In this episode, Eric Rhoads interviews Scott Christensen, who has a two-man exhibition with Quang Ho at the Museum of Western Art, from July 20 through September 21, 2024. Listen as they discuss the act of creating art outdoors, their transformative experience of painting in Russia, different approaches to solving common painting problems, color palette preferences, and much more.
Bonus! At what point in an art career should you begin advertising your work? How do you create a “big name” for yourself and get invited to the best galleries and pursued by collectors? Eric Rhoads answers in this episode of the Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
Listen to the Plein Air Podcast with Eric Rhoads and Scott Christensen here:
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Related Links:
– Scott Christensen online: https://www.christensenstudio.com/
– Pastel Live: https://pastellive.com/
– PleinAir Magazine: https://pleinairmagazine.com/
– Plein Air Convention & Expo: https://pleinairconvention.com/
– Publisher’s Invitational: https://publishersinvitational.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:
Hey folks, it’s Eric Rhoads here and I’m about to go live. I actually am live. I’m going to go live and we’re going to record a plein air podcast live with Scott Christensen. And so as you tune in or if you tune in late, that’s what’s going on. So we’re just gonna go ahead and start it right now. And then hopefully people will chime in but here we go. This is episode number 259 with the legend Scott Christensen.
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 0:12
Thank you Jim Kipping. And welcome to the plein air podcast everybody. I’m Eric Rhoads publisher of plein air Magazine. Today is a special day because we have a true legend on the plein air podcast. And we’re recording it live online. And it is such a pleasure. We’re gonna get into him in just a second to have one of the most kind, humble and brilliant artists that you’ll ever meet. He’s a rock star painter, Scott Christenson is going to be our guest today. And I wanted to get this podcast out as soon as possible. Because he and Quang Ho have a major show major, we’re going to talk about how to how to create a major show. They have a major show coming up starting later this month, the month of July, in Texas at a major, major opportunity for a museum and this is this is going to be mind boggling to see. We’re going to hear about that in a moment. The goal of the plein air podcast is to inspire you to consider painting outdoors because we believe it makes us all better painters getting outdoors. Plus the plein air lifestyle is cool. You get lots of friends to paint with a chance to be outdoors, you express yourself creatively. And the podcast is a chance to get into the heads the minds of the artists and learn about their struggles, their journey, their techniques, their why they paint. So I’m very grateful to to you guys for being here. And to help inspire you along the way. The show would not be a success without you. And your positive reviews and you’re sharing it leaving comments and all that stuff. Thank you so much. We have literally had millions of downloads, and over 90 countries actually, I think it’s about 120 countries, we hear from you all over the place. Thank you so much for sharing it and for listening. At the end of the podcast, we always do the art marketing minute. And today we’re going to talk a little bit about how do you become a legend, like Scott Christensen is if that’s possible with marketing. Anyway, we’ll talk about that at the end. But you can email your questions to me [email protected] with any ideas for guests or marketing questions, etc. I want to just mention before we get to our, our time with Scott, sometimes we all want to try new things Scott has been experimenting with and getting to the point of mastery with squash for instance. And I’m going to talk to him about that. But one of the things that I tried fairly recently was pastel because I was just kind of bored and I needed something new. And so I attended pastel live I hosted pastel Live, which is an online event three or four days with some of the world’s leading pastel artists and watching them and their techniques and watching the essentials day so you can learn the basics. And you know before long I’m watching it and I’m doing it I’m painting along and I’m painting pastels, and I’ve done it now two or three times and I’m having a good time with it. What’s interesting to me is it gets me more excited about my oils about my watercolor about other things added in forms, right there are things that you you can do with the pastel you can’t do with a brush. There’s a vibrancy that It’s pretty hard to accomplish with oil or with watercolor or even with gouache. But there are also things that you learn when you’re doing that go and say, I wonder if I apply this technique to painting in oil and it can work. And so it’s been really good for my brain and you might like it. It’s called pastel live. And you can learn more about it at PastelLive.com. We had we came off of the big plein air convention just a few weeks ago in the Smoky Mountains. And then we announced the next one, which is coming up may 19, through 23rd and 2025. Why do I tell you this today? Well, first off, it’s already have sold out a year in advance. And that’s the cool thing. It’s going to be in Lake Tahoe and Reno. And we have a pre convention workshop, which we announced to them. But we haven’t announced to the world with Scott Christensen. Wow. And so that that alone is going to be worth the ticket you got to come. It’s the 12th annual plein air Convention and Expo. And we’re going to have a lot of fun in Tahoe and Reno and we have over 75-80 top experts teaching on five different stages, and painting we all go painting together. And we’ve got some killer painting locations planned. I’m going out to Lake Tahoe in the fall, and I’m going to be just double checking those painting locations looking at them one more time making sure they work well. So you can find out more at pleinairconvention.com. Also, just last but not least, this podcast is hosted by plein air magazine. And if you have not yet become a subscriber, we would invite you to we have a big following and print or digital a lot of people in other countries get the digital because they can get it instantly. Don’t have to worry about mail. And digital has 30% more content that’s not in the print edition because we always have more content than we have pages. So you can subscribe at pleinairmagazine.com. Now reminder coming up after this interview, I’m going to answer your art marketing questions in the art marketing minute. Send your questions to me, [email protected]. And today, our guest is Scott Christensen. Scott, welcome to the plein air podcast.
Scott Christensen 7:12
Thank you for having me, Eric, appreciate that.
Eric Rhoads 7:15
it’s so fun to to know you and to watch your career and to get to see what’s been happening. And I’m gonna start out I want to talk about this show. We’re going to talk about some painting tips and some ideas. I want to talk about something that you’ve done, which has been revolutionary for the people who have participated in it, and a few other surprises. But you and I got to know each other. I think we became really good friends. When we went to Russia together. Do you remember that?
Scott Christensen 7:49
I do. Never forget that. I won’t forget that one. Big time, that was a good time to learn. Wow.
Eric Rhoads 7:58
Well, at the time in Russia, things were still very restrictive. And we were staying in St. Petersburg, and we were living on a cruise ship. And we had to have special permission to go into town without a guide. And we didn’t have special permission. And the guide was taking a group of people to the opera that night, they had special permission. So we just told them, we’re going to the opera we got on the bus with everybody. And then we snuck away. And we went painting. And we were seriously breaking the law we probably should have been arrested.
Scott Christensen 8:37
It was a beautiful place it just so much to see. Hard to set up for just one painting wasn’t it
Eric Rhoads 8:45
Well, and it was a complex painting because we painted one of those bubble top churches.
Scott Christensen 8:49
Yeah, yeah.
