Welcome to the PleinAir Podcast with Eric Rhoads – rated the #1 painting podcast in Feedspot’s 2021 list. In this episode Eric interviews plein air and studio painter John Michael Carter on realism in art, the process of learning and finding one’s voice, and painting elements such as composition and focal points, and more.
Bonus! In this week’s Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads, author of Make More Money Selling Your Art, answers the questions, “How do I get full mileage out of a social media campaign?” and “What are some ways I can start teaching art to a specific demographic?”
Listen to the PleinAir Podcast with Eric Rhoads and John Michael Carter here:
Related Links:
– John Michael Carter online: http://johnmichaelcarter.com/
– Plein Air Live: http://pleinairlive.com/
– Plein Air Convention & Expo: https://pleinairconvention.com/
– Eric Rhoads on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericrhoads/
– Eric Rhoads on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eric.rhoads
– Sunday Coffee: https://coffeewitheric.com/
– Plein Air Salon: https://pleinairsalon.com/
FULL TRANSCRIPT of this PleinAir Podcast
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the PleinAir Podcast. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.
Eric Rhoads 0:00
This is the Plein Air Podcast episode number 204. And today we’re featuring an amazing artist John Michael Carter.
Announcer 0:20
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 0:57
Well, thank you Jim Kipping. And welcome to the Plein Air Podcast everybody the plein air podcast, big news. Big news. The plein air podcast has been rated the number one painting podcasts in the world by feedspot in their 2021 Top 15 ranking of podcasts lists, so thank you for making that happen. Sharing the plein air podcast with your friends. It is really cool. We love it when things like that happen. It makes us feel good. We just wrapped up Watercolor Live. So now I’m also a watercolor artist. That’s pretty cool. It turned out to be the largest art conference in the history of art with attendees from 40 countries. And I just want to thank everybody who attended that a lot of you told me you heard about it from the plein air podcast. So that’s pretty cool. We’re going to be doing it again next year about this time next year. You can sign up now at watercolor live we only have one artist that we have to maybe a couple artists we have to announce you can check them out at watercolorlive.com We also announced the world class lineup for the second annual Plein Air Live which is our virtual art conference for plein air it’s taking place this April about April 15. Tax Day. And this is the time to get your tickets before the price increase. The faculty includes joma girl Kathleen Dunphy, Don Demers, Kevin MacPherson, Lori Putnam and many many, many, many more. Go check it out, go to pleinairlive.com. And if you did not ever go to it, a lot of people said Well, I’m not going to go to that because I’m not used to the whole virtual thing. Well, I think you’re all used to that now. We also are going to be doing the Plein Air Convention. I had questions. Are you doing plein air live? Because you’re not doing the convention? No, the answer to that is no. You see what happened is a lot of people told us they couldn’t attend a live in person invention convention either because of their personal situations or health, etc. And so we decided we’re going to keep it going no matter what. So a lot of people are going to be coming. As a matter of fact, we already have over 400 people signed up. And we just literally just announced it. So it’s pretty cool. One woman said to me, You know, I really appreciate you doing this because she said I’m wheelchair bound, and I can’t leave my house. And this is a way I can, I can do this. And I think that’s really cool. So we’re gonna keep doing it. If you want to go to the plein air convention, though we’re having it and assuming we’re going to be able to hold it. You sign up before Valentine’s Day, you can save $500 and of course, grab your seat get the lower discount if we have to cancel it or postpone it or move it or something. You’ll have the option of getting your money back if you want to. But that’s a good thing to do. And quite frankly, I do both because it’s not the same faculty and it’s a different experience entirely, and you will enjoy it go to pleinairconvention.com. Also in the current issue of Plein Air Magazine, which is the number one selling art magazine in America according to Barnes and Noble. In the elements column, we feature an article on the unlimited possibilities of a limited palette that’s kind of fun to see. Also in this week’s Plein Air Today newsletter which you should be getting for free. You can get it at outdoorpainter.com, we will have a day by day recap of the exciting sessions from watercolor live. It was really a lot of fun. We had lots of fun. We’re doing a lot of dancing, which is kind of weird, but seeing me dance that’s really weird. Anyway, coming up after the interview, I’m going to be answering your art marketing questions in the Art Marketing Minute. But first let’s get right to our interview with landscape and figurative artist. John Michael Carter, John Michael Carter. Welcome to the plein air podcast.
John Michael Carter 4:37
Thank you Eric. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation
Eric Rhoads 4:40
I have to you know you’re a legend and what a what a brilliant painter you are. And I thought that it would be fun to get a little get to know the legend a little bit more.
John Michael Carter 4:51
Well, I will try to open up and give out some of my artistic secrets. All right.
Eric Rhoads 4:59
We like secrets we like, we always want to learn secrets, it seems even though they’re probably aren’t done. So, John, how did this all begin for you? How did you end up as a full time artist,
John Michael Carter 5:14
I actually grew up in a family in which both my mother and father were quite talented artists, my father actually would fit with a creative director for an advertising agency, here in Louisville, Kentucky. And so, I grew up in an atmosphere of meeting illustrators, and, you know, art related people all my life. And, of course, both my mother and father painted, so I was accustomed to seeing work that they had done. So it just seemed a natural direction for me to go, because I also had some natural talents in terms of being able to see form and judge proportions, that sort of thing, you know, the basic necessities for learning to draw that sort of, I never had to deal with that situation as a young person where, you know, your parents are saying you want to be what do you think you can make a living from that they, they were always pretty supportive of me going into art as I got older?
Eric Rhoads 6:22
How would that be? I mean, that’s, that’s pretty rare. So it’s, it’s a wonderful thing. So let’s talk about that, that talent issue, because I run into this all the time, you know, people walk up to me when I’m outdoors painting, and they’ll, they’ll say, I wish I could do this, but I can’t even draw a stick figure, I don’t have any talent. And I always say to him, Look, you anybody can learn this, that you can become a proficient painter. If you just if you just apply yourself and sometimes thinking that talent is about the tenacity of applying yourself and keeping at it until you learn. But what about talent? Do you believe that there is, is something more there that some people have? Is it? Or is it more about just applying themselves and working harder at it?
