In this episode, Eric Rhoads interviews Jill Carver, whose work “explores the dialogue between abstraction and realism.”
Listen as they discuss:
– Figuring out a roadmap when it comes to painting
– How to manage when you have a short amount of time to capture the scene before you
– Why she paints on location and in the studio
– And much more
Bonus! Is it wiser to represent yourself or seek representation through galleries? How can you create a marketing strategy that aligns with your goals? Eric Rhoads answers in this episode of the Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
Listen to the Plein Air Podcast with Eric Rhoads and Jill Carver here:
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Related Links:
– Jill Carver online: https://jillcarver.com/
– Jill’s art video workshops: https://painttube.tv/search?type=product&q=jill%20carver*
– Pastel Live: https://pastellive.com/
– PleinAir Magazine: https://pleinairmagazine.com/
– Plein Air Convention & Expo: https://pleinairconvention.com/
– Fall Color Week 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.
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 0:34
Thank you Jim Kipping. And welcome to the Plein Air Podcast. I’m Eric Rhoads. And, wow, I’m so glad to be here. I’m glad to be anywhere quite frankly, I just have not been doing the podcast consistently. And my apologies to you. I’ve been getting a lot of complaints. And it’s just like, I don’t know, what happens is just it’s been extremely busy. And we have not been very good at keeping up on this. So we had a little talk with myself. And we’re gonna get back to this. We’re looking for your ideas and who you would like to have on the podcast in the future. And I just gave a list to my producers. And we’re going after that. But if you have them email me, [email protected]. And, you know, there’s been a lot going on. So I took a group of people to Japan, I don’t think I’ve talked to you since then took a group of people to Japan to paint for 10 days. It was amazing. Then I had a just about a week to kind of catch up and you know, email piles up and everything and then and then it was the plein air convention. Plein Air convention took place in Asheville, North Carolina, in that Arizona area, Cherokee, North Carolina, and we painted for four days and we had great things going on. And it was just it was amazing. And and it was one of our biggest it wasn’t our biggest but it was one of the biggest and then and then it came back kind of caught up again. And then I got in the car and I drove up to the Adirondacks which took me a few days. And I had to do that because of the dogs. Then it was time for the paint adirondacks publishers Invitational retreat, which I did for a week. And then it’s like, I got done with that. And I slept for 10 days. Well, maybe not. But it seemed like it. So anyway, we’re getting caught up and I apologize. We’ll try to get on top of this. This plus doing a daily YouTube show is a lot going on. I have in the meantime been able to get out and paint I hope the plein air podcast is inspiring you to paint I hear from people all over the world. As a matter of fact, I just heard from an author who’s writing a new book about the plein air painting movement, which is really cool. I’ve heard from people in Ireland recently, UK, even Russia. And it’s nice to know that we’re all kind of one big happy family the plein air podcast is kind of designed to help us challenge ourselves think about other things become better painters. The lifestyle is good, because you get to meet lots of people to paint with and hang out with and travel and paint and the podcast is a chance to get into the mind of the people who do this, and their journey and their techniques and why they paint. So I’m grateful that you guys show up and listen, the show would not be the success it is without you and we’ve had millions of downloads, which is pretty cool. So thank you for that. At the end of the podcast, we do the art marketing minute and that’s to help you if you’re interested in selling your art that’s to help you sell it and we also have the art marketing minute as its own separate podcast you can do that too. We’re going to be talking today about strategy something that everybody confuses and and most people get wrong and why you need one. Okay, now. Anyway, if you have I want to just remind if you have people that you would like to have on the podcast, email me [email protected]. So, coming up, there’s more stuff, you know, this is kind of a lull period, and then it’s gonna get crazy again, but we have pastel live coming up on September 18 through 20th Sometime Some of us want to try new mediums or seek new ways to enhance our creativity. And for decades, artists have turned to pastel for the brilliance and the vibrancy of colors. pastel painting is a huge worldwide trend. And pastel live is an online event consisting of three days plus a fourth optional beginner’s or essentials day. It includes about 30 of the leading pastel artists in the world with demos, lectures, critiques, discussions, and more plus a chance for you to get to know other artists, in discussion rooms and so on. And it’s pretty cool. It’s a worldwide audience. We have instructors from all over the world. And you should check it out. I started painting pastel because of pastel live, I was an oil painter. And I was I didn’t have any any idea that I would want to paint pastel or watercolor or squash or any of these other things, but I started doing them because of these events and watching these events and getting excited about it. And as a result, I I’m like happier because I can do you know, like today I did a watercolor painting. Yesterday, I didn’t oil painting a few days before pastel you know, it’s just kind of fun to be able to pull different things out when I want them. So that’s it pastellive.com I’m also getting ready to go to my fall color week artists retreat. We’re calling it the coastal adventure because it’s on in California as Monterey Coast it’s sold out. You can get on the waitlist in case somebody drops out. But that’s at fallcolorweek.com. And, of course, we would love for you to go to the plein air convention in 2025. We announced at the last convention a few weeks ago that we’re going to be doing it in Lake Tahoe and Reno which is going to be spectacular. We have probably 75 ad top expert painters five stages teaching everything you can imagine and you can get a ticket now and and that is probably already half sold out. It’s just like the minute we announce it push. Everybody’s buying. That’s it pleinairconvention.com. Of course, if you’re not a subscriber to plein air magazine, do it, do it, do it. Okay, art marketing minute coming up after the interview with Jill. Now. I also want to just mention that I recorded a podcast with Jill Carver onstage live at the plein air convention. And Jill was not feeling well. She had a cold and she was just not at the top of her game. I thought she was pretty good, actually. But she asked that we redo it. And so I decided because I kind of liked the idea of a live audience. And we wanted to do a live broadcast to reveal her brand new video series, which I’m sure she’ll tell you about. Anyway, we wanted to do something about that. And so we recorded what we did the other day. So that’s what you’re going to hear right now. Here’s Jill Carver. Our guest today Jill Carver moved to the United States from the UK in 2022. Before becoming a full time professional artist, she was a research assistant at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and we’re going to talk to her about that and what she learned about painting there. After establishing her name winning numerous artists Choice Awards at top plein air events, such as the Laguna or the Telluride Easton. She participated in many premiere annual shows like the chorus Western Show and Big Horn rendezvous. In 2014. She won the gold medal artists choice for Best of Show at the Maynard Dixon country show and in the same year was inaugurated into the plein air painters of America, which is the best of the best. Jill Carver. Welcome to the plein air podcast.