Eric Rhoads 8:53
I want to tell everybody about I hope it’s okay to share this because I think that, you know, we all see the frustrations that we have in our own lives as painters. But we don’t often see the frustrations of people that we consider the greats. And I know you’re very humble about that. You don’t consider yourself one of the greats, but the rest of us do. And you and I were in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg together. And we were looking at these giant paintings by Reppin and Levitan and … and some of these other painters. And you said something to me that always stuck with me and us you kind of teared up a little bit. And you kind of said, Eric, I don’t. I am so humbled by this work. I don’t know if I can ever paint a good painting again because I’ve I’ve never seen anything like that. Tell me about that experience.
Scott Christensen 9:53
Well, I think you don’t know what you don’t know until you see it. And seeing is everything as you know I don’t think I was really I think I knew how to make a pretty adequate painting per se. But I, when I started seeing the way that they put things together, I started understanding things in a different way their their real, strong use of values and sensitivities of color. Rather than just a dastardly with color, I really love to see the whole Russian approach, it was just a different thing for me, I can’t even explain it more than I did take me a couple days, it took me a few paragraphs to figure that one out. Because, I don’t know how many ways to start, but it was just beautiful place to see. And, we went back as we remember. And it was just something to some to behold, and I just the memories of that were, they were epic, I just can’t, I couldn’t explain anything better than the value structure and then close the close relationships, but also their ability to articulate their thought into pain. It’s a big one for me.
Eric Rhoads 11:05
I think that, you know, you said that you don’t know it till you see it. And I wonder if you don’t see it. So you know, something. I suspect if you had been to that, in that same spot 10 years earlier, and seen those paintings, you would not have seen in them what you saw in them that time.
Scott Christensen 11:26
That’s for sure. Because I tend to, I tend to study a lot, that’s a big part of my painting life is to look at a lot of the best work I can find. A lot of it is Russian work. But a lot of great painters in history have shown me different ways of thinking. And that’s really the most important part to me about painting is learning to do things outside of ways that are linear, we always set them to find ways that work for us. And those those Russians, they would find ways that would work there would be multiple ways of pulling something together as a whole. And you could just see that their their understanding and ingenuity was just different than ours.
Eric Rhoads 12:08
So how do you you go into a museum? How do you look at a painting Do you have? Do you try to take it in as a whole? Do you try to figure out what they’ve done? What What’s that process like for you?
Scott Christensen 12:21
That’s an interesting statement, you this one, I never thought I don’t think I’ve ever articulated this. But I’ve realized when I go into a museum with a lot of good work, or possibly just a few that I wanted to really see, I’ll go walk through the museum quickly, I’ll try to see the whole exhibition or whatever’s up as quickly. You know, it might take me 20 minutes to go through the museum. And then I’ll go back and highlight those paintings I want to see and they’ll spend time with those. The ones I want to see, first I don’t want to waste my time with it’s not the others are a waste of time, it’s just that I want to see the ones that impacted me the most. And I’ll spend a lot of time with those making notes and understanding what they were doing and why that is my the way is, to me is really interesting at how how they connect things or how they separate them. But mostly, I can’t absorb everything in one shot. So I will I will go and look at a few pieces and spend a lot of time with them. And then I’ll go back the next day if I can or a few more days.
Eric Rhoads 13:21
Yeah. And so are you looking at that painting and going? Or, you know, do you have like a process in your mind? It’s like, I’m starting with composition, or I’m looking at, I’m trying to figure out, how did they start this painting is there anything that you go through as a different every time?
Scott Christensen 13:42
It’s different every time I’ve noticed a lot of things about a lot of painters because I tried to come at it more objectively, because I don’t see necessarily paintings, painters solving the same problems the same way over time. The best painters in history to me didn’t solve their problems the same ways. They they had different ways of doing it, and they changed their whole key they would change even the structure underneath it might be a middle value that could support it. I remember when I first started started seeing what Sargent was doing with his opening up the shadows and, and pushing away a little bit from this classical approach to get more light in the shadows and how that changed everything for him. And he he kept kind of a middle value it seemed under most of those oil paintings that he was working on to add a supporting element and then his darks come in almost last most of the time.
Eric Rhoads 14:34
So would that have been your thinking under painting?
Scott Christensen 14:38
I think so. But you know it’s possible quite possible with started to do just painting over and over um, but he had a kind of a dark, kind of a brownish middle value underneath on a lot of the big landscapes that he was working on. I’ve seen him in few museums where you can see the entire the canvas underneath was that that doesn’t, that doesn’t solve any ever problem for me, it just helps me understand how he was thinking. I’ve noticed that sometimes I’ll do things different as per what I’m looking at to try different ways of approaching an idea. But I’ve always seen that it always comes back down to your, your knowledge always precedes your execution and nobody can paint better than know how.
Eric Rhoads 15:22
That’s so that’s so true. You know, when when we first start painting, I don’t know if you can remember because that was like back in the 1800s.
Scott Christensen 15:33
They were talking about legendary that’s getting up there legend.
Eric Rhoads 15:38
It’s just another way of saying you’re old.
Scott Christensen 15:40
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, gotcha. All right.
Eric Rhoads 15:43
So when we start when we first start painting, we look at things a whole lot differently when you’ve been painting. What what I see I look for patterns. And I don’t know if there are patterns. But what I tend to think I see is that as we as we go longer. I think a lot of people start out trying to be almost photorealistic. You know, they’re trying to reproduce a photograph. And they also tend to be very garish with their colors, very bright, very vibrant. And what tends what what I think has happened to a lot of the people that I’ve studied over the years is, it feels like they become more abstract or certainly looser, less rendering, more indicating. They tend to, they tend to use their colors a lot more, they tend to get grayer. And I think they compress their values. Yeah. Am I wrong? Is are you seeing that? Is that what happened to you? What what has changed for you from the, from the beginning to where you are today?
Scott Christensen 16:55
That’s a that’s a big jump. Let me thank you. One of the things that affected me most is I really thought I really learned early on that trying to define something was easy, was easiest route to making it look like a tree look like a tree or a rock or whatever that was, but But trying to imply the light that I saw, rather than define every single thing about the light, the the way that light falls on an object was way more interesting to me. When that became interesting, I started getting more interested in color. And secretly I always thought color was my issue. But I never, I mean, I always knew the answer was values. But I really realized that that color was a problem when I read, I think it was page 88 And John Carlson’s book to landscape painting, he said, Good color, and a picture means not at all that certain prettiness at the vulgar demand. And he went on to talk about good color and a picture means reserve and, and in a strong color means a reserve. So the climax has its full force. And when I realized that I had to modify color to control it, I started getting more color in the paintings. But I had to go through a great phase to understand the neutral base of what I saw outdoors, and how I could expand on that. And once I understood where that could expand on that I could start controlling the value and then the temperature, rather than the opposite, trying to control that color. I get to extract it with color, and I couldn’t control it, which would throw the whole painting off and I’d lose the key of it. Makes sense? A big one. That was a big early one.