John Michael Carter 7:09
I think when we talk about natural talent, once again, it’s just some people have a little more natural ability to do those things make those decisions that allow us to draw accurately, that sort of thing. I think you know, those people who come up to you while you’re painting someplace and say, Oh, I wish I could do that. But I have no ability or whatever. I think they have a misconception about what what they think painting is or the creation of a painting is and and that that what they don’t understand is how to experience the world artistically. And then be able to translate that into the world of paint and, and value and color and all the things that go along with it in order to create, you know, artistic designs that expresses your visual experience. And, you know, I think that’s what they don’t understand they somehow think of it as lacking the talent to do a sport or something.
Eric Rhoads 8:13
You know, sometimes people will say to me that I have natural talent, as an entrepreneur. And, and there are things that I’m not afraid of, and there are things that I can do in my sleep automatically, because I was around, I grew up around an entrepreneur. And so it was just kind of part of my DNA. I wonder if if that that must have a huge impact on people like you who grow up in an environment like that. I mean, you have to find your own way. But you also see things probably repeated over and over again, to the point where you know, you kind of pick them up.
John Michael Carter 8:46
But yeah, it was my background, at least how I grew up as a kid was a great advantage to me, because I mentioned that my father was in advertising and he was our art director at an agency here. But he takes me up to Chicago all the time, because he worked with J. Walter Thompson and some of the big agencies doing photo retouching or working on whiskey ads or something like that. And originally, after the war, he had taught advertising artists, the American Academy, so in Chicago, and Frank young Jr, who owned the academy when I was a kid was good friends with my father. So we go up and on a lot of trips, business trips, and we just stopped into the American Academy. So you know, as a 12 year old kid, I was already seeing Schmitz work and you know, some pretty prominent artists from that period my father knew hadn’t done. study which meds teacher
Eric Rhoads 9:55
at the time at the time, did you? Did you pretty much no, this is the course you We’re gonna follow were you interested in those things? Because my kids, yeah, my kids kind of ignore it. You know, they’re around all these artists all the time who come here, but they don’t seem to have any interest.
John Michael Carter 10:12
I guess it works both ways. For some reason, I believe that I did, of course, you know, every 12 year old kid who says, they want to be a fireman, or an artist or whatever, who knows, by the time they become, you know, young men and women as to whether they really have the passion to do that. I attended the art center out in Los Angeles, was one of the schools I went to later on. And there were some kids out there who had amazing talent in terms of drawing abilities, that sort of thing. And a lot of them never took it anywhere, just simply because I don’t think they really had the interest in doing it. The talent doesn’t mean you’re going to want to do it. And sometimes I think, if it came so easily for them, that, you know, that was a detriment in a way because they, they weren’t. They weren’t getting better. They weren’t growing. And I think having something to learn in school is important, because you’re always improving, always growing. And that, you know, you feel like you’re making progress. Some of the, some of the kids who didn’t have as much talent are still painting today. So they had a lot more room to grow, I guess.
Eric Rhoads 11:32
Right? Well, they have the they have the tenacity. But but you know that nuance comes from 50 years of painting, you know, of taking, once you you understand a basic concept, and then being able to take it to the next level and the next level and so on. So, obviously, they weren’t up. They were they were not motivated enough. And those particular drives, I suppose. So, what what, I don’t know what year this was, but what was happening in the painting world at that time, because it seems to me that this may have been when, you know, the world was enamored with modernism and realism was kind of not on everybody’s radar.
John Michael Carter 12:11
Well, it was at that time, but my father was, you know, he worked. He worked at a drafting table with build a storyboard. Did all the lead hand hand lettered everything did the illustrations are sometimes to do illustrations and that sort of thing? So these are the people that I was around and I think we’d all we would go down to Florida and stay with install. Remember, install illustrator?
Eric Rhoads 12:37
I can’t say I do.
John Michael Carter 12:40
Well, he’s, you remember the famous artists school Rockwell?
Eric Rhoads 12:46
Yeah. Was he one of the founders of the famous artist screen?
John Michael Carter 12:48
Yeah, he was he was one of the founders of that look up install. You’ll you’ll remember him?
Eric Rhoads 12:54
Yeah. Did you ever when you were a kid, did you ever take the famous artist school?
John Michael Carter 12:59
No, I was a little too arrogant to do something like that. And I mean, you know, in mature arrogance, I guess I would say I could already draw up pretty well I, I had, by the time I was 14, and 15. I was doing charcoal renderings that looks pretty much like photographs of the subjects. I was doing that sort of thing. And you remember my mother drove me up to see Richard Schmidt when I was about 15. He was in Gaylord Connecticut at the time. And so I took all my drawings up to him and showed him duly impressed and sent me a book on Antonio Mancini. After that I thought I was going to be serious about
Eric Rhoads 13:51
I have a speaking event, cine, I was over in Russia, and we shot a video with Nikolai Blokhin the great Russian master. And I wanted to take him a gift. And I took him a mankini book, one of my favorite books. It’s one I bought from Italy. And it was, it was it’s out of it’s out of print, and I can’t even get it anymore. But
John Michael Carter 14:09
is it the Milan book?
Eric Rhoads 14:12
I don’t even know I but I gave it to him as a gift. And he had never seen mentioned his work and he fell in love with it.
John Michael Carter 14:20
Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. I was talking to an artist the other day about Mancini. And they were pointing out how many of his subjects Russian like no, I don’t know if you ever had any experience with any of the Russians?
Eric Rhoads 14:41
Well, that’d be interesting to find out it does feel it feels very much that way of it’s what I fell in love with his work on was the fact that he was loose everywhere. But his faces were relatively tight. I mean, they were still loose, but they were not. They were more rendered than the rest of everything else. And What a brilliant painter he was.
John Michael Carter 15:01
Yeah, he was a tremendous made tremendous use of focal points and shape composition. And he’s. And the other thing that’s interesting is when you see his paintings in the modern Museum of Modern Art in Rome, is in Naples, that sort of thing, how much experimentation he would do on his canvases, you know, he would pile the paint half an inch thick in some area. And, you know, it might be on a hand or a knee or something like that, just, you know, doing things that you’ve got the impression that all he thought and see how that would work that day in the painting. And very interesting thing.
Eric Rhoads 15:44
Well, and I guess his history was that I think he went insane from what I understand.
John Michael Carter 15:50
Well, he was bipolar. And you know, there’s a famous story that a sergeant wrote the letter that of introduction Chorim, as to one of his clients in England, and sending with his letter of introduction, which introduced him as the most accomplished painter in Europe at the time. So Sargent, obviously thought, a lot of him but then evidently, he closed himself into one of the rooms at the manor house and didn’t come out of strange character.