Jill Carver 8:46
Thank you, Eric.
Eric Rhoads 8:49
Well, you how’s it feel when somebody says you’re a master? Is that kind of weird?
Jill Carver 8:55
It’s very weird isn’t it makes me squirm a little link. I think you’re very generous with your adverbs put it that way.
Eric Rhoads 9:06
Well, I gotta tell you that I feel that way. And I think many people do. And that’s a big tall order, because we throw those terms around loosely these days a little bit. But but you know, you have have spent a lot of years earning that. And so congratulations on your success and, and where you’re at. I should mention Jill and I got to know each other because she lived in Austin, her husband was teaching it, professor at UT. And I have a Wednesday night figure group and Joe started coming to that for a while and then then they had to move. So we didn’t get to spend much time together after that. But it’s been a pleasure getting to know you. One of the things I love about you, Jill, is that you’re not affected at all. I mean, you have this tremendous ability, this tremendous amount of success. And yet, you know, anybody can approach you You’re not bigger than they are, you don’t consider yourself more important than they are. You’re just one of us. And I think that’s a really wonderful, wonderful trait.
Jill Carver 10:11
I think this what we do keeps us humble, right? It constantly corrects any, any.
Eric Rhoads 10:20
So that’s a really good starting point, Jill, because how much of what you paint never sees the light of day? Or how much do you struggle? Do you make a lot of mistakes? Do you make as many mistakes you ever have?
Jill Carver 10:38
I think, Wow, that’s a great way to start, actually, because I think I have gotten better at figuring out a good roadmap before I stopped. And I think we all have experience where we kind of jump in very quick, with all that excitement, and then we get kind of three quarters of the way through and there’s this shift that happens. And yeah, you kind of lose your way and think, Hmm, I’ve kind of strayed his so. Yeah, I’m a little better at figuring out where I want to go with a piece up front. Now.
Eric Rhoads 11:21
I think that’s interesting. You know, I was talking to George Gallo, who is a film director. And he said, every film really is more successful if you have a good plan. And it sounds like your roadmap is a plan. Can you tell us a little bit about what your roadmap is?
Jill Carver 11:39
Yeah. So it really starts with, I would say letting an idea marinate. And I realized this even during the plein air competitions, you know, a decade or so ago that if you see something that you’re really excited by, to just sit in that moment for a little bit, maybe make some notes. come back the next day, I think I excelled at the plein air competitions, because I went for kind of quality over quantity. And that I realized the best paintings I did was if perhaps if I’d noticed something the day before, and then you kind of go to sleep on it, and you give it that time to kind of marinate and let the idea behind something evolve, that I would end up with a better result. You know, generally speaking, if we put a little forethought into something, we end up with something better. And I used to have on my workshop handouts, a quote by John Ruskin wrote the elements of drawing. Quality is never an accident, it is always the result of an intelligent effort. And I know we all want to jump into the coloring in part and the painting parts the front part. But yeah, if we put a little thought into it upfront, we tend to end up with better results.
Eric Rhoads 13:06
So what if you’re not in a scenario like that, but let’s say you know, I took a group of people to Japan or different places every day, we don’t have the luxury of going back to that place. Do you have some kind of a planning process or tool that you use to help you get the best possible outcome, if you know you can’t come back, and this is your only chance to paint there.
Jill Carver 13:28
I think even you know, even if you have like a plein air situation, where you have to react like immediately and get what you can out of that experience down fast. For me, even five minutes, just sitting there with those thoughts, tends to clarify what it is I want to capture. And then to be honest, in the plaintiff situation now i i tend to change my expectation I’m not going for a finished product. I’m really chasing common notes and information, you know, down that’s around that idea.
Eric Rhoads 14:10
Well, that makes a lot of sense. Are you doing any preliminary sketches or anything like that?
Jill Carver 14:16
Yes, if I have a sketchbook with me, I do. Yeah. But I tend to, I tend to now create, you know, for years I did plein air competitions and so forth where you really were, the intention was to finish something that was frameable. That was complete. And now when I go out, I really don’t and it’s amazing how much pressure that takes off review. pressure can be very distracting actually. It can make you kind of fill in things. It can make you wing things if the lights change. And actually if you just stay in that moment and say okay, I’ve got 45 minutes. Let me see what I can get that’s, you know, accurate color notes from what I’m looking at. You end up with red material that by all means, then you can go back to the studio with photographs and notes and maybe pull something out of that.
Eric Rhoads 15:08
you know, you’re a member of the plein air painters of America, which is the elite group of painters. And I remember somebody, maybe Matt Smith once told me set our goal of plein air painting years anyway, my goal of plein air painting is not to create a finished work. It’s to it’s to inform something that will be used in a bigger work a studio piece or something like that. So is that kind of how you look at these?