Eric Rhoads 18:28
Yeah, it makes total sense. And were there any other things that have changed dramatically for you?
Scott Christensen 18:36
You know, so many things. I’ve limited the palettes down most of the paintings I’ve done in this last exhibition that I did, I limited my palette down to cobalt blue, venetian red and yellow ochre, and white. And that was my pretty much the beginning of almost every painting I did so that my key would stay up so I couldn’t get too heavy in the shadows. You’d be surprised if you mix cobalt blue with venetian red, just how dark it looks. But it doesn’t get you into big trouble with the darks because I wanted my key to be up so I can see into the shadows more. A lot of the light I see outdoors is definitely washed out seemingly in the light and more colorful in the shadows. But that’s how I that’s what I learned from Zoran and Suraiya. And those painters that have helped me apply that to landscape and still to this day. I’m so intrigued with what I see in shadows.
Eric Rhoads 19:27
So you will do a first pass on the on the Zorn palette, if you will and then you’ll move on or you will expand the palette. So when you’re when you’re trying to …
Scott Christensen 19:36
I’m not using the black, I’m using cobalt blue instead of black. Okay, and I’m using venetian red instead of Permanent Red most of the time but just as a model just to use that modified color and go straight out the color I think I’m seeing i It’s not extravagant color that we devalue doesn’t get carried away. You don’t get too heavy in the darks and that’s the big. That’s the big takeaway from that. limited palette to me is it limits your range. And there’s a lot of strength in that limitation. And I think that limitation is really super important. And then when I start expanding on the palette, I add whatever colors I think I might need.
Eric Rhoads 20:14
Will you then enrich the darks at that point? Or will you kind of keep them where they are?
Scott Christensen 20:19
I’m surprised that you can get away with the three those three primaries. But yes, I will return up the darks where I think it needs it. And I’m experimenting a lot of times as you brought up, the word pattern pattern is everything to me like the when I do a pass over a painting, I might do 25 passes over the entire painting before it’s ever finished. So I’ll impose another pattern on it, let’s say like in the shadow, I want to get more saturation, I’ll push that saturation into the shadow within a certain value, color temperature range, and see what the painting can hold that and see if it resonates or not. And sometimes I’ll have to subordinate a bit or not. But just depends on where I’m going with it. But a whole lot of setup and a whole lot of setup meaning your knowledge of what you want out of the piece and presupposing you know what that is sticking with it and then not deviating so much that you you can’t control this idea for a while. I don’t let the painting there’s a certain time where I feel like painting tries to take over and it starts going its own way and you got to kind of rein it back in. If if you know exactly where you want to go. Otherwise, I find that paintings get darker and darker. And I’m spending most of my time trying to lighten them up again to get more information in the shadows.
Eric Rhoads 21:38
You’ve been painting with a lot of gouache. Tell me how that started and why.
Scott Christensen 21:46
I just, I used to paint with gouache. But I didn’t remember how much I used to gouache. But I started painting was just at certain reframing the way I think. And that was a really important part of painting for me was a friend of mine, Larry Moore started painting with gouache, he said, I had too many questions. So I didn’t, I wanted to wait until I had the chance chance to really speak with him about it. And once I realized you could keep adding paint and keep adding more. Change your viscosity, add more pigment, do those things that you could, when I thought it was done, it was still watercolor looking, but I could impose more pigment onto it and really move those values. And I realized that it was really important in my oil painting. And it made me think different. So that’s the reason I did it actually. And it was also just, I don’t know what I’m going to use to this day if I bring both paint, oil paint and wash out. And sometimes I’ll look at a subject you like, I think I’m going to use a wash on this one. And for some reason, there’s been unbeknownst to me that I think I understand something different about where I’m gonna go with it, or don’t understand something. And so I’m gonna try one or the other, but depending on what just feels right with that theme that I’m in front of. So I don’t know what I’m going to use ever anymore. I just use whatever feels like the medium to go.
Eric Rhoads 23:15
I thought I thought you were gonna say taking gouache out, it’s just so much easier.
Scott Christensen 23:20
I don’t know if it’s easier actually, friend of mine. Really, really popular artists is people know, I’m Ned Mueller. He said don’t paint and gouache is just as hard. It’s hard to do. And it’s very unforgiving. And there’s a lot of qualities about it that are unforgiving. But I learned something. I learned a lot. Still learning a lot from using gouache makes me it just informs my opening in a different totally different way.
Eric Rhoads 23:51
I’ve been very excited by it. I took gouache with me to Japan and I was frustrated because I really wasn’t very experienced with it. And I wanted to just throw away everything but the more I got into it, the more I realized what you can do with it. And there is a lot of flexibility. I took it simply because I didn’t I didn’t want to have to carry oils and yeah. And so I’m really, really curious about this show. You’ve got a Big Western Show. Not Western show, but a big show at the at the Western art museum in Kirbyville, Texas, which is a very highly respected museum with an incredible collection. You and Quang Ho decided to do it together. How did this whole thing come about?
Scott Christensen 24:43
Darrell gave me gave me a call and said he would like to have an exhibition. This is after calling in I had done one in Atlanta. And I mean it the booth museum I’m sorry. So he had asked if we and it was about four and a half years ago. So I was I’m collecting a lot of different paintings of little studies that I was working on and trying to decide variety for the show for a next show that I was going to have. And when he had mentioned that it’s been four and a half years into it, to this day that I got these done. That’s the longest I’ve ever spent on an exhibition. But it’s, it was a real telling. thing. I mean, I feel like after the paintings are gone, I feel semi lost, like I’m gonna restart everything again.
Eric Rhoads 25:31
Do you feel like this is a pinnacle of your career? Or do you feel like this is just a stepping stone to get to the next level?
Scott Christensen 25:42
I think it’s the largest show I’ve ever done. But it’s also about I also feel like I can do better always, I always do. And I always think there’s something out there that just not quite attaining. And that’s usually the case, but I, but it’s harder to find. Now I find that I’m spending more time exploring Eric than I ever have. Still. I’ve paint more now than I ever used to paint I am more excited about painting than I ever used to be. I just remember I just can fall right into in a different way. I don’t second guess everything so much I go over it straight out it because I know the knowledge base has helped me to just go straight to the point and try to get that dialed in as soon as I can. So my painting outdoors is good, bad and totally ridiculous sometimes.