Eric Rhoads 16:26
Well, I guess we all have a little strange character in us, and you wonder what the impact is going to be on everything on art and everything else because of Ritalin, you know, nobody has the or, or the medications now for for bipolar disorder, some of those things probably brought out some pretty incredible things in artists, including intense focus.
John Michael Carter 16:47
Well, you know, I have a, I won’t say any names, but I have a young man who kind of haunted me for still does a little bit, but he is suffers from drug addiction, by being bipolar, but he wants to paint desperately, and he really has some unique basic instincts about painting, but part of his part of his problem was being bipolar and being on medicines all the time, and that sort of thing. And he, he lacks the focus that he needs in order to improve is, you know, just basic skills, that sort of thing. So it’s all on emotion and that sort of thing. And I talked to him, you know, once a month, something like that, try to encourage, but it’s interesting, but that’s exactly what you’re talking about. Medical or, you know, medicinal treatment.
Eric Rhoads 17:48
Drugs dumbs us down in some cases, or maybe quite cystone. So talk to me about the state of realism today, because obviously, at that time, even, you know, later than when you were a kid, there was this this movement, it was all about abstract art and abstract modernism post, etc. And it was, you know, it was frowned upon for a lot of people to do realism. Now, illustration was an exception to that, because there was a lot of illustration going on in advertising, of course. But how are you feeling about how it’s going today? Is Is it? Did you feel like it’s a resurgence? Do you feel like it’s in trouble? What what are your thoughts on it?
John Michael Carter 18:35
Well, the, from the painters point of view, I think it’s as healthy as it ever has been, maybe more. So I mean, with the recent introduction of the affiliates, which have, you know, bringing back emphasis on classicism, and then you’ve got the plein air groups all over the country that, you know, have the aficionados of, you know, working in limited conditions, or restrictive conditions in order to create paintings and three hours from life and that sort of thing. So you’ve got, you have, and then, you know, the traditional, you know, Sergeant s type of studio painters who are still very strong and number. So I think from that standpoint is quite healthy. What I worry about is the market side of it, because a lot of the millennials, my kids generation from just before the millennial period, and whatever they’re not as interested in having the homes and having the, the artwork in the home, that sort of thing. And, you know, they they are, they are the ones who now have the money to provide a market to keep all these young painters going and I don’t know that they’re going to be around and the numbers that They were in the 1970s 80s and 90s. So, you know, you’ve been you’ve been involved with pops on, you know, trying to develop collectors and collectors interest. And I know that if you can do that with the individuals, get them excited about the art, get them to understand it a little bit and not hear it, I think there’s always a reticence on the part of people who have the money to buy just simply because they’re afraid of making a mistake and not buying something that is good, because they don’t feel that they understand art. But, you know, if you can I painted, but I’ve never had employment outside of being a painter, I’ve always been a painter. And one of the things, one of the ways I was able to accomplish this, when especially when I was younger was by doing portraits. So you know, you had a, you had a commission with a contract and a down payment, and you knew when it was going to be done, and you knew where you’re gonna get paid and that sort of thing. So we didn’t have to rely on gallery sales, which could be there one month and not there another month. But what I was bringing this up for is that portraits were a way to introduce someone who had never collected art to buying a piece of art because they’re buying a picture of their kid, or they’re buying a painting of their wife, and to them that has a legitimate reason for spending money. But once they had done that, and gotten to know me, for instance, in that particular commission, I would, you know, they would be coming to my studio thing other paintings, talking about paintings, that sort of thing. And quite often portrait clients became art buyers. And then, you know, once they get the bug, bite off, and then suddenly they’re buying five paintings, 25 paintings, that sort of thing. And, and, you know, and then they’re thankful to, you know, to being introduced to that. You know, that collecting?
Eric Rhoads 22:09
Well, there’s a good, that’s a good argument for learning, learning, portrait painting and figure painting, if you’re, if you’re a plein air artist, I’ve been arguing that they need that, just from the standpoint of it makes you a better landscape artist, because in the portrait, unlike, you know, when you’re outdoors and you see a tree, you don’t have to make the tree look exactly like the tree. But if you’re painting a portrait, you got to get that likeness, spot on, you got to have your measurements, right. And that’s why it’s such a good discipline. So you know, one serves the other, but it now you’ve identified something else, it’s an opportunity to kind of use it as a door opener, let me do your portrait.
John Michael Carter 22:46
Right. And, yeah, it’s portrait painting is a different animal, it’s a little bit of my commercial art, I guess, is what I would call it because, you know, in a certain sense, you know, I’m trying to paint what a client wants, as opposed to just strictly what I want to paint, right. So it’s, you know, you learn skills and learning to do that. My father, it’s kind of like illustration, as I think my father had originally wanted me to be an illustrator, because, you know, he, he admired Alan Parker, and Coby Whitmore, and, you know, Bob Peake. And at that time, we used to go to jack O’Grady studio, and he’d have shows for Bernie Fuchs and Mark English, you know, see all these, see all these young illustrators and earn some of the older ones. And that was all kind of cool. And my father always really admired those people. And he, as I say, I think he wanted me to go into illustration, but I never have felt like I’m is good trying to do a visual construct of somebody else’s idea, or, you know, trying to get something across. That is really not my idea. So I’m much better just doing my, you know, solving my own ideas or problems with that sort of thing. But I have been able to, you know, I’d have been able to paint portraits and, you know, it’s a learning skill, which developed over time, to how to work with someone else’s idea and then develop that into something that you feel like you’re pleased with, you know, with accomplishing. I’m just saying you sort of learn how to work with somebody else’s idea in terms of what they expect and yet still accomplish the things you want to accomplish.
Eric Rhoads 24:51
Well, in one way, not following that illustration thing may have been a blessing because you know, a lot of the illustrators had a lot of problems when Computer came out the
John Michael Carter 25:03
Oh yeah. And that and they’ve all gone into fine art now john asaro. And, you know, our terpening and all those people, they don’t they used to be illustrators, but they made all their big money off of this thing. Yeah.
Eric Rhoads 25:18
Well, you know, this, this is kind of the thing that every artist faces at some point, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got the idea of as you identified your commercial work. And, you know, I always get this question from people there, you know, it’s like, the galleries will call and say, Hey, you know, those little red barns really sell? Well, would you give me more little red barns. And of course, your spirit, if you’re, if you’re done with little red barns, you don’t want to paint them anymore, you want to paint what you love. But there’s also that aspect of, well, if I had to go back and make a living and go back to my job as an accountant, or, you know, whatever to make ends meet, would it be better if I went ahead and painted some little red barns to survive, and or painted some portraits or whatever that commercial aspect is? Rather than having to give up, you know, my time as a painter? What are your thoughts on all of that?