Jill Carver 15:36
It is yes. And at one point, I almost fired myself from the plein air painters of America, because I had changed the way I function and outdoors to such an extent that I rarely, rarely finished something that’s frameable. I tend to keep them as studies and they tend to be incomplete, you tend to still see some of the canvas. But as an organization, what we really wanted to do was kind of reestablish that outdoor work, regardless of if you’re getting a few notes down and a few sketches down through to fairly highly rendered pieces. And Matt Smith is the master of doing that, within a very short time slot. We wanted to kind of expand what the definition of plein air is, and kind of identify that it functions very differently for a lot of different people. But it’s still an absolutely crucial part of the process.
Eric Rhoads 16:35
While they’re there, you know, there are purists out there, and I’m not being critical of anyone. But you know, we hear from all because of plein air magazine. So you know some people will get really hung up on what is the definition of a plein air painting, you know, and so some people are like, it’s not a plein air painting, if you ever touch it, the minute you bring it back to the studio, my my belief is that if you look throughout history at all the great paintings, these people wanted to create great paintings. So that was their goal, their goal was not to do a finished piece on location, maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. But I think that, you know, we have hurt ourselves in some ways by and by the way, this movement is wonderful. And I’ve had a lot to do with some of it. But the idea of you know that you have to complete something and perfection mode, when you’re outdoors, you know, it’s not always going to work. And you know, probably two out of five, maybe I’ll get something I’m I’m proud to use last week at publishers Invitational, I probably did 11 or 12 paintings, and I had to how I finished on location that I was happy that I could throw in a frame without any changes, but the other is all need more work. Right?
Jill Carver 17:51
Right, I think I think we’ve become quite product orientated as society, you know, we define artists by the work that ends up in frames. And then galleries are in shows. And I think all of us that participate working outdoors directly in some form or other really know and appreciate that the experience itself is actually what really, really counts. And for me, now I go outside to, to, I really go out with this kind of student mentality of what I’m looking at. So I’m not going out trying to claim a product, I’m going out with a student mentality of trying to learn something. And for me, that is gathering as accurate color notes as I can. And for me, it’s discovering ideas, you know, and that that comes it’s the one thing that AI will never be able to take away from us is the actual experience of being there in the past and totally absorbed by that process. Well, let’s
Eric Rhoads 18:59
see, we’ll find out if there are robots out there with easels that are looking at looking at the scene and interpreting scene. I think
Jill Carver 19:06
I’m not giving up that time. And I’m sure you’re not either. Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t get better, right, in terms of experience and being totally absorbed in the moment. That’s as magical as life gets, I think.
Eric Rhoads 19:22
And I know, this is probably a stupid question, but does it ever get easier?
Jill Carver 19:30
So I think I have this conversation with my students all the time, Eric, there is this perception that it’s some ability level, that the journey smooths out and is a little less of a roller coaster. And the problem is, is that as you advance in terms of ability, that you end up with yet another spectrum of questions and searchings and explorations and lines of inquiry. are in your head, that you’re wanting to chase and follow. And I always tell my students, you know, that feeling of frustration never goes away. Because as you advance, you’ve still got this kind of infinite, unattainable goal, have even more things that you want to learn. And so I try and flip that on its head and say, you know, frustration is your friend. And if you, if you fail it, it means that you’re still in the mode of having an inquisitive mind of exploring, of wanting to learn more, and we’re never gonna get there, we were never going to be the artists that we want to be. And I always feel like John Carlson had this quote, that knowledge precedes execution. Like, I think as we learn it, you know, those light bulb moments, those epiphanies are in our head first, before they consistently come out on the canvas. And there’s a time delay there. And I think for me, and I paint every day, for me that time delay of being able to transfer something new that I’ve learned consistently on the canvas is probably six months to a year now. So within that timeframe, am I frustrated? That it’s not quite coming out as I want it to be yet You bet. It’s always there.
Eric Rhoads 21:28
Well, I think, though, that you’re right about that embrace, embracing the struggle. And I think that that’s something that I wish, you know, an instructor had said to me when I first started painting is, look, this is going to be hard. Yeah, I can teach you some things that are going to help you smooth the way and it’s going to make it a little faster, but you’re just going to have to get there, get the brush time, you’re going to have to make a lot of mistakes. And when you find yourself frustrated, that’s when you’re about to break through. And I wish somebody had said that to me when I when I went through, you know, five instructors who just were all not able to get to reach me, maybe they reached other people, but they didn’t reach me. So I want to I want to delve into a little bit of your history here. Because I think it’s so important. We talked about this on stage at the plein air convention. You had a very special job before you ever became a painter, if I understand it. And that was your job at at the museums in London. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what you did? Yeah,
Jill Carver 22:36
so um, I was very, very fortunate to get a job at the National Portrait Gallery in London, as a curatorial research assistant in their archive and library. It has a huge research department that extends to British portraiture in general beyond the galleries and collection. And I worked in that department, we had our vast library, but we also had a vast Research Room. If anyone follows the TV program, fake or fortune, you see quite a lot of the room where I actually worked in that program. It’s a British art dealer called Philip mold. That leads that program on TV. I know a lot of my American friends follow it, but that’s where I worked. And it’s where we would do research into British portraits.
Eric Rhoads 23:31
And you told me at the convention, I don’t remember your answer. What was the most important painting that you actually held in your hands?
Jill Carver 23:42
Yeah, so Oh, that would be a tough choice. You know, there was there’s so many special pieces in that gallery collection. I was trained as an art Handler and did just occasional Korea trips, and managed photography sessions back in the day where you would have to replace transparencies every few months rather than the, you know, now it’s permanent digital scan. So it’s kind of a little easier. But yeah, there was there’s like it’s 1603 portrait of Elizabeth the first and I remember it’s on it’s on three panels, three cradled panels that fit into a cradle you know, it’s just walked over time it was done a wood three wooden panels stuck together. And, you know, to be in the Hans Holbein miniatures hole bones, Whitehall Palace mural of Henry the eighth. I mean, there’s a lot of I was a history, graduate British history graduate of the 17th century. So yeah, I got to handle a lot of things and just incredible as magical objects. I think we forget that paintings are objects as well as depictions and To consider them as historical objects, you know, where you’re sharing the same as spaces someone did in the 16th century is incredible. To
Eric Rhoads 25:10
be to be able to hold, I remember one time, I had a chance on one of our fine art trips to hold a Van Gogh painting. And to and to look at it and to look at it closely. And and I just felt like, you know, he touched this same panel, maybe not the frame. But, you know, we got his neurons interpreting that that see, that’s so special. What do you think? Because you studied historical artists? What do you think, applies to what you can pass on to the rest of us that we need to know, that would be valuable information based on that, that touch with history?