Eric Rhoads 26:31
Yeah. So do you ever have paintings that you trash that you just bomb?
Scott Christensen 26:38
I recently burned well over 300 of them. I just can’t stand looking at them. But there, there’s information in some of them. So I keep those for that reason. So I do a lot of work outdoors. But they’re what gives me the ideas that I’m trying to come up with. And what it is that I want to make this painting about? And how I’m going to do it is it’s all I’ve got to be out there to see it to do it. And then I can have to get answers to tough questions that help me find where I’m gonna go.
Eric Rhoads 27:12
Yeah, I mean to four and a half years is a big project. Now I’m kind of curious about the process that you have to go through. Because, you know, when when Darryl called what a great guy he is, by the way, and yeah, he called and said, All right, I want you guys to do another show. And I want you to do a big one at my museum. What’s going through your head? Is it? I’m going to do? I’m going to try to set a goal of 50 paintings or 100 paintings or 10 paintings or yeah, what do you? What do you go through? I mean, I can’t even imagine what it’s like.
Scott Christensen 27:52
But hilarious was said he asked for a lot of paintings, and he wanted them all big. And I said, Well, I don’t I don’t know what a lot of paintings is, but I don’t believe I want to do more than I wouldn’t want to see more than 50 of mine in one room, or one place. So that would be a high number for me. And, and also to put an exhibition together. It has variety to it variety, a palette and scenes and things that look, you know, like you’re really stretching. Those are the things I was looking for in the show. That was my personal, my but to try to paint everything large, I don’t think everything necessarily needs to have a large view of, but I think I just have taken the time to figure out what I wanted to do with what scenes and make the variety that I wanted to put in the show.
Eric Rhoads 28:44
How do you determine if something works big versus little? Is there a something going through your head on that?
Scott Christensen 28:53
Usually, yeah, it’s so many things. I mean, it might be just the impact of green painting one that’s called Tropical and it’s just a bunch of banana trees and stuff. And it’s just more it’s more about the temperature of green and in reaching the saturation level this tolerable to me. There’s something I think is aesthetically pleasing that I see outdoors but not try to overemphasize it. And those kind of things will will carry different things will carry different ways in different paintings. And I want to make sure that it’s it’s kind of different handling all the time. I wish I could have I wish I could answer that better. I’d have to, to think about every one individually probably to do that.
Eric Rhoads 29:38
Well the 5050 of your favorite babies. So while while you just mentioned that sometimes I like to give tips on this program. People like tips. Talk to us about painting greens, because the tendency again we talked about this is to over green or over over garish. Are there some things that you typically teach your students to do with their greens?
Scott Christensen 30:07
Outdoors, I typically stay away from cadmium yellow, outdoors I will use. Now I will use cab yellow pale, or cad yellow lemon because they’re a cool yellow, I don’t see that acidic yellow, cat yellow lights, let’s say or medium too much outdoors. I know it’s in the shadows more, but I’ll tend to use maybe a couple yellows, say yellow pale or yellow lemon with or yellow ochre, as well. And I will try to modify my greens with a couple blues and a couple of yellows. And then the great modifier is red, as you know, is is most people painting on the blue and yellow side of things and ignore the great modifier, which I think is red. So I’ll spend more time trying to find different reds to put in the greens to to add diversity to the color without over exaggerating, I think we can it’s easy to over exaggerate the greens. And I think it becomes quite garish at that point. But that’s just a personal thing. It’s not right or wrong. It’s just a personal taste.
Eric Rhoads 31:12
So I’m going to ask a bit of a personal question. This is more along the lines of how you survive as an artist, or how one survives as an artist, when you’re putting together a show of 50 paintings or for four and a half years, you still have to eat, I would assume that you still had to be painting other paintings could be sold during that period of time.
Scott Christensen 31:37
So many other paintings in the process, to definitely to support the cost of framing and everything else that I had to do to support myself. But it’s always worth it to me that the bigger paintings that I’ve sold have really been a large part of being able to hold on to these for a period of time, but I think I’d sell a lot of Bosch as well. They’re the studies I use, I do kind of a gesture version of gouache and do some more take more toward finish. But I don’t have a best way of working as much as I just enjoy painting more than I ever have. And, and my my favorite place to work is that tailgate of my my land cruiser. So it’s like a big table for me.
Eric Rhoads 32:26
Yeah, well, it’s convenient. But yeah, you ever backpack in and?
Scott Christensen 32:31
yeah, I love the backpack, we’ve had horses, take us in on trips and drop us for 10 days. And then we’ll take a pack and walk around different angles to the peaks. And then come back to the camp and then go back different angles in different direction. Next day. I like to find places that are hard to get to. But they’re also easy enough to get to but they’re they’re not so infiltrated with people. And I’m noticing that those places are pretty found out now.
Eric Rhoads 33:00
Yeah, so you don’t want to paint around other people.
Scott Christensen 33:04
I tend to be a loner I guess I would or just a couple of few people.
Eric Rhoads 33:10
Is it because you’re an introvert? Or is it because you don’t want to be? Have your concentration disrupted?
Scott Christensen 33:17
I think I want to absorb things, I can’t have too many questions. I’m having all these questions to myself to figure out what I’m looking at. And I like to speak with other people about it that I’m with that have a similar kind of instead of understanding, because it’s not to try to justify mine as much as it is to bat around like a cricket ball, I guess and see what you’re seeing versus what they’re seeing so that you can come up with your own version of how it looks to you. There’s never a right answer to me. There’s always many different ways to solve the problem. But knowing that it frees me up to stay more objective with the ideas out there, but I love the pack trips. I’ve taken many of those and I really love doing them.
Eric Rhoads 34:09
So how does an artist elevate themselves? What you probably get this question a lot. How do I get to the next level? What do I what do I have to push through what do I have to do? What’s up I remember when you know after looking at those reppin paintings and the love of tan painting, especially you saying you know I don’t know if I can paint again remember I mentioned that earlier and and then you called me a few weeks later and you said you know I just I’m stuck. I can’t seem to put anything good on canvas. And then you called me about three months later and you say I finally broke through. What is the pain that one has to go through to elevate?
