor as a kid but I didn’t pick that up. Now what I’m finding is a lot of lot of the the greats, I was just over in Spain and Sorolla and Zorn were both watercolor painters. Sargent was a watercolor painter. And and they did everything they did they did well. And part of the struggle that I think I’ve been going through, it’s hard enough to do one medium well, let alone two. But what I discovered through this journey is by taking up watercolor it’s actually making me a better oil painter.
Richard Sneary 35:02
My ex wife says the same thing. She’s still an excellent watercolors but, she started taking up oil paintings. I suppose if I was a little younger, I might give it a try. But, you know, if there’s some little thing going on, we’re a bunch of people, trying to paint the same painting, join in and…
Eric Rhoads 35:25
trying to convert you. I’m just curious about you know, you do have a lot of people doing multiple mediums. And I think that’s, I think that’s cool. As I mentioned to you before the broadcast, I’ve been copying Anders Zorn, after seeing Zorn and then … in Sweden. I was so blown away by these watercolors, I thought I gotta figure out how to do this stuff. And, and a lot of a lot of what I learned on watercolor live has stuck and come through. And I’ve been able to do it, but I’m really enjoying the switch. I still paint in oil, and pastel and everything else. But I am also really enjoying just the variety, I think one informs the other. So there are things that you do in watercolor that you don’t do an oil. For instance, the the thing that I find the most difficult in watercolor guys, like you must have to have very special brains. Because you have to anticipate where the highlights and the light spots are going to be because you got to not paint over those. All right, and I’m used to adding paint, you know, adding paint on top of paint. And though you can do that in watercolor with some whites, it’s not quite the same. So I think, in some ways, watercolor, is it? I think it’s a harder medium. In some ways, I probably get the bad emails about that.
Richard Sneary 36:53
Well, yeah, it isn’t easy, that’s for sure and work backwards doing it, you know, not always, but quite a bit, it will work backwards, working from light to dark, and you can kind of switch it around a little bit depending on what the subject is. But yeah, I think getting people started though, when I was teaching drawing and stuff in the architectural department, I always tried to get them to see form first see simple shapes, and so on. And so if we’re not, I used to drag the students out to sort of get a feel they’re on campus of, so they could see the buildings and sell them, just focus on the buildings and the perspective of it and try to, make it feel like you’re right there and keep your eye level, realistic on it. And try to draw the buildings then worry about the entourage that’s there. Yeah, as usually they’re trying to learn to draw architecture so you keep it pretty simple for them and you keep it in block form. When I do a workshop, I usually try to get him to focus on simple washes, simple subjects and nothing like I normally do, BOSU demos that might be complex.
Eric Rhoads 38:11
What inspires you?
Richard Sneary 38:15
Well, light like everybody, but the shapes usually it’s the shapes. Contrast, and and sometimes it’s a subject matter just what’s going on, is it a harbor? Is it? Are you in a forest? You know, what is it that appealed to you? Why are you there? And, sometimes when you’re doing these plein air events, you sort of having a territory, and you may look around for a day and not find anything and, in actuality, you probably walk past 1000 things you could have done, you sort of just have to get yourself focused on finding simple subjects and not necessarily be fantasizing about the subject.
Eric Rhoads 38:56
do have that disease where you’ll drive around for three or four hours trying to find ways to spot?
Richard Sneary 39:02
Yeah, that’s tough. So but yeah, you just, you try to keep it simple. Try to visualize what you’re going to see. And, I’m looking usually for shape contrast and that kind of thing. So, without those, I’m not going to have much of anything. Yeah, so asked us all about light.
Eric Rhoads 39:22
I was painting with we were out looking for a place to paint one day with CW Mundy and he said, there’s not three values. I’m not going to do a painting. He couldn’t find three values. It was just a compressed gray day.
Richard Sneary 39:36
He can paint fine with a couple of values.
Eric Rhoads 39:38
He can paint fine. So can you so you’re doing a lot of plein air events. That’s really hard. It is. How many events are you doing a year?
Richard Sneary 39:49
I think I did 11 or 12 last year
Eric Rhoads 39:53
how do you do that? I mean, you’re never home. You told me off camera that you were gone a month and a half.