Jill Carver 25:52
In terms of them being objects?
Eric Rhoads 25:56
Well, you tell me in terms of objects, and or in terms of maybe how we should be treating our our canvases or our underpants. Right?
Jill Carver 26:07
Yeah, I mean, it definitely made me very aware of, you know, archival processes, and not to be obsessive about it, because I think that can make you very, very precious, in terms of not experimenting enough. But yeah, certainly in terms of, you know, canvases quality Jesso on top, definitely quality stretcher bars to stop things from warping. And definitely, you know, part of my job was to research portraits, that didn’t have a provenance that lost their provenance, or they’d lost their identity of the sitter, or the attribution of the artist. And so I I’m a little obsessive with marking up the back of my canvases. Now. I have a rubber studio stamp, I have an inventory number, that cross relates to a ledger here. I sign it in a couple of places. I might mock up the frame, too. So it’s made me very aware of it as an object, you know, that you’re
Eric Rhoads 27:15
told me? I think you told me at the convention, you sign the back of the painting, but you’d also say the structure
Jill Carver 27:20
bar? Yes, I do. Yeah. Why, why? Why?
Eric Rhoads 27:23
Why the stretcher bar, because that’s, that’s likely to get changed over the years? Well,
Jill Carver 27:27
I mean, certainly from an historical point of view, you see canvases that are that have been re stretched quite often. So sometimes, you know, the canvas is removed from the stretcher bar and re stretched or laid on panel. So yeah, it’s like every component of that, sign the front and make sure your signature is under the varnish. And that you don’t varnish the painting first, because you want to photograph it, and then you forget to sign it, make sure the signature is underneath the varnish.
Eric Rhoads 28:00
So let’s talk about tools. Because that’s what this this broadcast is really about. You have developed a process that you’ve shared in your workshops. And I understand you’re not doing as much workshop work, because you want to work on bigger pieces, and so on. So help us understand the tools that you think are essential that all of us can benefit from? Well,
Jill Carver 28:27
the tools I use, I use the word tools because it’s a shorter word, but what I’m really referring to are principles, or fundamentals. And just over years of years and years of teaching, I’ve tried to refine and resolve in my head, what makes a good painting. And I have a broad appreciation for, I would say a variety of styles, I was exposed to a lot of Art in London, just through living there for 12 years, and a lot of different genres, a lot of different styles. And regardless of style, it’s always intrigued me as to, you know, what’s the common denominator in making a good painting? And what do we mean by that? And for me, I think I went on quite, you know, the long the long journey and trying to resolve this in my head and simplify it. And I think I finally come to the conclusion that regardless of style, a good painting, when we say it’s a good painting, what we mean by that is harmony. What do we mean by a painting being harmonious? And I’ve come to the conclusion and this is kind of maybe a little unique to how we think of art in painting in general. But I think when we think of harmony, we’re thinking of unity and variety inch shape, value and color. So it’s come, quite elongated journey to say maybe it’s that simple. Maybe it’s that simple unity and variety in shape, value and color. And every painting needs unity, somehow in those three ingredients to make it hang together. And then we need a certain balance of variety to make it interesting. Now, if we go overboard on the variety, maybe it feels over, rendered overworked, over busy, and is no longer harmonious to the eye. So I think it’s that kind of beautiful balance with those three ingredients. But throughout those three ingredients, finding unity and variety.
Eric Rhoads 30:49
So we have a pretty monumental event, and that is that we have been working, we started talking five years ago, and have gone through you wanted this project to be the perfect project, because it’s kind of your life’s work. And so five years ago, we began this process of creating something that was special and unique, unlike anything that we’ve done before. You want to tell us a little bit about it?
Jill Carver 31:17
Yes. And I’m so glad you stuck with me, Eric, I don’t know if you remember, but five years ago, when you first approached me with the idea of doing an instructional DVD. You had approached me before about it. And I was like, Oh, I’m not ready. Oh, I’m not good enough. And then, you know, in the meantime, I’ve kind of been developing these design workshops. And then five years ago, you came to me with the magic words, do you remember what those magic words were?
Eric Rhoads 31:49
I do not.
Jill Carver 31:50
You said to me, this video can be whatever you want it to be jailed, you will do it. And I thought as soon as you said those words, it can be whatever you want it to be. I thought, Well, what a marvelous opportunity. What a generous gesture of faith and trust. And yeah, it was, it was like, well, maybe I can somehow capture the contents of an entire workshop that focuses on design in video format, like how powerful a resource might that be? Well,
Eric Rhoads 32:33
then you spent a lot of time developing those concepts so that you could represent it properly. You know, one of the things that we don’t think about is that we spend a lifetime learning how to paint. And sometimes we study under someone who spent a lifetime learning to paint and they’ve passed it on to us. Yeah, but But oftentimes, you know, things happen, and we’re not able to pass those things along. You know, most people like who, who, like yourself have gotten to a stage of their life. It’s like, I don’t want to do any more plein air events, or I don’t want to do it very often. A teaching is nice, but I want to be able to focus on, you know, my monumental work and my best work. And so what happens is that a lot of times people get to a stage like yours, where they say, I’m not doing these anymore, I’m going to do one a year or very rarely. And so we don’t get the chance to touch as many people and what’s nice about this is we’ve created a historical record of your entire workshop process. And it’s kind of unlike anything that we’ve done before. What I’d like to do real briefly Joe was to play the promo, and then have you talk about it. Okay, let’s play that now.