Scott Christensen 34:54
That’s pretty continuous. I don’t remember saying I couldn’t paint as much as I It probably was just pretty stuck, like he said, because I think we all go through that there is not a person that lived it is painting seriously, that is not going to go through stuck periods. And I think there’s only way I get through that Eric has a CS or not, is this. Winston Churchill said he spent 90% of his time coming up with good answers to tough questions. And to me, that’s what painting is, is coming up with good answers to tough questions most of the time, that’s what our project is, and how we’re going to manage it as early as goes what we know about our medium, and then what we know about our subject. So I take those things, and I try to use the study of, for instance, values and color, temperature and those type of things as a separate thing, and I try to take all the ideas that I’m gonna put together and and work through them. I’ve got different ways of doing it. And I, they’re very broad, they’re very broad, I don’t have just one way of doing it. So good answers to tough questions is basically the way I’ve done it.
Eric Rhoads 36:01
Different every time. So we talked a little bit about gouache and, we talked about, your initial painting that’s going to be with the cobalt, venetian red, yellow ochre. What are you taking out in the field, you’re doing the same thing you’re using those colors out in the field, and is that with gouache and with, with oil?
Scott Christensen 36:24
Yes, it is, I bring a variety of other colors with me. But I’ll key that thing in with a simpler palette so that I don’t get over extended. With color, I just want to see the whole come together faster. And I don’t want to diversion have too many dark values in there. So I want to see what I can get for a dark value. But those three, it doesn’t seem like much, but I just challenge anybody to paint coat Mexico, Walton Venetian together, looking at dark that gets, it’ll be surprised. But it also is it also gives you a range that’s higher key than most. So I can see more into my shadows. Before I get started to dark. I think what I tend to do outdoors, one of my biggest problems is to watch what my tendencies are, I tend to paint too dark outdoors, like 90% of us do. And so if I get started too dark, it’s gonna stay dark and it’s hard to get out of. So I try to wash my key right away, and then I’ll start adding to it.
Eric Rhoads 37:18
So one of the solutions is just to take the super dark paints away, and then you can’t do that. That’s a pretty actually a pretty interesting approach to that.
Scott Christensen 37:28
It’s actually saved, saved a lot of my paintings, I can see that I had an artist friend had a big class here one time, he had 20 people in the class and he said, Let’s go up to a place you want to meet. You think we ought to go paint. So he says, take us up there. So I brought him up and and this guy’s very accomplished painter. He said, I don’t this is crazy. People aren’t going to know what to do with this. What? What should we do to paint this scene it was rocks everywhere, waters coming down everywhere and busy, just busy, you know, and I had to I said, I just went with my palette so that I don’t get crazy with the color I can’t keep up then.
Eric Rhoads 38:05
So those those additional paintings kind of look like almost like tonalist paintings.
Scott Christensen 38:12
They’re seemingly close value, but they’re not extravagant in color at least. And you can get pretty extravagant with color. So with those three be surprised. But yeah, we’re not extravagant, I wouldn’t say but harmonious is most important part to me at the beginning so that I don’t get any strange things happening, I can’t understand. And I think one of the biggest problems with color, in my opinion is that if we get too colorful, too fast, it’s hard to manage it. And when you once you have a hard time managing that you’re trying to, you’re trying to bring it into submission with the whole idea. That becomes a whole different issue. And your painting doesn’t seem to be as solid of a read if that makes any sense.
Eric Rhoads 38:49
So somebody wants to learn painting, maybe they’re watching or listening to this? Where do you start them out? Knowing what you know now, because you’ve been teaching for probably for 20 years plus. And you do this fabulous online program, which now is required before anybody can attend any of your workshops, which I think is brilliant. Because you’re dealing with getting out all the mundane stuff that everybody has to go through first. But where do you start somebody today? Do you? Do you say I’m going to start you with three colors? You start them with no colors? Do you work on values? Where do you where do you begin? If you were teaching a beginner and I know you don’t do that, but
Scott Christensen 39:33
Yeah, well, I have and I do I think one of the most important things to a beginner is learning those initial things that they think they learn and understand that they don’t understand at all, I think when I so for instance, I mean in Russia is you know, they talked about using no color for four years before they use black and white before they could even touch color for quite some time and I don’t know if anybody would have the patience for that. In the United States, but the way we’re, that just shows me the importance of, of understanding the black and white version of things before you ever get into color. So I would probably limit their palette so they don’t get some big trouble. I’ve noticed that like, for instance, by taking a yellow ochre versus a cad yellow light, or something, if I take Kenya light off their palette and give them a yellow ochre, they can’t get so crazy with that yellow and greens don’t become acidic. And they have more of a range that they can deal with. And then they can start sneaking up on some more acidic type colors, but they, there’s things that we’ll do with placement with composition. But what I really want to do, Eric, because I want to people to do enough of this study so that I’m not repeating myself all workshop about the same things because what they actually say that they know or think that they know they don’t at all, and and that’s the that’s the thing about painting you don’t you don’t know what you don’t know. And until you see it, and then start understanding it in a way that’s really clear. It becomes you know, you can have the right answers to things but until you really understand it clearly for yourself. It’s hard to understand it.
Eric Rhoads 41:16
So, tell me a little bit about this show. I give me a preview you’ve got if the three paintings in the show. 53 Yeah, so and Quang Ho has roughly about the same number.
Scott Christensen 41:33
would say close yep, I think I don’t know the number. Exactly. But I didn’t know that last number until the last day either. Because we’re always still working on something, you know, you brought up something earlier about the business of art somehow, and I never answered that, really. I was gonna say the biggest thing that helped me the most. I was, I was Wonder, the crisis. And I didn’t, I didn’t say it. But it’s, I read an oration speech given at King’s College in London, by CS Lewis, and it was called the inner ring. And this five page oration speech that he gave was about trying to become a part of so many different things. In our lives, we’re going to try to if we can just conform to this or be a part of that group, or this group or this group, then we will have arrived, when in fact, you kind of lose some of your other friends and whoever has been, whoever you’ve been worth trying to be a part of all these things, but you can only be accepted, right. And what I’ve realized in that whole speech is at the very end, he said, try to do try to just get better at your craft, rather than try to conform to everything. And the deal is that that whole thing will present itself differently to you in rings will form around you, rather than you trying to conform. And that’s not an arrogant statement. It’s more try trying not to conform and try to find that artistic self. And you know, and that was probably the biggest thing that helped me not try to chase everything that came along.
Eric Rhoads 43:00
What kind of what kind of things? are we chasing that, that maybe are getting in the way?