Richard Sneary 39:59
Yeah. I was gone from early September to the end of October. Why do you do it? Well, there’s three good ones in a row. And but I love doing it. First of all my friends are painting, there is quite a few of these. I’m painting around some of the best people in the country. And I get to paint. And why shouldn’t I?
Eric Rhoads 40:24
You know, yeah, but you can paint at home.
Richard Sneary 40:28
But not like that. Yeah. So it’s not the same.
Eric Rhoads 40:31
I mean, you told me that being around other people inspires you.
Richard Sneary 40:36
I mean, you know, you learn from other people, as you know, about playing basketball, all that sort of stuff. Everybody likes games, but when you’re trying to learn a sport or something like that, it’s a game, you’re, you’re having a good time. But if you don’t like it, you’re not going to play it again. So when I found the things I liked, I tried to play them with people that could play. And so the more I learned, so, yeah, I learned a lot from the oil painters past stylist, watercolorist. It’s great fun, I learned something new every day. And, this isn’t about winning things. It’s about learning. It’s attitude. If you’re, if you’re going to want to do this, and you think it’s a great way to make a living, the first thing I’d say to you is, stop thinking about it His way of making a living, that’s the worst thing you can do. The best thing you can do is think about it about something to learn, see if you can do it, and be persistent about it. And in try if you don’t do well, one day, do it again the next day?
Eric Rhoads 41:55
Well, I gotta tell you that I would paint outdoors any day of my life, if I could, yep. But when there are other people around, it’s so much more fun. Now there are times when some other people, all they want to do is talk and then you just want to say go off and go go to that tree way down there far, far away and touch that tree. Because sometimes you want to concentrate. Yeah, but being with other people is so much fun. Is there an etiquette of plein air painting in that regard?
Richard Sneary 42:35
you sort of learned that, certain people really focus and can’t, be diverted very much from it. Others are quite capable of talking while they’re painting, but almost everybody wants you get into a zone of, and focus on what you’re doing. And, it’s going somewhere, your, it’s going to be a little hard for you to be talking about it. But, most of the time, you can kind of make sense as you’re talking and what you’re doing and what they’re doing. And, every once in a while we’ll stop and go over and look at the person and they’ll say, ask a question or two about what they’re doing because they’re confused or something or I’ll do the same, they’ve come over and, so you’re exchanging things all the time. But ever let what was a certain point where you, you just say to somebody, especially if you’re at workshop, and so there’s going to be a point here, I probably not going to make much sense.
Eric Rhoads 43:36
When do you know it’s time to sell out on a painting and start over?
Richard Sneary 43:39
Oh, God, usually I know, pretty early. So I’ve got a ton of paintings that are halfway along. But there’s a lot of them
Eric Rhoads 43:48
that I should have probably don’t have enough time anyway.
Richard Sneary 43:51
So I think okay, this is this is okay, it’s time to quit move somewhere else because we’ve got to be somewhere else here. But the by the afternoon, and so I’ll put it aside and if I don’t get back to that place again the next day, I’ll take it home and look at it a bit and see if I can do something at home.
Eric Rhoads 44:11
Monet said seven minutes slight changes every seven minutes. Others say it changes every two hours. What do you what kind of a window do you try to give yourself?
Richard Sneary 44:22
It depends on my brain. Yeah, if I’m remembering the light, I can keep it but if I’m not, I can go a couple hours that it’s time. You just can’t chase it. You know, unless you’ve got to really set in your mind what it’s going to be.
Eric Rhoads 44:46
Yeah, well, there are those days when you’re fun. There are those days when you’re painting and you have you know things are going really well but you’re not just completely in love with it and all of a sudden the clouds are the light That’s something and you go, Ah, I gotta lock that in. You ever move direction?
Richard Sneary 45:05
Yeah, yeah, I have. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but it’s not a good idea. But every once in a while you find something changes. And you say, actually, I could think I can make that work.
Eric Rhoads 45:18
Hey talk to me about embracing the struggle.