Jill Carver 33:50
design and composition is an essential foundation for any good painting. Too often we jump into the painting part without spending enough thinking time planning it, I’ll be saving you from that painful process where you spend 80% of your time correcting and refining the painting once you’ve already started. If you come up with a design plan that suits your subject matter and your concept, you have a roadmap for moving forward, and the rest is just coloring in. I’ve decided to split my teaching of these design tools into two videos, one tools explained where we’ll look at each tool in depth and go through demos and exercises together. The second video tools applied is where you’ll see me complete two paintings using two tools in each one, the very different subject matter. And I’ll be choosing those tools according to that subject matter and the concept. Primarily, I want you to realize that creativity is found in design, there’s individual choices that you make as you come up with a plan, I want you to realize that design is actually where the fun is at. And I want you to realize that just spending 30 minutes exploring design options, using the tools I present will improve your work infinitely. We’ll also be looking at some real life situations, where I’ll be indicating to you which tool I consider to be the go to tool for that subject matter. And concept. I based this workshop on the teaching format I’ve been using for the last few years, and I’ve really seen some light bulbs come on. So I hope you’ll come on this journey with me learn these tools, and realize the vast creative possibilities that lie ahead for you.
Eric Rhoads 35:55
Okay, congratulations on that. That’s, you know, we work with a lot of artists, as you know, and you have been, and I say this in the nicest possible way, you’ve been the most picky. And that’s a good thing. Because, you know, you you said, I don’t want to show, you know, I don’t want to show every time I clean my brush, you know, and you’re making us edit these things really fine tune this. And, you know, that’s so good, because it just makes for a better product. So Well, we,
Jill Carver 36:25
we also had a lot of footage to get through, you know, they were here for eight days filming Sarah, it was a massive, massive filming, you know, component, and then it’s been huge in terms of editing.
Eric Rhoads 36:40
Yeah, well, it’s like four cameras times eight days of footage. Yeah, it’s, but you know, it’s, it’s probably likely to be the biggest release of the year and one of the biggest releases, if not the biggest release we’ve ever had. So it’s, it’s quite a monumental effort. What What would you tell people about why you think, without being pitchy or sales? Many? You’re not that, but what what are they going to get out of this?
Jill Carver 37:12
So I think it’s a, it’s a workshop that I’ve been teaching for the last five, six years, that I called aesthetic tools for landscape design. And it’s based on, you know, the realizations I’ve had in my own journey as a painter, which is that I think, I think a lot of landscape composition theory is quite traditional in that its intention is that as a painter, we reproduce this 3d magical trick on a 2d surface. And we design it so that the viewer can walk, walk, walk in, literally. And I’ve always come to painting landscape painting with a little bit of a different perspective, a bit of a broader perspective. And I think it’s largely informed by my own taste in art, which is quite informed by a kind of modernist movement in Britain that happened, you know, First and Second World War era. And I know, modernism is a dirty word to some folks, but for me, the one thing that they really brought back to the table was that, you know, landscape is landscape and painting is painting. And as an artist, what we are doing is actually producing what is a decorative panels to hang on a wall, and to consider it as an object and kind of expand that mindset, kind of beyond? Well, we’re trying to recreate this 3d image that floats somewhere within this frame. But to actually, you know, claim those four edges, claim the four corners and really design within them. And I also think that there’s a point as an artist, right, when we all start out, we’re all trying to copy what’s out there. I mean, it’s quite a challenge when you’re starting to copy what’s out there. I think then as we grow and evolve and learn, there’s that realization that we have to start assuming the role of editor that we can make it a better painting within those four holiday pages. If we assume the role of editor and I think editing and design, conversation has often been limited to what I call division and placement, moving things around. And the point of this workshop is for all those landscape painters out there that somehow realize that that design actually involves more than just, you know, maybe dividing long thirds or maybe moving a tree across to a vertical that lines up with a mountain that designed ours actually encompass shape, value and color. And so I introduced these, what I call these tools, but they’re kind of like aesthetic fundamentals on how do we manage shape value on color, to make stronger principles. And what’s really fascinating to me about this process, and I view this project as a kind of collaboration between myself and my students who’ve offered themselves as guinea pigs over the past few years, knowing full well that this content was going to be produced in video form was, you know, these tools that can help us manage our design in terms of crawling too much variety, chasing too much variety in terms of imposing a unifying simple structure underneath, those same tools can help corral and manage, but they can also be catalysts for creativity. And that’s what I really embrace in this video. And I want people to realize, and if you’ve been on that journey of rendering, and you kind of feel like, maybe you’re stuck in repeating the same process to any given subject matter that you just have a method and a way of working, that you can kind of recalibrate your design sensibilities, I put a lot of emphasis on shape, which I think gets overlooked, you see a lot of theory on color and value. So I try and get people to really realize the power of shape, and how shape alone can actually totally override and Trump color and value in terms of its pulling power. But generally speaking, these tools, you know, to simplify to strengthen to the design can also be catalysts. So there’s a lot of emphasis on, you know, taking the seed of intention, taking a concept, and realizing that creativity exists in those initial design choices. And Rick Rubin, who’s written a new book called the creative act, a way of being I think it’s called his analogy is, and it’s a, it’s a very good one that I use is that, you know, you, when you see a subject matter that you really respond to, it’s not seen that you’re responding to it, something about that scene that you’re having an emotional response to, is to identify that as a concept. And so it as a seed of intention. And then if you imagine a plant or a tree growing from that seed of intention, every time you have a branch breaking off, that is a design choice. And what I want people to do with this video is actually use these tools to really kind of explore their creative imagination. So yeah, it’s totally based on my background, my own journey as an artist is that realisation would be the best paying no, be, you know, be more concept, intention based, but be more creative in terms of my explorations before I start a painting kind of explore the what ifs,