Scott Christensen 43:06
I think it’s different for different people, some people, it’s no tasting, and it doesn’t bother them at all. I don’t do my best work, for instance, in group settings, you know, I know that so I don’t try to join those group settings. I mean, I’ll have I’m in a couple like preta West and things like that we’re giving paintings every year, but I don’t, I don’t, I don’t do well, as far as performance as far as doing good work in front of people. Yeah, that’s just a difference in personality too. And it’s also really good for me to know what that is because I would get frustrated. If I tried to be a part of to different scenes or different you can also be a part of just everything that comes along because there’s too many. And there’s really good ideas out there but you just can’t keep up with that. And so I tried to do my best work and then chapter on where I’m gonna put him I think, you know.
Eric Rhoads 43:59
It takes a lifetime to become a good artist. If you apply yourself well, and even then it’s tough. Yeah. And but there are so many distractions. And I’m not being critical of those distractions either. But you know, plein air shows and the plein air circuit we have five artists that are going out and doing six 8 10 12 plein air shows a year. They’re living in their cars, it seems like and that’s and I’m not being critical eye they love doing it. You know, there’s a whole lot of other distractions and just painting alone. If one could just stick to that. That could have a monumental impact. Yeah, but then again, you know, you have to eat right and so you have to teach you have to do something else. If you’re not selling paintings enough, you got to do something to eat.
Scott Christensen 44:56
There’s no question about it. I don’t have a problem that people do it. I just stuff, I just think that for your own personalities, you got to figure out what you would like. And that’s just how I’ve had to work my career as a painter to be around people that I think are critical enough to help me understand what I can do better. And those are really just as important as any of it. I don’t think everybody can inform you of your direction in painting, I think you have to have a certain group of people that understand your vision well enough to basically support your aesthetic acts, and how you want to look.
Eric Rhoads 45:33
There’s a principle that talks about if you surround yourself, the people, you surround yourself for what you become. Yeah, do you find that it’s important for you to surround yourself with artists who, have equal abilities and equal sensitivities?
Scott Christensen 45:51
Yeah, you know, the, sometimes their abilities and sensitivities aren’t so good, but they’re very articulate as well. It doesn’t matter which there’s not, I don’t think there’s a best way in that. There’s some really great teachers who don’t always paint as well as I think they can. But that doesn’t mean they don’t aren’t full of information. And they’re stretching themselves all the time. They’re not even sure where they’re headed. And I think that’s pretty common for most artists. I don’t think we ever have it defined particularly well. I think it’s, it’s obscure, and, and it’s, I don’t know, and it’s not so easy as to it’s a very valuable thing to learn to paint a sight. It’s like writing music when I was, when I’m listening to the music industry, people talk about writing, and they move out of their ability to sing, and they possibly just go down the road of just writing music and and it’s instead of performing it, just the find your own way, one way or another. And I don’t know how that is other than experimenting with the things you have in front of you.
Eric Rhoads 46:58
Yeah, there’s not a you should do this. Because everybody else is doing it. You should, whatever you want to be doing. So two-part question.
Scott Christensen 47:07
Okay.
Eric Rhoads 47:09
You pick pick one artist from history. May you mentioned Sargent, you mentioned some of the Russians pick one artists from history that you wish you could sit down with them and ask them one question, who would it be? What would the question be?
Scott Christensen 47:28
I can tell you one today that I have and that would be Frank Tenney Johnson today. He did a painting of a goat and some rocks that he and I have no idea what kind of a palette he must have used. But I have oh, can I can I have a different question every day for another different but I have this one painting that I seen appears it’s in the back of one of his books that one of the books of Frank Tenney Johnson and I’ve always looked at him but not but this but his use of shape and, and volume that he gets out of even rock and mass and horses and figures. His understanding of color is a different level that I just don’t understand it still. And that’s where I probably started.
Eric Rhoads 48:12
Okay, so now the Part B of the question is what’s something that everybody needs to know about you that nobody would know if 100 years from now unless they were able to ask you related to painting related.
Scott Christensen 48:34
I’ll pull out my first painting I’ve ever done. Because people always think that I painted different than somehow I started different than they did and I wouldn’t possibly understand it when I show them my first painting. There they go, Oh, okay, maybe I can do this. Because we all pretty much start the same. You know, it’s not it’s not a mystery that we’re not that good. The beginning. So that’s one of them. …a long way off my ignorance. That’s a good one. It’s probably things I didn’t thought I knew but didn’t know. You know, it’s pretty interesting what we learn as we, if you can open yourself up to being objective with your thought and, you know, being completely against abstraction. I understood that that’s a big part of painting later on. But I fought against it with people like when I look at or dislike a meal or not say me across a steak and Edward Steichen wanted to be an artist and he’s a great photographer, and he painted as well. And one of the first things I ever saw was an Edward Steichen and I thought, I can’t like this. There’s nothing about it this legible to me, and I don’t know what it is. And it looked like a nuclear blast, but it was actually bunch of trees with a moon behind it. But it’s so well designed that I that’s not really is your versus I think I could get with my answer. But let me think about that a minute.
Eric Rhoads 50:13
Okay, so the show coming up 50 paintings 53 paintings from you from Quang Ho. It’s going to be running from July 21. Yep, I believe until end of September. And it’s going to be a great opportunity are the paintings in the show, some of them are available for purchase or they is strictly a show with no purchases.
Scott Christensen 50:41
There are some that are available for purchase, and some are borrowed back and some but the majority of the bigger paintings will be for sale.
Eric Rhoads 50:49
And what’s the biggest painting in the show?
Scott Christensen 50:54
In this show, I think 48×70 twos couple of those. I’ve got some 40s, a lot of 48s. And those are the biggest ones. But some of the smart they’re going 30, 36, 30 by 30 and 53 of them. I can’t remember them all.
Eric Rhoads 51:14
Well, congratulations on your persistence on this. I mean that to be able to pull that off. I want to tell you a story though. Just just to diminish this just a little bit to humble you. Last time I went over to Russia, they put me at the I don’t know if we you and I did not go to the aka the academic Dasha No, in the middle of the country, but they put me in one of the studios and their bedrooms and studios. And it was absolutely disgusting. But that’s another story for another time. And in the studio next to me was this artist and whose name was Russian. And I don’t remember it right now. So forgive me, but he was 89 years old. And he said, and I went over and talk to him with a translator. And he he had five months until his 90th birthday. And he agreed to do a 90th birthday celebration by producing 25 Big works. And every painting was over 15 feet at 89 years old, doing 20, 25 15 foot paintings and and he had them all stretched in there and read it and he didn’t even know what he was going to paint. It was really pretty fascinating. So guys, like you and guys like him have a lot of guts. And I congratulate you on that because these paintings will be historically important first off because of the show. But secondly, because you’ve you and Kwang have both put your all into them. And, let’s hope they’re historically important anyway. I know you don’t sit around and think about those things. But I you know, these are the paintings are going to end up on the walls in the museum’s collectors who leave their collections to prominent museums in the future. That’s kind of how most museums got their collections. And, you know, big paintings don’t end up in goodwill and can’t imagine they would anyway, but congratulations, this is a huge, a huge monumental task. And it’s got to take a certain personality type of persistence. And did you ever kind of feel like what have I gotten myself into and just feel like given up.