John Michael Carter 26:11
Oh, no, I definitely think that if you can find something in the, you know, in the painting, activity, that may not be what you’re totally interested in, you’re better still doing some form of activity and painting that you can make some money with, rather than just not being in the studio at all. It’s not, that’s one thing you have to learn. I mean, a lot of times you get an idea for a painting, and you think it’s good. And at first, and then after you work on it for a while, or whatever, you think, Oh, you know, I don’t really care for this that much. But if you’re running a studio and have to get paintings to galleries, and that sort of thing, you have to learn the discipline to finish those pieces, even if you’re not that excited with them. So if you want to equate that with, you know, painting, little raised red barns or some subject matter, you might be tired of I guess you could do that. But you know, you have to not everything is all excitement. Not every Canvas ends up being something that you’re just absolutely in love with, and really excited to work on. Sometimes you just have to have the discipline to finish the things that you start. And and then, you know, what your opinion of is your own work quite often is not what the opinion of, you know, some buyers going to be or isn’t the owner so?
Eric Rhoads 27:39
Well, you know, that’s interesting, you look at a plein air show, and it’s oftentimes the artist choice, you know, the other artists vote on which painting is the artist choice, oftentimes those don’t sell. Other artists might want to own them, but because they’re at a much higher level of sophistication, and they have, you know, they have great appreciation for all the things that artists do, you know, great edges, or great harmony or whatever. And, and yet, sometimes the best sellers, you know, that you put out there or that go into a show, they you know, they’re not necessarily the things you think would sell, do you find that to be true?
John Michael Carter 28:18
Oh, know how many exhibitions I’ve been part of talking about, you know, shows like APA or portrait society or whatever, you know, you think, Oh, I really am happy with this piece, I’m so glad it got in the competition, I think it’ll really have a chance and nobody, you know, and then none of the judges pay any attention to it whatsoever. And then other times, I’ve entered things where, well, you know, I told him I was going to enter, so I guess I’ll send them this thing or whatever. And then you end up winning an award or, you know, first prize or something like that. So you can always tell but, you know, we all have things that we you know, we develop an ability to see artistically. And there are things that we have either admired and other artists work that we have tried to learn how to accomplish those effects, that sort of thing. And so we work at those, you know, for years trying to create some, you know, little sophisticated, sophisticated way of, you know, running shapes from, you know, into compositions and that sort of thing or using color in a certain way. And so when we start to say oh yeah, I’m getting it you know, it’s working now. You know, we want others to see that because you know, that’s what we’ve been working so hard to accomplish but and I think you have to do that but it does not necessarily mean that’s the first thing some other artists are going to see and your work or you know find is the most interesting thing about your work. But yet we still you know, you still have to find at look for a direction to go And whether it’s, you know, making more exciting images through composition or using color schemes more, in a more sophisticated way, that sort of thing. But you have to pick those things out for yourself, and then keep working towards.
Eric Rhoads 30:19
So from the standpoint of technique, because this is a good time to transition into that, what are those things in? And can they be communicated verbally? And have you figured out the things that you try to always apply to your paintings that that you just know, we’re gonna make them work compositionally, or otherwise.
John Michael Carter 30:43
You know, I would say, out of every 10 paintings that I do, probably eight of them are average, good. And then one of them feel like I’ve really made some steps forward with my work and done something I’m actually pretty excited about. And so, I think that, you know, it’s an incremental thing that all painters have to learn to work with, in terms of growing, and, you know, with students, I try to get it across to them that, you know, painting is really a process of discovery, discovering things about yourself, and what you’re trying to accomplish with the painting. And a lot of times, that discovery only happens when you’re, you know, when you’re in the painting process itself, and suddenly, you see something that really works in the way you combine colors or values, or that sort of thing. And then you have to say, Okay, I wasn’t even expecting that, you know, to work, but I can use it again, and the next painting that sort of thing. And so, you mentioned technique, you know, that’s how you develop the voice is having, you know, assembling these different things that you’ve learned and have worked for you, and then putting them together with other things that you’ve learned. And or discovered yourself. And, you know, that when you start to be you as a painter, and not, you know, being like, you know, a David Leffel, or being like a Schmidt, or being like, any other number of maybe painters who inspired us, but have just, you know, given us the inspiration to start learning. And then, you know, the process of learning to paint is what, what teaches you to come up with technique, which becomes your own your identity.
Eric Rhoads 32:56
That’s always the number one question. It’s how do I find my voice? And, you know, what do you think about that? Is it your voice finds you?
John Michael Carter 33:07
It’s a combination of both, as I said, most of us, you know, most of us were inspired by someone, when we first got the idea to want to start painting you saw somebody who’s worked has really turned you. So you try to learn to do those things. The problem for a lot of young people, and I made that mistake, just like a lot of other people do is you’re trying to be the painter that you admire, as opposed to, you know, realizing that that’s not going to there’s that road that goes nowhere, career wise, you have to eventually develop that voice. And it’s a, it’s a, it’s a struggle of discovery to do that. That’s why it takes a long time to be to the, you know, on a complex painter. And, you know, I remember you know, I followed Schmid quite a bit and visited him a few times and wanted to study with him and he always told me to go away, which I’m glad you did. And I was showing at a gallery you showed it in bartlesville, Oklahoma and Jody Kerber, who ran the gallery was talisman gallery. And Jody, said, Oh, Richard’s going to come and teach a workshop and I want you guys to, you know, for other artists to come and take the workshop and that sort of thing. So, you know, Albert hintel was there a number of other artists who are pretty well known and but it was the first time Richard did a demo. And I thought I understood the way he painted because I tried to emulate his painting all through the early and Was but this was the first time I actually signed paint. And he didn’t know how to paint. And what I mean by that is he wasn’t doing it the right way, which is the way I felt I understood that he worked just by studying his painting. And that made me feel good. That made me think, Oh, you know, maybe, maybe this means that I’m understanding things in a different way. And I both ended up becoming my own painter rather than, you know, just trying to look like some other painters. And so that was kind of an awakening for me that I think was helpful.