Eric Rhoads 43:18
I’m glad to hear you say that I think that we all struggle with a little bit of this rendering disease. And you know, some people render beautifully, but one of the trends that I’ve certainly seen at the plein air shows the people seem to be winning the awards are the people who are designing more, they’re more abstract in the approach abstract shapes and, and just having more fun with it, and not being under the pressure to create a photographic representation in oil paint, which I think is kind of where we all begin. It’s interesting, as I watch artists over time, it seems that a lot of them start there, you know, the idea of creating a Hudson River School style painting, and there’s nothing wrong with that, of course, and then some of them just move more and more and more towards abstraction and big shapes. And, and and, you know, just interesting objects. And to make them more interesting, I think
Jill Carver 44:18
I tried, you know, when I’m talking about these fundamentals and principles, Eric, I’m really aware that I think they transcend styles, you know, and regardless of my own personal sensibilities, I think, you know, even if you look at, you know, Thomas Moran’s painting of the Grand Canyon, I would call those fairly representational, there’s a lot of detail, but when you realize that there’s been composing and editing and design going on, I think as you evolve as an artist and you realize that even the most detailed renders are still composing, you realize that there’s a lot more to it, but you know, I just judge Wayne plein air To me the standouts in those competitions and this is what I emphasize in the video. The standouts are the ones that have ideas, singular ideas, concepts. They’re not just painting a scene, they are celebrating an idea. Like they’ve started off with a very strong idea. So regardless of style, how much detail how much abstraction is going on the real standouts in that show, and there was some phenomenal pieces were intentional. Yeah,
Eric Rhoads 45:34
and I think that’s right, being intentional. I certainly would like to learn how to stand out. Well, Jill, I want to thank you for being on the plein air podcast. It’s really been a joy to have you today.
Jill Carver 45:45
Thank you, I can thanks for the opportunity to make the video.
Eric Rhoads 45:49
I want to thank Jill Carver again, her new video is turning out to be one of the biggest sellers we’ve ever had, and one of the best ever. And as she mentioned, you know, it’s it, we were there for days. It’s three videos. There’s one called the tools explained which is number one, there’s number two is tools applied, each of them have demos into it and a lot of depth. And then number three is actually a combination of video one and two. It’s the ultimate collection. And so check that out. You can get them at paint tube.tv Gil, thank you again for for being such a great inspiration. Now let’s go to the art marketing minute.
Announcer 46:29
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 46:43
I want to tell you guys that you can send your questions to meet [email protected] or you can come live on the podcast during the marketing minute ask your questions. The other thing is I’m doing marketing Mondays now for my YouTube show art school live. It’s on YouTube and Facebook, and I’m answering questions there. And a lot of people are on there live too. So there’s a lot of options on our marketing and more to come. Whatever that means. Okay, so here’s the first question from Tim Matthews, who is near Myrtle Beach, North Carolina. I think that’s North Carolina, or is it south? Tim says, I’m a landscape painter. I’ve been painting for many years, and I want to use my passion to earn a good living. I’ve read your book on art marketing, and it’s a tremendous help. Thank you. In your opinion, is it wiser to seek representation, and sell through galleries? Or simply represent yourself? I’ve heard so many different thoughts on this. I’m not sure what to think I live near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, there doesn’t seem to be much of an art market here. So I assume self representing would mean focusing mainly on online sales. I’m learning more about the art market every day and trying to do and make the best career decisions. I can, Tim, you’re a rockstar man. Thank you for sending in a question. Tim. I, I was I was talking to somebody yesterday. And one of my big frustrations is that I teach art marketing and have taught art marketing for a dozen years. And a lot of people pay attention. But a lot of people don’t do what it takes. And sometimes they don’t do what it takes this because they just don’t want to do it. Right. They want the results. They want the money, they want the sales, they want the customers, but they’re not willing to do what it takes. And this person I was talking to yesterday, was saying, you know, I’m doing things that nobody else is doing. Because they’re not willing to do what it takes. And I think that’s true. So the, you know, the thing you have to understand is if you’re going to do your own art marketing. Well, first off, if you’re going to sell paintings at all, or paintings or drawings, or whatever your art is ceramics or photography, you have to understand that you have to make a lifetime commitment to marketing. As long as you intend to make your living from your art. You have to have a lifetime commitment to marketing marketing is not a one time thing. It’s not like, Okay, I’m gonna run an ad and then I’ll have all the customers I need for the rest of my life. It doesn’t work that way. I wish it did. It’s a matter of fact, it takes three to five years, five years, seven years, 10 years. And the reason I put that in different packages is that, you know, you kind of get to different levels of success. You’re building momentum. It doesn’t happen overnight. And you know, I’ve seen things happen overnight. I’ve orchestrated careers that happened overnight, but there’s a lot of money spent to be able to do that and it doesn’t always work. So you got to do it in a very thoughtful way. So the first thing I always tell people is spend 20% of your time on your marketing and when you’re first launching, build up your your inventory of paintings and then spend 100% of you Your time on your marketing for a while, because you know you have paintings, you don’t need to make more paintings right now. So spend all that time doing all the things you need to do now, even if you have a gallery, or even if you have an agent, which is another option you did not mention, you still have to do a lot of work, you cannot rely 100%. Imagine if you had 100% of your income relying on somebody else. And that person decided to leave decided to get sick decided to die, you know, something like that all of a sudden, you have no income, right? So you as the product manager, product creator, you have to always make sure that you’ve got something going on. And you’ve got to be managing your gallery relationships. And you might want to have other alternatives as well. A lot of people do, a lot of people will