Scott Christensen 53:33
I don’t think given up was in the vocabulary, but I definitely felt like it at times. I definitely had to have my time away from it. I create time away from it. Just even I’ll go out and fly fish, take Nelly for walk in the field or whatever. And go basically, I have to get away from what I’m doing to come back and see it more objectively. So I spend time away trying to do other things. And it’s really unnecessary for me because it makes you crazy.
Eric Rhoads 54:04
Well, Scott, I appreciate your your leadership. I appreciate your tenacity and all the things that you have done. For those of us in the art world that are too many to mention. We’re excited about you coming to the plein air convention and doing a pre convention workshop there. And we are really honored to have you on the plein air podcast and I’m honored to call your friend thank you so much for thank you all you do.
Scott Christensen 54:31
Thank you for the time we’ve spent together. It’s really my honor. My appreciate it very much. Thank you.
Eric Rhoads 54:37
And I’m looking forward to go and painting together. We got to get that figured out. But you probably just want to sleep for about three years.
Scott Christensen 54:46
I’m ready to go now. Yeah. Looks like after I’ve moved 53 paintings out of here. It looks like I’m moving you know?
Eric Rhoads 54:53
Well, let’s uh you don’t need to work out every day. Those things are heavy. Yeah, well again, thank you so much. And thanks for being on the plein air podcast.
Scott Christensen 55:03
Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
Eric Rhoads 55:05
All right. Fabulous. Well, that is Scott Christensen. And what a remarkable human being, you know, to be able to paint so well. And to remain so humble. There’s not an ounce of arrogance in that man. Not an ounce of ego. He is truly humble. I mean, this is not an act. You know, he’s just the kind of guy that’s really terrific human beings. So again, thank you to Scott Christensen. Okay, so as part of the plein air podcast, we next go to the marketing minute.
Announcer 55:38
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 55:51
So we’d like to do the art marketing minute because a lot of people want to learn how to sell their artwork. So they too can become somebody who’s doing shows in major museums and so on. Got some interesting questions today. You can send your questions to me anytime [email protected]. Or you can always come live on the podcast. If you have questions. We’d love to do that. And my daily YouTube show, which is called Art School live. It’s been going on since COVID. Every weekday we’re doing marketing art marketing Monday’s now. So another place to get questions answered. All right, first question comes from David out in Idaho. David says, At what point is an in an artist career do you suggest they try using advertising to reach potential buyers? Is it effective for artists to still try and establish themselves? Or is it better left to more well established artists? Well, I get this question a lot. It’s a very astute question. The astute part here, David, is that you’re saying At what point? You see there is an inflection point in every artists career, that they need to make a decision? Do they want to take it to the next level? And that inflection point usually comes from feedback and feedback is usually, hey, why aren’t you? Why aren’t you out there selling your work? Now, again, you know, if you don’t have to sell your work, and you don’t want to sell your work, there’s certainly no obligation to do that. A lot of artists that I’ve coached have said, you know, I want the recognition. I just don’t want to sell anything, and there are ways to accomplish that. But I think the idea is to find out at what point you’re ready, and first off is how do you find out you’re ready, your mother, your father, your close friends probably want to tell you great things about your paintings. And they probably believe them. They’re not telling you false things. But you want to get to people who understand people who are experts, people who understand the difference between good quality and poor quality. And you want people who will give you honest feedback you so I like to go to people like gallery owners, and and other artists and say listen, I’d like to compensate you for your little your time. I don’t want to hear the good news. I want to hear the bad news. I want you to tell me what I need to work on. What what when am I ready? I had an artist come to me and say that her instructor told her she wasn’t ready. And I said, I think you’re ready. And she went out to the market. And she she crushed it. And she did a really terrific job. In hindsight, I don’t know if she was ready now because I have more experience behind me now. And I don’t know if she was ready, but she crushed it anyway, I think you know, the goal is, you know, if you put it off forever, if you’re never ready, instead of ever ready, if you’re never ready, then the question then becomes, are you are you going to have time? And because it takes time and you want to take some time to do it. So go back to your question is once you find out that you have feedback, and that you are ready and get get some multiple feedback points, because you know, you might have a couple of people who are grumpy and tell you you’re not and a couple people will tell you you are and you got to find a tiebreaker in that the timing is a really about when you decide you want to get serious and what get getting serious means something different to every person. So for some people getting serious means from going from selling one painting a year to selling a 100 paintings a year or from you know, from not being serious about it to deciding to become a professional. I had an artist I interviewed recently, who said there was a moment in time I decided to become a professional. From that moment. Everything changed, right? Everything clicked, I had to figure out how to do this how to make a living. And so and then you go from making pennies and you go from making pennies into dollars, right? So the best way to scale is an artist is first off set goals. If you just go into tactics without goals, you’re bound to fail, or you’re bound to accomplish something that you didn’t intend to accomplish, you know, you can become successful, and end up doing something that you don’t really want to be doing. And so make sure you set some goals, make sure those goals are in alignment with your life and what you want to do and your family and your, your wife, or your husband or your partner, whomever, and make sure that you’re in alignment, so that you say, Hey, this is what I plan to do for the next five years. This is this is where I’m going. How do we all feel about this and make sure everybody’s on board, then then to scale? You’ve got to figure out, you know, how do you? How do you get more visibility? How do you grow your prices? How do you grow your brand, your personal brand makes a big difference? How do you? How do you grow your sales, your image, your reputation, and that is usually through aggressive behavior. aggressive behavior is constant repetition, finding ways to continually be advertising, finding ways to be continually getting press releases, stories, shows, things like that. I had an artist come to me and he said, Eric, I don’t understand what’s going on. He said, I used to be making money hand over fist today. I you know, I can’t, I can’t sell a painting, say my life. I said, What are you doing differently than what you did 10 years ago? And he said, Well, nothing really I said it. He said, I do all the same thing. So I said, I beg to differ. I said when was last time you did a show. He says I haven’t done a show in a long time. I don’t need them anymore. I said, When was the last time you got a story in a publication? He says oh, probably 10 years ago, I haven’t really pursued that. Because everybody knows who I am. I said, No, they don’t. Everybody doesn’t know who you are. Everybody then maybe knew who you were not everybody today, 10 years has passed, a lot of people have changed, right? And so you want to look at you’ve got to continually keep this going. If you want to grow and be successful. As an artist. It’s a lifetime journey. It’s a commitment. It’s a commitment to advertising. It’s a commitment to promotion. It’s a commitment to putting yourself out there. You know, putting together a show with 50 paintings is not easy for anybody. But it’s a Herculean event and, and that takes commitment. And it takes putting your life on hold and other things and having to give up things to be able to do it. It takes some sense of tenacity and aggressiveness. And so you’ve got to you know, you’ve just got to look at this and say, If I’m going to be, you know, full time successful artists for the next 30 years, then you got to say, Alright, I got to do this stuff for the next 30 years. And if you decide to retire, then you can stop. But if you if you stop without retiring, your income will dry up. It happens time and time again, I hear all the stories all the time. So then there’s questions about ads, local ads, versus national ads, what kind of ads establishing yourself to do it on a grand scale, we all think think that it’s about time. But it’s not always about time. It’s about being I mean, there are artists out there, I’ve been painting as long as Burton Silverman who has been painting, while he’s 90 something years old. He’s been painting probably most of his life. There are other painters out there who are just as old who have been painting just as long who probably are as good, but nobody knows who they are, because they didn’t promote themselves. So you gotta get out there. Not even even the biggest names are not on everybody’s radar. You know, there’s always somebody who doesn’t know. So don’t assume everybody knows. Look for more exposure, more shows more articles, more podcasts more, more, more, more, more, more and more, it adds up. And the best way to hit a target is with lots of bullets. I like a machine gun. Right that I because that machine gun is the power of repetition. You just got to just keep blasting away. Maybe that’s a negative metaphor. And I mean to do that, alright, I hope that helps.