Richard Sneary 45:26
Don’t look at it as a struggle, I guess, look at as looking as playing a game. Have fun with it. It’s not a struggle. It’s a struggle to get it where you want. And, if you’re persistent about what you and observant about what’s in front of you, you can find ways to represent it. It’s easy. Most people won’t say this. But it’s easy to learn to draw something in its approximate proportions. And that’s a mechanical thing. But it takes a long time to learn how to do that. But then when you try to move that into combinations of colors, rhythms and patterns, you’ve got to be looking at it all the time. Is this color work with this one is it there’s too much warmth here with warmth? So it’s time that is it need to be cooler or whatever, is your brain starts working in that way that as you put down color you see, you see what works and what doesn’t work, and the better the long more experience you get at it, the more you know, ahead of time a little bit about what it’s going to do. And, I have a lot of fun with ones that are just kind of half done sometimes. But you just have to be persistent.
Eric Rhoads 46:53
You ever let a painting sit?
Richard Sneary 46:57
yeah. Yeah, there’s several sitting around right now.
Eric Rhoads 47:02
I mean, this is something you’ll let Oh, yeah.
Richard Sneary 47:05
Let’s see, where’s there’s one I’ve got here. I could probably show you but nobody else could see it was I hold it in the right place. But when I did an Eastern well, not an Eastern it was a subject I did an eastern US several years ago. And it was a tractor at a farm old farm and it was under an old elm tree that was still a perfect specimen out and but I started focus on the tractor. So when I came home with that, that tractor is really pretty nice. So I decided to take up, Tom forgot Tom’s last name at the moment and right, he had started doing watercolors on Aqua board. And so I had some and I thought I tried on that. And so it’s been sitting here for, I don’t know, five years, probably maybe longer. It’s almost done. I think I’m gonna try to finish with this one. But it looks pretty good. So, I haven’t given it up. I just thought, Well, I’m not that big a fan of the Aqua board. But this particular time, it was working pretty good. So I got it set near I had it out the other day and looking at it and I want to finish this this winter before it start on the road again.
Eric Rhoads 48:24
I want to ask you a tough question. It’s not that tough. Plein Air painting is a hassle. You’re dealing with the elements, you have to you have to make a point you can’t just walk into your studio and pick up a brush and something it’s already sitting on your easel you got to go out, you got to set up. Sometimes you’re working on the same piece, you got to go set up the same piece in the same scene at the same time today. It takes a lot of effort. Why bother? Yeah, how much percentage of your painting life do you spend painting outdoors versus painting indoors? Oh, yeah. And what is and then the rest of the question is, what’s your best pitch to the people who don’t do it? Why they should consider it?
Richard Sneary 49:16
Oh, well, yeah, the best pitches, only thing I can tell them is if you want to see color, the way that you can go outside, paint things in real life. Don’t work from a photograph. photograph is sent. If you’re even if you’re painting inside, paint the junk on your table. See if you can see the color the way it is the shapes, the shadows and so on. And focus on that. Not on the photos. It’s always good to remember something if you if you haven’t, if you’re not there anymore to have a photo of it, but you really miss a lot. If you aren’t there, if it isn’t there in front of you, you can fudge it and move things around and all that stuff, but the color and the shapes and the contrasts, they’re all there in front of you, and you can’t get a better sample of that than being there, doing nudes and stuff, you have a set light and so on. And, the light changes to a degree in a studio, but it’s pretty set. You’re still painting in, in real life. And, the colors are there in front of you. You just have to learn to see colors and what they do with regard to what we’re focused on.
Eric Rhoads 50:49
Yeah, even if you’re doing a still life with flowers.
Richard Sneary 50:52
Yeah. I mean, you know, CW has all kinds of ranges with what he does. If he’s painting something outdoors, can be practically abstract. And he’s painting still life. It looks like a photograph. Yeah, yeah. It’s still abstract. It Yeah, in a way, but you could, there’s a big difference, you can tell us outside what he does inside. Still life anyway.
Eric Rhoads 51:21
You teach a lot of people, you have a lot of people who follow you. I love to ask people like you if you have anything special that you like to share with people about plein air painting or tips on painting? You have anything that comes to mind?
Richard Sneary 51:38
Oh, geez.
Eric Rhoads 51:43
I know, I should have prepared you for that question.