sell direct, but you have to work that out with your galleries, because there’s certain things you shouldn’t do. But the idea is that you want to be responsible for your career, and you want to be working it so no matter what you do, you’re going to be working now, getting to your heart of your question, is it wiser to seek representation than sell through galleries? I think the first thing is, you know yourself, you know yourself and you know, am I going to be disciplined enough to do what it takes? Am I going to be willing to spend the time it takes do I am I willing to spend the time studying now the good news is you read my book, thank you for that. And you at least are applying yourself. And so I’d say you probably have a good chance of success, because you’re, you’re you’re already taking the right kinds of steps. So the reality is, you can’t rely 100% on anything. So you really need to do both, right, you need to represent yourself. But you also need to consider representing yourself to galleries. Now, like I said, there is the option of an agent, there are people out there who are agents who can help you get into galleries help you build shows help you do a lot of different things, they’re going to take some percentage of your income, in exchange for that, in some cases, they’re going to ask you to pay them a flat fee up front to get get started. That’s okay, too. But I think that, if I were, if I were starting from scratch, I would probably say, do both. And I like to I’m in three galleries. I’m about to leave one of those galleries and upgrade to a higher level gallery. And and the reason I’m going to be leaving the gallery is going to be closing. And so it’s good opportunity, I don’t want to have more than three galleries because I can’t give them enough work. Sometimes it sells sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes that’s my fault. And sometimes that’s their fault. They always think it’s our fault. And and maybe it is maybe our paintings aren’t good enough. But you know, the reality is you want galleries who are going to be working at they’re going to be selling there, they’re going to be really trying to figure out how to do the best things for you. So I you know, and we all kind of go through this stage of first first level galleries, sometimes you have to get into a first level gallery before you can get into a second tier gallery or third tier gallery. And they’re not rated that way. But it kind of depends like if you know, a top tier gallery might be a New York gallery that carries, you know, Andrew Wyeth paintings. And to get in there, I mean, you you might have to be at that level and it might take you 10 years or 15 or 20 years or a lifetime to get there. So I think I would I would go for it. Get it getting into galleries, you know, I explained in my book, and that’s really an introduction process, you really don’t want to be approaching him directly. I don’t think so. I know how they, they feel about that. And that doesn’t usually work well with most of them, some of them don’t mind. But you want to just get to the point where you know you have you have some way that you can sell direct and you have some way you can sell to galleries. You know, my friend Chun Wong has a deal with his galleries is that anything under a certain size, he can sell direct. So he does the daily painting thing and he’ll you know, he’ll sell a painting every day. That might be an eight by 10, or a five by seven or something like that. But the bigger paintings go to his gallery, and of course the pricing changes for that. So I hope that’s been helpful. And let me know what happens. Reach out when you have your next question. Next we have a question from Evan crest in Tennessee. And sounds like we’re hitting the south this week. All right. We got North Carolina and Tennessee right next to each other.
Evan says how do I create a marketing strategy that aligns with my goals? Well, you know, it’s that’s a difficult question because Evan strategy is as determined by your goals, and tactics are determined by your strategy. So let’s say that your goal is to sell 30 paintings a year at $2,000, a painting net net, meaning that that’s what you keep, right? That’s not you know, if you’re selling them through the gallery, you still got to figure out how you’re gonna get $2,000 painting. So you, you know, that’s, that’s $60,000 in income, right? Minus whatever your expenses are internally. So you’ve got to ask yourself, what, how do I get there? Well, if you already are there, you already are doing it, then you already know how to get there, you just rinse and repeat, right? But maybe you’re doing half of that. And you’ve got to figure out okay, how do I double it? Or maybe you’re not doing any of it? And you got to figure out how do I get there completely. So it’s tough, you know, launching from the beginning is, is tough. But you know, everything is tough in life. And anything that’s good, requires some pain and some discomfort, and you’re okay with that. So, if strategy is your plan of action, it is tied to your customer. So let me just repeat that strategy is a plan of action, it’s tied to your customer. So you need to know who is my customer, who is likely to buy my paintings? Well, the best place to find that out is if you’ve sold paintings in the past, who has bought my paintings in the past, you know, I have a deal with at least one of my art galleries. And I say to them, Look, I want to know, I want to know everything about the buyer, I don’t need to know their name. Although I do ask them to send me a you know, an address and a name. So I can send them a note card and say thank you. And I guarantee them, I’m not going to try to sell them something different, or at least go around the gallery. And I send them a nice, thank you note, but oftentimes, I’ll if I could get a chance to call them, I’ll call him and I’ll just get to know him, I just wanted to thank you for buying my painting and tell me a little bit about yourself, and then just shut up and listen. Because, you know, you’ll hear well, I’m a retired executive from, you know, some company and, and my wife is a retired executive from this company, or are retired lawyers, or we work as lawyers or you know, whatever it is, and you try to, you know, try to get a little information like, you know, what is it about the painting that they love? And where is it going to hang? And what is it about them? And then if you talk to five or six or 10 or 20 customers, you’re gonna start looking for patterns? Is there anything in common? Well, the one thing in common is, it seems to be the people who buy my paintings all seem to be over 50. And they all seem to be professionals. And so that tells you something. And now the question is, and by the way, they all seem to live in this particular community. And that might be related to the gallery, or it might be they’re all on vacation in this particular community. And they’re coming from different places. So you want to learn these things so that you can kind of design your your strategy, your strategy includes your pricing, your packaging, your advertising, packaging, I know seems odd. But when I say packaging, it’s like the back of your painting. How are you going to do that? How do you deal with your customer service for customers? Meaning customers meeting galleries? How are you