Eric Rhoads 35:38
I think the thing that I was most blown away by was the first time I saw Richard paint, because having looked at his paintings, they look like they were done in 10 minutes, you know, with all this incredible energy and beautiful brushstrokes. And to watch how slowly he painted and how articulately he painted, you know, he’d mix, he’d sometimes spend five or 10 minutes, just mixing that right color, and then he’d look up and he’d next the color again, then he’d look up, and then he’d carefully just lay down that brushstroke. And and it was just
John Michael Carter 36:13
you’re exactly right, perfect. That’s it, every every stroke is considered for shape, value, color, temperature, edge, that sort of thing. And very, very purposely placed, and the end result is that it ends up looking very painterly or very instantaneous, because there’s such an economy of stroke, and every brushwork has every piece of brush, brush, paint or nice applied paint or whatever, has kind of a character of its own. That’s what gives that effect. But it is the farthest thing from you know, being emotional and dancing out a painting. about as far from that as it could possibly be.
Eric Rhoads 37:04
Richard told me that. He said, I spent so many years correcting paintings that I decided to slow down and do it right for the first time. He said, ultimately, it’s a lot faster than, you know, painting it and then constantly making corrections to get it right.
John Michael Carter 37:22
No, that’s true, but it’s not. Very, you have to have a lot of ability to concentrate. And it takes a lot of practice to be able to paint that way for eight hours. So, pretty exhausting.
Eric Rhoads 37:38
So what what is it? I know you’re a plein air painter and a studio painter, and you’re probably more studio than plein air anymore? I don’t know that to be true. But I’m guessing How do you stay focused? Do you spend eight or 10 hours working on a painting? Do you do you know, one painting a little bit at a time, what’s your process like,
John Michael Carter 37:59
I usually have five or six pieces going at a time, I would like to, I would like to say that I can start a painting in the morning and get it finished by the end of the day or the middle of the next day or something like that. But I’ve never had that. I don’t think I have that strong and ability to see the painting finished in my mind’s eye. And so I’ll always come up to some, some aspect of the painting that I’m just is not working properly doesn’t quite complements the rest of the areas of the painting, that sort of thing. So I’ll have to put it aside for a while work on something else. And then, you know, sometimes, a couple of weeks later, you know, the painting will just kind of tell me what it needs. And, and then then I can finish. But I do probably 70% of the painting I do is studio painting. But my wife is European. So we travel a lot. We family over there. So so we are I always paint when I’m on what, uh, you know, painting vacations, I guess. So I’ve always got my, my kit and, you know, hang around in the towns or wherever we happen to be saying and you know, do you know I’ll do a dozen paintings on a trip something like that. So yeah, you know, plein air. I guess I still probably do 20 or 30 pieces a year.
Eric Rhoads 39:36
Yeah. Well, and those inform some of your studio pieces, I assume?
John Michael Carter 39:42
Oh, yeah. I mean, I, you know, I basically I look at them as field studies. Or think about them that way. I’m actually much more successful and actually having a few of them turn out that can be gallery sales. If I don’t take them too seriously when I’m working Not that I don’t, you know, not that that’s not a good way to put it, if I don’t start them out to be pieces of art, but rather field studies where I gather information, sometimes they actually turn out to be pieces of art. So I approach with this kind of in a workman like way, and occasionally I hit one out of the park.
Eric Rhoads 40:23
So do you, do you put yourself under pressure? Or do you just say, you know what, it’s just a study, it doesn’t matter if it’s good, I just got to kind of get it out.
John Michael Carter 40:34
Yeah, I try not to take it personally, I look at it as, you know, gathering information about the visual experience I’m having of whatever subject interests me, and try not to make it a personal thing in terms of, Oh, I’m gonna, you know, I’m gonna make this a beauty or something like that. But treat it more as just a little bit of an a discovery experience about what it is whatever it was, that attracted my eye. And that’s the you know, that’s the first thing I tell students is, you know, you’re driving along and you see a subject and Okay, I’m gonna pull over, get the easel out and paint it. So but the first thing you got to have to do is recognize what was that about that subject that caught your attention? You know, you know, were you seeing some type of architectural elements that have a geometric quality and their contrast that against organic forms of the trees or something like that? Or was it you know, was it the temperature of the lights or time of day or something that was most important. And that’s one of the first things they need to identify. And then once they identify why they’re interested in the subject, then stick to that reason, because the problem a lot of young painters have, especially when they’re working outdoors is now they set up the easel that gets cam set, layup paints, that sort of thing. And now they start examining their subject as they tried to construct the drawing and place the values and all that sort of thing. But what happens is, now suddenly, they are looking into shadows and seeing things about the subject, that had nothing to do with what caught their eye to begin with. So they immediately by analyzing their subject, they, they, pretty soon they forget why they were painting it to begin with, and it starts to become a totally different painting than they intended. And that usually causes them problems.
Eric Rhoads 42:46
So how do you overcome?
John Michael Carter 42:49
Well, I tried to teach them that when you look at a subject, you’re saying, 100% of the information when you examine it up there, but it really, you really only need about 20% of that information, to capture the capture that quality or that experience you had about your subject, which attracted your interest to begin with. So your problem is, how do you identify that essential 20% of that information that you need visually to express the subject. So I tried to put an emphasis on that and get people to learn to start understanding what their visual experience was, and painting the visual experience and not just recording, trying to record all the information that they see in front of them. Because, you know, as you’re, as you’re sitting there for three hours, you keep seeing more and more and more, and suddenly you’re painting things that has nothing to do with why you like the subject to begin with. And you end up with something that just totally unsuccessful on a painting. And that’s what the good plein air painters can do. You know, they identify what it was about the subject that excited them to begin with, and they stick with it.
Eric Rhoads 44:03
And you make an initial sketch and then kind of go off that sketch so you don’t lose that or do you just go in and jump right in? And and if you do, too, you do you try to paint try to identify
John Michael Carter 44:13
what it is I like and and then I usually and not always, but if it’s if it’s a fairly, you know, just landscape that doesn’t have elements that require a lot of drawing, for instance, like a, you know, European street scene or something like that, which has all types of architectural elements that trigger you, then you have to kind of construct a little beforehand, otherwise you can cause chaos. But if you’re you know, if everything’s organic trees, that sort of thing. I can pretty much decide what my focal point is going to be and just start developing out from the focal point. I always thought that’s pretty good way to work especially plein air because you know, it’s the thunderstorm comes up That you’re not expecting or suddenly the, the guy goes from overcast to sunny or vice versa, if you begin developing that focal point to begin with, and then kind of blossoming out from there, so you’ve always got something that that is still, you know, good. Or a good start, let’s put it that way, if you have to abandon, you know, abandoned painting for, you know, nature reasons.