Richard Sneary 51:47
Well, I mean, I think I’ve said several other things. I mean, it really, if you haven’t painted outside, you’re missing a great opportunity to experience what it’s like, and find a good place, find, find a place where it’s shady, there’s a little breeze and you’re like what’s in front of you? And just sit there so you’re gonna eat an apple or whatever. And, draw. Have fun doing it. Yeah. And if it turns from a drawing to a painting, great. And if you’re all done, you like it, do it again. It’s good to get it gets. It’s, it’s always a pleasure to do it. Yeah, it’s, there’s no better way to spend a day in terms of an artist than to be in a place where you can paint what’s in front of you, whether you make changes to it or not, it’s peaceful. It’s spiritual. You find your brain getting into that, and relaxing, and learning as you go. And the best thing that can happen is you learn something new every day. And, at the end of the day, if you’ve got a good painting, wow, that’s pretty good.
Eric Rhoads 53:17
I had a bad day, the other day. It was like, on the scale of bad days, it was an eight out of 10. And I was super stressed. And I, I grabbed my easel. And I set it up. And I didn’t want to do it, but I had to get away, right? I had to get my brain away from it. And I’m painting for five, six minutes, and all of a sudden, I had completely forgotten about what was stressing me out and I got a couple hours of peace. And it just … you talked about that ability to escape and, and to and to have that meditative effect.
Richard Sneary 54:03
That’s, that’s right. I was gonna say it’s really meditative.
Eric Rhoads 54:07
The big debate among some is okay, you got to begin or you have a lot of people who have never painted in their life before who are listening to this. We are seeing 20 30% people showing up at things like the plein air convention, fall, color week, etc. who have never painted before. And they’re going they’re saying, Okay, I’m gonna go there and learn. If you had a brand new person who’s never painted before. Are you going to teach him to paint in the studio? Are you going to teach him to paint outside is is it better to say okay, learn how to mix color and do all that stuff inside? Or is it better to start from scratch from the outside?
Richard Sneary 54:53
I think you can do it anywhere. But, I teach my grandkids when they were growing up and gave him a chance, I didn’t really try teaching them, I’d show him a few things, but I would go downstairs, but Christmas or whatever Thanksgiving and, give them some paper and some paints and let them do what they wanted to do. And then I just tried to show them what the water in the color mixed on paper wood, do, that they didn’t have to make anything they could do, they could make puddles, and just drop paint in and see what it does. But, you want to keep it pretty simple. So it’s kind of fun, that’s what I would do, even if they were outside, conventions and that kind of stuff, it’s like, you’re definitely going to have a bunch of people that haven’t tried this before. But, try to get them to pick something simple. And, just learn how to mix the, the water and the shapes together. And, see how the paint works. Don’t worry about it any further than that. It’s like, you’re not going to make a masterpiece, nine times out of 10.
Eric Rhoads 56:07
Most of us won’t make a masterpiece in our lifetime.
Richard Sneary 56:12
I mean, so we do worry about, it’ll happen if it’s going to happen. But other than that, the worst thing you can do is stress about it. So, and I’ve learned out all about that with architecture and architectural illustrations. It doesn’t help you at any at all. Yeah, it’s your persistence and, your intent to try to do the best you can, and learning as you go. And you just, when you’re at this point of a situation, and you’re learning to paint, this is fun. This is like you’re in kindergarten again.
Eric Rhoads 56:53
It’s really interesting to see your life because you have you kind of picked up this plein air circuit a little later in life, and you’re going out and you’re working like a madman. I mean, 11 events in a year is almost unheard of, for anybody. And to do that, that much work and that many events, but you’re having the time of your life. I mean, you’re hanging out with your friends, you’re with them a week or two at a time. You’re painting with them. You’re outdoors painting you’re painting in interesting places, you’re not getting to paint. And, you also get lucky and make a sale here and there, which doesn’t hurt, win an award. That’s pretty cool life. And I’m a little jealous of that.
Richard Sneary 57:41
Oh, get out there. You can come with us. Just apply. There’s a nice, there’s a nice one not too far for him.
Eric Rhoads 57:49
Yeah, well, I need to do that, I guess. So anyway, you’re richer than the things in the Adirondacks and all that. So I know I do two or three times a year where I can really get out. We had a great time in Cuba. So we had a really great time.
Richard Sneary 58:09
some of us painted well, some of us didn’t. … So we had a great time. You and I were painting together when we were there at the Cathedral and elsewhere that Yeah, I think we talked a little bit. But most of the time, we’re trying to figure out how to do those curves and arches and everything else.