going to deal with customers discussions with customers themselves? Your follow up your customer retention, your internet plan, your customer engagement, your website, all that stuff? It starts with who your ideal customer is, what do they want? What do they need? Where do you find them? And what do you do to take action to get them to buy what was it that put them over the fence and decided to buy that? And it might have been some little thing like the story? Or it might have been the colors? Or it might, you know, there are a lot of different things. And so you just want to be looking for patterns? And then you know, how do I reach these people? How do I find them? How much repetition do I do to reach them and so on. Now, it’s best to have some background, some experience in a particular strategy, but you don’t always get that benefit. So you can do some research. And the research can help you for instance, somebody was talking to me about wanting to reach retired people. And, and so I you know, I said Okay, well let’s research retired people and we went through and said, you know, okay, how many people are retiring in America every year and how many people who are retired actually have any money? And there are it turns out there are a lot of a fluid people who retire former professionals. And so where do they live? How do you reach them? What kinds of things do they like to do you know, if somebody’s retired doesn’t mean they’re old. And old is a relative term anyway. You know, a lot of people who are rich early retirement age, we’ll buy a new house downsize and they’ll say, You know what, I want all new furniture. That’s what my wife did. We didn’t retire. But it’s like, we bought a new house. And she said, I don’t want the old furniture anymore. I want all new furniture. We’ve had the stuff for 30 years. So that’s the kind of thing that that you okay, if if you’re looking for somebody who’s buying new houses, when they retire, what area are they in? How do you reach them? Where are they going to go shopping? What, what kinds of things are they paying attention to? Where can you put your artwork on display? Are there restaurants that they’re going to, you know, if their high end restaurants than regular retired, people who are on fixed incomes and don’t have any money, aren’t gonna go to those high end restaurants. So be in the high end restaurants where the money is, or in the country club or at the golf club, or, you know, wherever. So try to figure out where people are, and where they want to go. Now I had an artist, he told me, my strategy is to help people who could not normally afford paintings, but I want him to own my artwork, because I can’t afford paintings. I said, Okay, how’d that go for you? He says, Well, I worked really hard at it for a year, and I didn’t sell anything. And he said, because nobody could ever afford anything. And you know, I wanted to tell him, I probably did tell him actually. And I think the idea here is there’s an old philosophy. And the philosophy is stand in the river where the money is flowing it, Tony Robbins said something like this, I was on stage. I mean, he was on stage. And he and he said, no matter how good you are, no matter how smart you are, no matter how good your product is, if you are serving a declining market, or if you’re in an area where nobody buys it, imagine that you’re selling heaters, portable heaters in I don’t know, Mexico or Tucson or something. Your chances of people needing portable heaters is going to be slim. You know, it’s kind of like the idea of selling ice cubes to Eskimos right. So I think that you want to look for places. So this guy needed to stand in the river where the money is flowing. Once he switched his mindset to it, they don’t have to be like me, they just have to be people who love my artwork and want to buy it. Well, that changes everything. Stand in the river where the money’s flowing. So you know, it really boils down to where are they buying homes where they frequently frequently, frequenting restaurants, stores, etc. And then there’s tactics and tactics are okay, how am I going to advertise? Where are we going to advertise how much money I’m going to spend? How much repetition? You know, am I going to do newspaper ads local? Am I going to do the art scene local things? Am I going to do national publications like fine art connoisseur plein air. And it’s going to involve a lot of different tactics, because you can’t just do one thing, you got to do multiple things, because one thing might not work and everything takes time. So just keep in mind that it just got to think all that stuff through. And you know, I have some marketing courses online on paint tube.tv and some things that I’ve done art Marketing Bootcamp, they’re helpful. And they might be able to answer some of those questions for you. But you know, you just got to you got to just jump in and try things. Anyway. That’s the marketing more than a minute. I hope it helps.
Announcer 1:03:43
This has been the marketing minute with Eric Rhoads. You can learn more at artmarketing.com
Eric Rhoads 1:03:51
Thanks for listening to the plein air podcast and do not forget to send me your questions Eric at art marketing.com Thanks again to Jill Carver. It was great to having her on. Get her video at painttube.tv It is. It is remarkable. Also, we’d love to have you a pastel live just check it out at pastellive.com We also have a bunch of other virtual conferences coming up we’ve got a realism live coming up watercolor live coming up and acrylic live coming up brand new. And then plein air life. Check out the new plein air convention it’s going to be in Tahoe it’s already half gone. And get in early. You know that way you can pay for it and payments and not have to worry about it. PleinAirconvention.com And if you want to get on the waitlist for fall color week, even though it’s sold out, check it out fallcolorweek.com And of course, get the magazine if you don’t have plein air magazine. Well you’re missing. You’re missing baby got a great editor Kelly Kane, she’s awesome. PleinAirmagazine.com I have a blog called Sunday coffee. Check it out. It’s where I talk about art and life and things. I’m also on daily on Facebook and YouTube shows called Art School live, where we have hundreds of artists doing demonstrations and talks, and it’s noon, Eastern every weekday. We do marketing Mondays, and we do feedback Fridays where we give critiques. You can subscribe on YouTube by searching art school live. And hit the subscribe button also, please follow me on all social media. I’m I’m on all of them. That’s at Eric Rhoads. Okay, and that’s me at Eric Rhoades, publisher and founder of plein air magazine, fine art connoisseur and others. Thank you for your time today and get out and get some plein air painting done. It’s a wonderful season for doing that. It’s unless you’re in Australia or something that’s cold, but do it anyway. It’s a big world out there. Go paint it. We’ll see you.
Announcer 1:06:02
This has been the plein air podcast with plein air magazines. 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 Eric at pleinairmagazine.com. 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.
Announcer:
This has been the plein air podcast with PleinAir 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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