Eric Rhoads 45:31
So there’s a lot of different philosophies about focal points, what is yours?
John Michael Carter 45:37
Well, it depends on subject, once again, I mean, you can get into a primary focal point, the secondary and tertiary focal point, that sort of thing, and you have to make sure one stays dominant, and the others are subordinate to it. So it’s pretty easy with figures, you know, if it’s a portrait, the focal point is probably going to be the face. And then but then you may have hands or, you know, some element of the portrait that is still important and expresses the individuals, but you just have to make sure that those things, those secondary elements are there and strong and interesting to look at, but you don’t over overpower your primary focal point. So, you know, sometimes a little still, life can be really easy, because you only have one focal point, but still I for instance, have multiple areas, or multiple design areas. And it you know, you may have two or three focal points, but once again, one has to be the dominant and the others are support.
Eric Rhoads 46:52
Yeah, no, I get it. I know that CW Mundy talks about, you know, put your sharpest edges, your brightest colors, your or your brightest Chroma, your, your darkest darks, your lightest light, all of those things in the focal point. And then everything from that point out, gets further and further out of focus. That’s one philosophy Joe McGurl would say, everything’s in focus. Is there is there?
John Michael Carter 47:20
Well, I you know, it depends, once again, what’s your, your visual philosophy is I tend to think more like CW does. By the way, he does a good friend of mine. So, but we, we would explain it in a little bit different way, I think. You know, cw is very inventive in his painting. And, you know, he used to do the toilet paper thing where he, you know, deconstructed all of the edges of the toilet paper and that sort of thing. But he likes to play with all different types of ideas are very experimental, I would I normally look at it as when I paint, when I tell somebody how to paint, they, I want them to establish their focal point, and then make all decisions about peripheral areas outside of the focal point. But make those decisions while looking at the focal point. And then of course, you see immediately that everything’s gray or fuzzier and that sort of thing. And you probably won’t make it quite that gray or fuzzy is when you hold the eye still and only make considers considerations about peripheral areas, while looking at your focal point, but it does let you know that Okay, I’m going to have to soften edges, you know, simplifies value, contrast and for peripheral areas so that the focal point stays dominant. And, but, you know, if you’re painting the way the eye sees, that’s the way you think about our approaches. But we have a lot of people who do a lot of things now we have people who paint the way the cameras see. And in that case, you know, there may be a lot of cocoa finish all over this painting. But you just have to keep in mind that you’re trying to paint something that looks kind of like a photograph or kind of the way the camera sees. And if that’s your if that’s your object, great. You go ahead and proceed that way. But if you’re painting the way we experiencing the eye experiences live, then you’re generally going to work with the, you know, one area and focus and everything else going out and focus in brain as you proceed.
Eric Rhoads 50:02
Talk to me about composition.
John Michael Carter 50:08
Okay? You know, I don’t think a lot about structural rules with composition. So you know, I’m not dividing things into thirds, or doing the using the golden mean and that sort of thing. So often, you know, I try to be practical about where I put my focal point so that it’s not taking the viewer off the canvas. But what I worry more about or consider more is working with different elements within the composition. So let’s say I’ve got a young woman who’s in Hawaii, and she’s got a teapot. And she’s pouring herself a cup of tea or something. And then there’s a vase decider with a floral and whatever. And then there’s light in the background. And there’s a room setting which has dark furniture in it and you know, other elements. So what I tried to do was figure out, okay, the vase, and the vase is in light and shadow, the figures in light and shadow the other objects on the table, perhaps in front of her inner light and shadow. Also, how can I arrange those things, so that the light in the maze works with the light in the dress works with the light on the teapot, in order to create my lighter values all into one abstract shape? That is becomes an interesting shape to look like? Or how do I organize the dark values of the euro and the room with shadow falling across a wall or something? And how do I bring all those elements together into one dark design, and then combine these. So I’m trying to combine my light into design, I’m trying to make my middle tones either work with the light design, or work with the dark design. And from that design, I tried to create an abstraction, that is not necessarily obvious to the viewer. But when you analyze the painting, you realize, Oh, you know, it’s all those shapes working together in a unified way, even though all those shapes are comprised of different objects or different shadows, that sort of thing. And it’s that, but it’s that abstract abstraction of light and dark, working as unified shapes and playing against each other, that create kind of this skeletal interest, visual interest. So when I talk about composition, I usually talk about how to find abstract pattern among all of your, all the things that comprise your subject and make them work in a unified way, which creates an interesting shape to look at. And then you paint and paint your subject into that type of composition. And, you know, that abstraction may not become as obvious after the subject is painted. But that is the skeleton on which you know, the subject kind of becomes success or hangs together a nice visual experience to make the painting exciting. So that’s kind of the basic way I think about it.
Eric Rhoads 53:48
I think one thing everybody struggles with is form, you have any thoughts about form?
John Michael Carter 53:56
Well, I think it’s necessary to understand how to use edges and form shadows and cast shadows and poor darks and all that sort of thing in order to create the illusion of form. And my only suggestion there is, you need to learn these things in order to be able to make a convincing statement about your visual experience or whatever your subject is. But the thing I would say to the more advanced painters are that advanced student who’s you know, getting control of these skills is then don’t allow those principles by which you learn to express forms. And, you know, in a convincing way, don’t necessarily allow those become rules which you can’t break or can’t fit. Because once you once you learn to play the instrument, or in this case, learn to manipulates the paint. And so the that it is a good translation of a convincing translation of your of your visual experience, you then want to be able to express things about it that may not be in the rules. And so a lot of people always ask me, you know, I do all my preliminary drawing and kind of a blue color for it. And everybody always asked, Why do you draw it drawn blue or whatever. And the reason is not an academic reason, it’s something I tried and discovered years ago, at that, I would always leave bits of that blue drawing would peek through between paint applications. And it always kind of created, what I felt was a little vibration at the edge where the edge of a form may come up against the background area or transition to another form. And it is, you know, how you look at a bright window, and then try to look over into the shadow, and then you get this kind of ghost image of that high contrast area. Well, that may be in a delusion on my part, but I feel like it gives a little bit of that effect, and causes the image to vibrate a little bit. So that so that the finished painting isn’t static, there’s always some little as you go from the transition from a background into a robe or, you know, or whatever it is that you’re painting, that it gives this little activity, visual activity that makes the painting never quite becomes static and give us a feeling of always kind of becoming the image while even though it’s hanging on the wall. And now Okay, so I said I, this may be a delusion on my part, but it’s something I do, and it has nothing. I don’t know that it has any academic basis whatsoever. But that’s what I mean, I feel like for me, this is something that I kind of discovered works that I really use in my work. And that essentially, I’m not going by the rules of form. Or at least I know nothing academic. Back, except using that color. The way that I do is so dark. I feel like it discovered this value, like it enhances my work.