Eric Rhoads 58:31
All those women were coming up to us in their costumes with their cigars.
Richard Sneary 58:36
Oh, goodness. That’s right. Some of us painted them.
Eric Rhoads 58:40
That’s absolutely right. Well, Richard, this has been a delight. I want to acknowledge you, you are a true inspiration to our world. I can’t use the word industry. Because we’re not an industry. I don’t want to say that we are but you are an inspiration to a lot of us. You’re doing incredible work. Your work is getting better and better. It’s just amazing to see, you just keep I didn’t think you could get better and then you just keep getting better. So thanks for the inspiration. Thanks for being on the plein air podcast. And we will see you out there.
Richard Sneary 59:19
Well, thank you for doing this because it means a big, big amount to all of us. Yeah. The fact that you push us all the time has made a big difference, I think.
Eric Rhoads 59:28
Well, that’s very sweet. Okay, let’s see. Yeah. All right. Our guest today is Richard Sneary and you can find him at RichardSneary.com. Richard again, thank you so much. Okay, it’s time to go to the art marketing minute.
Announcer 59:46
This is the marketing minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the number one Amazon bestseller, “make more money selling your art: proven techniques to turn your passion into profit.”
Eric Rhoads 59:59
Okay, So we have a thing here. I don’t see the questions. I don’t prepare the questions. I am taking this off the top of my head, so I may completely blow it. But I’m basing this on a lifetime of experience in marketing, not necessarily all art marketing, but a lot of marketing. You could send your questions to meet [email protected]. Which by the way, artmarketing.com has a lot of really great stuff on it for free. Or you can come onto the podcast sometime and ask your questions, but just send a note to us, [email protected]. First question comes from Marine Shelton Wallace in Tennessee. And the question is, how do you know how to price your paintings? How do you know how to price your paintings and not price oneself too cheap? Well, pricing is the most it’s the biggest question I get, I get literally hundreds of questions about pricing all the time, nobody knows how to do pricing. And pricing is all emotion of very little logic. And the reason for that is that art is not something that is easy to compare to. I mean, it’s it’s easy to say, Okay, there’s a difference between a Volkswagen and a Honda, and a Rolls Royce and a Bentley and Lamborghini, and so on. There’s a difference. But a lot of that is actually psychological. I mean, what why is one car $30,000 And another car is $130,000. And another one is $600,000. At some point, there’s not that much better car under the hood, or that much better paint job. As a matter of fact, I heard a statistic this is probably dated, I know it’s dated. But at the time I heard this statistic a BMW seven series was selling for, I don’t know, let’s say $100,000. And a Bentley was selling for 250. And this the Bentley, the body and the chassis are very, very close to the same. And there was only at the time and $18,000 difference between manufacturing the BMW and the Bentley, made by the same company, yet one was twice or three times the price. Why is that? Well, Bentley is about status. I was looking at cars, it’s like a giant picture frame around you. Some people identify a you know, with a gold frame, other people identify with a, you know, no frame. So pricing is emotional, it’s about status. But it’s also there is some measurable quality, especially in a world of realism. In the abstract world, there’s, it’s hard to measure quality, because it’s all about pure creativity, where as you can tell if someone is good at drawing are good at painting. And of course, there’s a lot of different styles and what you love is going to resonate with you in a different way. But ultimately, there is a little bit of measurability, but not a lot because you have seen paintings and I’ve seen paintings, and I won’t mention names. But you’ve seen paintings a year ago, how did that person get so famous because their paintings don’t, to me don’t seem very wonderful. And yet people are spending big money on him. We have we see that all the time. I had an argument with not an argument. I had a discussion with an art gallery I was in and I went into the gallerist I was invited in and I said they said well, okay, what about pricing? I said, I would like to be the most expensive artist in the gallery. And they said, but you’re not the best artists in the gallery. I said who’s to say? And they said, Well, we don’t think you’re the best artists in the gallery are good, but you’re not great. I said, Well, I get that but someone is going to walk into that gallery