Eric Rhoads 1:03:51
Next question is similar, really, it’s coming from Tom Whitmore in Maine. I want to become a big name, the kind of artists who’s getting invited into the all the best shows best galleries and getting pursued by collectors. How do I do it? Well, there are a lot of people who are not big names who are getting invited into all those things. So big name is a relative term. You know, big name is a big name. Clyde Aspevig or Scott Christensen? Yes. But there are a lot of big names that are not anywhere close to that level that are still big names that are getting invited into a lot of things. I did an experiment with an artist years ago, I took on coaching an artist and suggesting how to build a career and this person followed pretty much everything I suggested to the tee for the course of about seven years, and in seven years became a very prominent, very well known artist. Among considered among the biggest in the best big shows, got invited all the stuff got invited all the galleries got invited everything and it was a very deliberate ces stuff that we put into place, it didn’t just happen. And it doesn’t happen typically by accident, you know, this idea of being discovered in Schwab’s as a movie star, ain’t likely to happen. Did I use the word ain’t I’m sorry, my mother would correct me on that. So I think that, you know, I went into depth on that on my marketing Monday recently, and, and so I’ll try to give you a little bit of the depth, but there’s an equation, it’s a three legged stool. It’s called Media, message and market. And when you add up the three of those that combine into perfect harmony, then you get success, what media am I going to promote? On? What market am I going to go after, and what’s the message, you know, market you go after is major, you know, if you’re going after people who can’t afford to buy paintings, then you’re not going to, you can tell them all you want about yourself, you’re not gonna sell any painting. So you got to make sure you’ve got the right market, the right message to that market, what are they interested in, and so on, then you need the aging component. It’s like fine wine. And that is you just keep beating the drum over and over and over again, and people keep hearing it and your brand just continues to grow. So there are artists with longevity, that do this, and they’ve got big names. And there are artists who do all the longevity. And they don’t do that they don’t have big names. And that’s the big difference. So I went to England to view the work of an artist who had never sold any of his work, and did not want to and I was asked to talk this artist into doing that. And I was not able to because he didn’t want to do you didn’t want to go through all that. And that’s okay. That’s what he didn’t want to do. So you need exposure, constant repetition of exposure. And it’s never one thing. It’s a combination of shows, press releases, stories, advertising. And there was a study done in with some of the art magazines. And I think we participated. And they found out that people think of advertising content as editorial content in art magazines, which is unusual for most magazines, because of the pretty pictures, right? Because most artists put pictures in so you’re you get this nice blend people. People equate you with content, which is a positive thing. So boosting your career is a major undertaking. It’s a long process. But if you’re a strong painter, and we recommend that first, right. I mean, there are great painters who became very wealthy people who were and they’re not great painters who became very wealthy people. There are, you know, if you use marketing leverage, person who’s not a great painter, can become a wealthy person, but I don’t recommend it, I suggest become a great painter first really get really good. Put yourself out there. And when you put yourself out there, you actually get better because you’re you’re now seeing yourself differently, you’re a pro, you’re having to step up and do things differently. And that changes your mindset. So get the chops and then pursue it and pursue it hard. So there’s a lot of ways you can learn it. But the best way is just to start trying remember goals before tactics. I hope this is helpful. Anyway, that is the marketing minute.
Announcer 1:08:07
This has been the marketing minute with Eric Rhoads. You can learn more at artmarketing.com
Eric Rhoads 1:08:16
Thanks to Scott Christensen for today what a great interview. Thank you for listening. Thanks to those who have been listening live as we record this. Hope this is all helpful. Send me your questions. Reminder pastel live is coming up in September pastellive.com plein air convention get your Tahoe seats because it will sell out it always does. And that’s coming up in May in some in in Lake Tahoe pleinairconvention.com. And a reminder, if you’re not a subscriber to plein air magazine, we would enjoy serving you. PleinAirmagazine.com If you have not seen my blog, where I talk about art life, coffee, friends, relationships, all kinds of things. It’s called Sunday coffee and you can find it at Coffeewitheric.com. I’m also on the air daily. The air being Facebook and YouTube. My show is called Art School live, where hundreds of artists do demos and talks. I’m there every noon, Eastern every weekday. Mondays are marketing Mondays Fridays are feedback Fridays, which is critiques in between we have lessons free lessons for everybody. You can subscribe on YouTube just by going to art school alive and hit that subscribe button. Okay. Also follow me Eric Rhoads on Instagram and Facebook etc. I am Eric. Eric Rhoads, publisher of plein air magazine proud to be publisher of that for over 20 years. It’s it’s exciting. The movement is exciting, and I hope you’ll become a part of it. I appreciate your time today. Thank you and thank you to Scott Christensen, he’s one of my favorite people for a million different reasons, including the fact that he’s a good painter, but that’s only part heard of it. He’s a great human being just a sweet man. Anyway, remember, it’s a big world out there. Go paint it. We’ll see you. Bye bye.
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