Eric Rhoads 57:51
value or light value
John Michael Carter 57:52
the middle, the middle tone blue middle time. Yeah. So halfway in between my lights halfway in between my darks. And you know, next time you happen to come across one of my paintings, look for it, you’ll notice it anyway.
Eric Rhoads 58:08
Well, where can people see your paintings by the way?
John Michael Carter 58:12
Well, I’m a number of different galleries. Ross and Indianapolis. Do you go up to Lake Wawasee?
Eric Rhoads 58:23
I used to when I was a kid, I lived on Lake Wawasee.
John Michael Carter 58:29
Well, if you’re up there visiting again during the summer, go over to George wraps. Oh, George has got a great passion. He’s got three or four of my better paintings. Oh, Betty does Oh, but I just brought that up because I think he mentioned that you might be coming by one day.
Eric Rhoads 58:47
Yeah, one one day. I hope to be be coming by there this anyway.
John Michael Carter 58:51
I’m at Qatar and Qatar and St. Augustine. wildhorse and Steamboat Springs started with Reiner in Charleston,
Eric Rhoads 59:04
galleries?
John Michael Carter 59:05
in a number of different galleries. Well, I tried it. I tried to get into the ones where they make sales.
Eric Rhoads 59:10
And and your website is johnmichaelcarter.com. Right.
John Michael Carter 59:14
That’s correct.
Eric Rhoads 59:17
Well, John, we could go on and on because you’re a vast wealth of information. Unfortunately, we’re kind of at the end of our time here. But fascinating, great story. great ideas. I think I took a lot from it. I think everybody probably did.
John Michael Carter 59:32
I hope it was helpful, Eric and not too confusing. Sometimes. I’m not always the most articulate person in the world.
Eric Rhoads 59:40
You were very articulate today.
John Michael Carter 59:43
Okay, well, it’s been fun talking with you. And I hope to see you sometime in the future.
Eric Rhoads 59:47
All right. Well, thank you for being on the plein air podcast.
John Michael Carter 59:51
Okay, thank you.
Eric Rhoads 59:54
Well, thanks again to John Michael Carter. There were some great nuggets of wisdom in there very valuable. Are you getting ready for some marketing ideas?
Announcer 1:00:02
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 1:00:13
In the art marketing minute I try to answer your questions you can email yours to me [email protected] And I always love having your questions. As a matter of fact, that’s where I get my content. Here’s a question from Linda Finnstad of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, who says she has a series of sassy Angel drawings and has started a campaign where she posts an image a day on social media going for 365 days, 10 days into the project. She said she’s getting great feedback as well as sales on Amazon. So our question is, how do I get full mileage out of this campaign? Well, I think first you have First off, you have to Oh, she said, I would hate to look back and realize I missed a fabulous opportunity. Linda, it’s a good question. The first thing I always do is I try to define my goals. You know, what is? what is success to you? What do you want that to look like? Because it might be you know, maybe it’s about selling paintings, but maybe it’s about publicity, maybe it’s about branding, maybe it’s about something else. So try to define what is your 80% goal, what’s the one thing that if 80% of it happens, you’ve accomplished a goal, always start there with everything you do. I also would say that you really started a little prematurely in this in the sense that your planning should be done before you ever start. Because there are things you could do in your planning that will give you a better start, try to get your planning done in advance before you launch your program. But in this case, you can’t do that. So there’s a giant PR opportunity. First off, I would write a press release something as simple as that, write a press release about it, attach them images and put it on the internet through PR wire PR web, there are several services, you’re going to have to pay, you know, 50, probably 150 200 bucks, you’re gonna have to pay more if you show an image. But it’ll show up in Google search that way. And also, when you show up in Google search, you know, people will discover it by accident. And so you want to have your website and all that stuff in there. The other thing to do is to post it as a story on LinkedIn, because every story, unlike Facebook, and Instagram, and other social media, if you put a story on Instagram, it also shows up in search. And so oftentimes, you can find that story. And of course, that’ll link to you. I would also hand picked some dream stories that you want, for instance. So this is the kind of thing that people magazine would like. So I’d go on LinkedIn and get some names of some editors of People Magazine, I find you know, as many as you can find eight or 10 or 12 of them and send them all a personalized email with some photos and photos of you with the paintings and let them know that you have a high resolution images as well. And I would hire a professional because, you know, as an editor, we’re always looking for content. I have a friend who used to work at People Magazine. And you know, sometimes they would have dry spells where they just couldn’t come up with stories and they need filler. And they would grab filler, you know, somebody sends in a press release, and it’s got some great images, they don’t have time to send out a photographer. So they just grab that story, use the images. And so you want some fun images and some different images, I think that would be helpful. You want high res available to them. And so they know that because in printing if they have to print it up, and then of course, if you get a story, then you can tell everybody, you’ve got a story. And that kind of gets the momentum going one time, I went to a seminar and this lady said, you know, write your own press release, write your own story and send it off to magazines. And sometimes they’ll publish it. And I was on an airplane coming back from that seminar. So I wrote a story specifically for a magazine about myself. And I got home and I sent it in and they ended up running it and it was in a national magazine, and it was hardly changed at all. And they used my picture and everything else. So that was pretty cool. So you can do that too. I would send releases to 50 of your top dream story places you know People magazine or, or whatever magazine you think and of course these days it’s it’s about websites, it’s about magazines. The other thing you want to do is look for influencers right? So like there are Instagram influencers. And you could go to an Instagram and find somebody who’s got a million people or maybe Instagram or who does something on angels and say to them listen, I would love for you to do something on my thing and in exchange I’ll give you one of the drawings and next thing you know they put it up there for you and boom you know you’ve gotten seen by the potential of a million people however many so the other thing is I’d look for a chance to get a celebrity sale. Now influencers are a great way because then you can set Well, this influencer that influencer has my work. But what about a celebrity? You know, is there a celebrity that might have a fitting story about a guardian angel, you know, select, you know, Google the term celebrity, and guardian angel and see what comes up, maybe you’ll find a celebrity that has a guardian angel story. And then you say, Hey, I loved your story, I’m going to send you my painting, or my drawing, and then send it to them, get them to snap a picture and say, do you mind if I tell everybody about it, they want publicity. Everybody wants publicity, if you’re in celebrity world, and then you now have something else to talk about. So PR is a great way to go. Social media is great, but it’s limited to your presence. And so you’ve got to find ways to get others who have more presence to leverage you to get it, get it shared. Also, keeping something alive for a year is tough, you know, you want to ask yourself, is a year really appropriate? Or do I just really want what do I really want to accomplish? Can I accomplished that goal and, you know, in three months, so I would develop a plan and see if you can just jam it hard for three months, and then you know, maybe a year later, you can, you can get some more publicity. I also would say, try your local newspaper. Nobody thinks about local newspapers anymore. But there are demographics that read them, they’ll go to art gallery shows, and the best part about a local newspapers, they can get picked up and syndicated by other newspapers who are looking for content. I once had a story in 200 newspapers, because the Associated Press wrote a story about my book. And it they syndicated and I ended up in the LA Times, and the New York Times, and Chicago Tribune and a bunch of others. So that was pretty cool. So the other thing, ask yourself, who’s your target demo demographic? Who was it women, men? What age? What do they spend their time doing? You know, if they’re into gardening, then you know, figure out how to get a gardening publication to do a story how to do it, do a drawing of an angel in a garden and come up with a concept. The idea is to think outside of the I hate that term outside of the box, but interview your buyers, to the people who have bought something from you on Amazon, talk to them and find out what was it that appealed? And what is their story? And what does it mean to them, and maybe that’ll give you ideas, and you can learn things you had not anticipated. And maybe that’ll be helpful. Anyway, that’s, I hope that was helpful.