who doesn’t know the difference? Who sees something that emotionally resonates with them and they’re gonna go, I want that. And if that person happens to be somebody who doesn’t have any price sensitivity than that, it really doesn’t matter. Now, they’re the things that you can do to elevate your price. Our branding, branding elevates your price if you are TL and Lawson You can get a whole lot more money for your paintings typically than I could Right, because everybody knows he’s a brilliant painter, everybody knows his work sells for big money, everybody knows that this guy is at the top of the game. And a lot of that happens over time, because of doing a lot of shows, developing his work. And also galleries and others advertising the work and branding the work and so on. Well, Lee, that’s not a word, he deserves it well. But there are people out there who can simply advertise their work and increase their prices, because people recognize their name. And when you’re in a situation and you have painting a and you have painting B and you have one who is not known, and one who is known and you like equally, the two paintings, you’re likely to choose the one that you know, because it’s like, when you go into a store, and you could buy a t shirt with no logo on it, for the same price as a t shirt with a logo on it, and you happen to identify with that brand. You’re sometimes you feel a little weird buying something without a logo on it. I’m the opposite. I don’t like to wear logos. I don’t like to advertise other people’s stuff with my money. But anyway, that works. So how do you price your work? Well, first off, when you’re starting out, you’ve got to get a feel for it, you just got to get used to selling work. And the environment has everything to do with the price that you’re gonna get, you’re not likely this is I can’t say this is totally true, but you’re not likely to get a 10,000 or $20,000 price for an eight by 10 or 2016 by 20 painting until you’ve got your brand developed or until you’re in a gallery that is selling other 16 or $20,000 painters. If you’re in your put at doing an art show in the local art center, everything in those in that environment is likely priced low. So, you might see some $50 paintings or $300 paintings. And if people are coming in there for Christmas sale, some people who don’t know the artists are going to just pick something they like, and they’re going to pick something that’s priced within their range. Other people are gonna go, Hey, I have no problem paying 350 or $1,000, or whatever it is. But when you start getting into the bigger money than other things factor in so if you’re like, just starting out, just start showing your work somewhere. And what I used to do is I just say to people, make me an offer. And the reason I did that is because I wanted to know what the market would bear. And while some people would come in and make me an offer of $50. And I’d take it and some people would come in and make me an offer $500 And I’d take it and sometimes I I’d say you know, that’s probably not enough. I was out painting in Banff and Lake Louise one day a guy came up to me and he said, So how long? Did it take you to do that painting? And I knew exactly where it was going. And I said, well, two hours and 20 years. He said What do you mean? I said 20 years to learn how to do it in two hours. And he said, Oh, okay. And he said, What would you take for that painting? I said, Well, I don’t really feel like I want to sell it because I’ll take it back. I want to keep it it’s a memory but I’ll take it back frame it, probably send it to my gallery, they’re gonna sell it for quite a bit of money. But, he says Well, would you take $50 for it, I said, Thank you know, but to him $50 was probably a lot of money. So you got to be really sensitive to those things. But, I think just experiment. If you read books on pricing, one of the things that they talk about is that you keep raising your prices until things don’t sell and when they don’t sell then you’re back off one step and that kind of determines your pricing TV companies do that all the time. So I think you just got to hit and miss try a lot of different things. There’s not an exact formula but if you want to sell things and advertise them brand yourself and do it over time, it doesn’t happen overnight. People don’t see everything every time you got to be out there. And environment makes a big difference. If you’re selling at a flea market, it’s a whole lot different environment than if you’re selling at the Palm Beach art show right? Is somebody who walked into the Palm Beach art show drop a quarter of a million dollars and not bat an eye where somebody might bat an eye spin and 20 at the flea market so environment makes big difference. brand makes a huge difference.