Eric Rhoads 1:07:20
Linda Andrews from Concord, North Carolina says I would love to share my love of art and landscape painting with young people. What are some ways I can start teaching classes or workshops to this demographic? Well, I think it would be very welcome. Of course, COVID is going to be in the way right now. But it’ll be over one day. So I love I’ve got a goal of teaching a million people to paint and I’m really far along in that goal. But I, you know, I’ve got to hit that million. And then once I hit that million, I want to go to 2 million and 5 million and 10 million and so on. I love the idea of teaching people to paint because it gives them something more in their life, you know, people can be bored, I would first go to Plein Air Force calm. It’s website I put together. There’s a lot of ideas on there on how to speak to groups. I had high school assemblies. To make it easy. We have a documentary you can share. So the idea was that some people are not good speakers, but they could go to a school and say, Hey, I’m Eric. I’m a plein air painter. What does plein air painting Meanwhile, it’s about getting outdoors to paint, you know, and some of you don’t want to be an athlete. And some of you don’t want to be a musician. But some of you want to do something creative. And something that has a really fun potential career with it. Or maybe just a fun potential hobby. Well, plein air painting is getting outdoors, and painting what you see. And when you paint outdoors, you know, give them all the reasons you know, you’re, you’re meeting a lot of people you’re talking to people, you’re painting better color and shape and form and things like that. But then play the documentary, which goes about 20, 30 minutes. And then at the end of that documentary, you can say, hey, what questions do you have? So it makes it really easy to get them engaged. And then you could say, Well, listen, I’m I’m going to supply all the materials and I got a group setting up for plein air painting, and I have some, this is all free. But if you want to sign up for some lessons that’s available to you too, and and you’ll get you know, you’ll get two or three people and you might get 30 people you just never know. And I just start contacting the offices of all the different high schools and maybe even the middle schools and you know, get out there and talk to them and talk to the art teachers. They love somebody to come in and fill their day so they don’t have to teach sometimes, you know, and and get the kids excited, you know, so you can go in and talk to classes. They will welcome it. I would call the Laguna plein air painters association called call Rosemary Swimm. They’re asked for ideas. They bring in busloads of kids from the inner city and they teach them to paint. They have painters painting with them, they have materials, and they make it simple, and it’s really very successful so they can give you some clues. I would also consider right now maybe offering some zoom classes and invite students in for free, maybe, you know, call an art teacher and try it. Get some experience first and you know, just see what works. It’s going to be fine, you’re going to be great. You might want to come up with an incentive or something that makes it really fun for kids and do something to make it cool. Anyway, I think this is a great question. I think it helps. I hope that you can make that happen. I think all of us should be doing that. We should get everybody in every town doing this and we would change the world. Right? Well, anyway, that is this week’s art marketing minute.
Announcer 1:10:31
This has been the marketing minute with Eric Rhoads. You can learn more at art marketing.com.
Eric Rhoads 1:10:37
Alrighty, well, a reminder to get signed up for Watercolor Live next year just go to watercolorlive.com more urgent is pleinairlive.com, which is coming up in April. If you missed it before, it’s really a wonderful experience. And you should do it. You should a lot of people will do it. And the convention I’ve already heard from people doing both. And of course, the convention, you want to sign up before Valentine’s Day to save some money. Just get that done. Remember, it’s refundable if we can’t hold it, but we hope that while you’re going to be able to we just don’t know yet. If you have not seen my blog where I talked about art and life and other things philosophy, check it out. It’s called Sunday coffee and you can find it at coffeewitheric.com. Well, this is always fun. We’ll do it again sometime like next week. We’ll see you there. Then. I’m Eric Rhoads, publisher and founder of Plein Air Magazine and you can find us online at outdoorpainter.com. You can also find me online 12 noon every day on Facebook. Just search Streamline Art. Find me on Facebook and YouTube. And we have guest artists every day at 12. And then I do video samples every day at three seven days a week on the video samples five days a week. Monday through Friday at noon on the on the guest artists. All right remember it’s a big world out there. Go paint it we will see you all right.
Announcer:
This has been the plein air podcast with Plein Air Magazine’s Eric Rhoads. You can help spread the word about plein air painting by sharing this podcast with your friends. And you can leave a review or subscribe on iTunes. So it comes to you every week. And you can even reach Eric by email [email protected]. Be sure to pick up our free ebook 240 plein air painting tips by some of America’s top painters. It’s free at pleinairtips.com. Tune in next week for more great interviews. Thanks for listening.
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GREAT podcast Eric. Really appreciate you and your creativity in publishing.
Thanks