Okay, next question. We have had a lot of questions from people about AI. So we don’t have a specific person on this AI to help your marketing, how can AI help your business? Which AI software tool should I try? Well, first, let me just say this. A lot of people are coming out against AI, a lot of people think it’s terrible thing, that it’s gonna ruin the world, that it’s copying and stealing your stuff. And there are a lot of lawsuits flying around, and there’s gonna be a lot more of that before it all settles out. The same kind of thing happened when Macintosh first came out, and Photoshop first came out and the laser printer first came out, this is gonna be the death of graphic design. And, in some ways it was because a lot of people could do their own, but it just changed things it didn’t, it wasn’t necessarily the death of the reality is you can go into a program called mid journey, which I use all the time I use it pretty much every day, mid journey, I went into mid journey, and I said, I would like you to generate an image of two women standing by a lake with a mountain in the background, fall leaves on the ground and fall color. I would like them dressed in 1950s outfits. And I would like it to be in the style of paint by number. And it spit out four images. I didn’t like them. So it’s been up for more informed, more informed more, and I picked one and I used it to promote fall color week. perfectly legal, perfectly able to do that. And it was it was almost perfect. Sometimes they’re not almost perfect, but it’s getting better and better. In terms of ways to do it. There are AI programs now that you can use to build your social media. The key to all AI is what they call the prompt. And the prompt means that how you ask the question is how you is going to give you the right response. If you say, give me an image of two women painting by a lake. That’s one thing if I give them more specific instructions, and that’s another, so I use AI on a lot of different things. First off, I use AI to write things for me. If I have a long presentation I need to create, I’ll go into AI and I’ll say build me a presentation and I want a heading over each paragraph and I want 10 paragraphs. And I want 10 steps towards this particular thing and write it for me. And you know 80 percent of the time it’s like really, really good. Sometimes it’s not. And so you can use things like that for preparing presentations, you can actually use them to build slides. Now you can use them to build video. There are programs that you can use to build out your social media, I have gone in and said okay, this is the message I want to send build me 15 social media posts. And then it’ll give me ideas for images, it’ll, it’ll build the social media posts, and then it’ll give me ideas for images, then I go into another AI program like majority mid journey, I’ll say, build me this image. I have not yet figured out how to build my own image into those images. But it’s coming AI has that capability. I did get very close with mid journey. And so there’s a lot of things, I use a chat GPT I have a membership, I use my journey. I am really in love with one called barred by Google that was really, really terrific. And again, there’s API’s for a lot of different things, we have AI programs that work with some of our software. So if somebody’s buying a video, that, that ai ai will say, Oh, you bought a portrait video, here are three other portrait videos you might like. So it’s a recommendation engine, this is changing the world, it’s changing marketing, it’s gonna get to a point where it’s going to be really, really, really a good tool, and it’s already pretty good. I probably save all right now I probably save 10 hours a week using AI that’s 10 hours that I’m getting back to use for other things. And I can see coming to a point where it’s going to save me 50% of my time. You can even say build me a calendar to do this to do that. Schedule this I mean, you can use it for almost anything it’s going to get to a point where it’s going to become very valuable. So you could you could do it say build me an ad, use this image and build me an ad concept. Give me 13 headlines. I went through I wanted to chat GPT He, and I needed some quotes for social media. So I said go to my, my daily show on YouTube, art marketing, I mean art school alive, and go in there and pull 50 quotes from that. And it did. And I had them in three minutes. And then I said, Okay, go into my blog, send a coffee, and pull 50 quotes from that, and put my name at the end. And it did. And so I was able to use those in social media. And then you can use AI to import them into Canva. And Canva will create images at Canva has AI now, so there’s a lot of different things you can use. So I know it’s not specific. It’s very random, but it’s going to change things. The all things change all the time. And change is good. It’s beautiful. It’s nothing to be frightened of. is AI going to take over the world and eliminate human beings? Well, some people think so. And if so, it’s been nice knowing you. Okay, that’s the art marketing minute. I’m Eric Rhoads. I hope it helps you.
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Hey, thanks for your tolerance today and listening. I want to thank Richard Sneary. It’s been really terrific. He’s a great painter. Check out watercolor live, you would really like it watercolorlive.com Check out the plein air convention – pleinairconvention.com. And if you’re not a subscriber to plein air magazine, you will like it. It really is really, really terrific. It’s the originals. 20 years old art to believe. Wow. If you’ve not seen my blog where I talked about life and things, Sunday coffee, it’s just go to Coffeewitheric.com and check it out. And I’m also on the air daily on Facebook on art school live. We have millions of views. It’s been really cool. It’s there every week, day. 12 noon Eastern subscribe on YouTube. Just go to YouTube and look for art school live for me. And then follow me Eric Rhoads @EricRhoads on Instagram and Facebook. That’s me, Eric, publisher of find out fine art connoisseur and plein air magazines. And we’ve got a ton of great newsletters too that are free for you. So check them out. Thanks again. Remember, it’s a big world out there. Go paint it. Bye bye.
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