In this episode, Eric Rhoads interviews Harley Brown, who isn’t just an artist, but a legend.
“All of my art friends, the vast majority of them, the older ones, lived into their late 90s,” Harley says, “and their brain cells were always active. So if you do art, you are not only inspired and inspiring yourself, but your mind is always going to be working.”
Listen as they discuss:
– The moments that transitioned Harley to making it to the “next level” in terms of selling his art
– The first time his head “started buzzing” as he put down strokes of pastel for a portrait
– The core basics and seven essential truths of art
– How to find the initial excitement that drew you to painting
– And a special treat from another side of Harley’s talents!
Bonus! How do you craft a compelling artist statement? Is it smart to make prints of your paintings, and if so, how and where should you sell them? Eric Rhoads answers in this week’s Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
Listen to the Plein Air Podcast with Eric Rhoads and Harley Brown here:
.
Related Links:
– Harley Brown online: https://www.harleybrown.ca/
– Pastel Live: https://pastellive.com/
– Fall Color Week: https://fallcolorweek.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:
This is episode number 261 with a man who’s been painting for over 70 years, a legend artist, Harley Brown.
Announcer:
This is the Plein Air Podcast with Eric Rhoads, publisher and founder of Plein Air Magazine. In the Plein Air Podcast, we cover the world of outdoor painting called plein air. The French coined the term which means open air or outdoors. The French pronounce it plenn air. Others say plein air. No matter how you say it. There is a huge movement of artists around the world who are going outdoors to paint and this show is about that movement. Now, here’s your host, author, publisher, and painter, Eric Rhoads.
Eric Rhoads 0:00
Thank you, Jim Kipping, and welcome to the Plein Air Podcast. I’m Eric, and I am glad to be here. I hope your summer is going well. Summer tends to be the time of year when we do our plein air painting, especially for fair weather painters. I prefer not to be cold, but I will get out in the winter, but I hope you’re having a great summer. You might be suffering with some heat. Be careful about that. Make sure you know plein air painters need to wear hats, and I like to wear long sleeves when I paint. And I of course, put sunscreen on my face, because, you know, you don’t want to deal with the issues that happen if you don’t. I have, I’ve had a fair amount of painting this summer. It’s been a really tremendous opportunity to get out and paint. I’ve had some friends come in and paint. Had a friend came in. We went out and found some new waterfalls and did some hiking. And you know, it was just really fun to carry the paints around and do some some real good painting. So hope you’re getting the same opportunity. Hopefully here at the plein air podcast, we’re inspiring. We have people listening all over the world. Thank you for doing that. We want to make you a better painter. Plus, you know, the lifestyle for planter painters is cool. You meet a lot of cool people get to get outdoors and paint. You know, people like me, I was never really super athletic, but I like to be outdoors. So, you know, I’m not necessarily a runner, you know, I’m not a biker, but I do like to carry a backpack, and, you know, walk through the woods and and take in that, what do they call it? Forest bathing, and just, just get out in nature. And then, you know, do a picture. And remember that I’ve got a bunch of beautiful paintings. Well, maybe they’re not beautiful, but, you know, beautiful to me, paintings in the wall. I also just did my very first workshop. I had had a request. I decided I’d do it. I had never done it before, and it was, I had 14 people, and it went swimmingly. We did a weekend, and a lot of people transformed. So, you know, who knows? Maybe I’ll do more of those in the future. I’m really grateful for you guys for listening to this. Without you, we would not have so many people listening millions of downloads. And at the end of this podcast, we do the art marketing minute. So don’t forget that. And we also are doing more art marketing things on my daily YouTube show, Monday through Friday. We do marketing, Mondays, we do feedback Fridays, and we’re doing guest artists during the week. If you have ideas for guests, we’re always looking just [email protected], all right, now I want to tell you guys a couple of things, and we’re going to get right to our guest First off, pastel live is coming up. I started learning pastel because of pastel live, and I just pulled out my pastels yesterday because I didn’t have them up here with me. I mean, I didn’t have them out. And I’m getting ready to kind of dig in and get into it and play with them some more and figure out what I need to learn. And what a great opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and try something new. And when I play with pastels, you know, I get this vibrant color and I get a different approach. I had a group of pastel artists on a call the other night where I was interviewed, and they were saying, you know, it’s really cool, because pastel artists is kind of like a mixture. You can kind of create the effects of oil create the effects of watercolor, you know, kind of getting the best of of a lot of different worlds. And so, you know, because a lot of people will dilute their pastels with alcohol or something to create a neat underpainting. And so I never realized that before. So pastel live is three days of demonstrations from 30 top instructors. There’s an optional beginners day, or what we call an essentials day, because a lot of people who are not beginners attend it, and it’s a worldwide audience, including instructors from all over the world, teaching passionate people who love pastel or want to learn about pastel. And I think pastel is really a great place to start. If you want to learn painting, just learn more about it at pastellive.com we have my I have it at twice annual retreat. I have one in the spring and one in the fall. Fall is called fall color week, and it’s sold out, but we’ve got about 100 people coming, and it’s going to be this year at Asilomar, which is on California’s Monterey Peninsula, and we’re going to be painting there’s not a lot of color. It is fall out there, but we’re going to be painting the ocean and a lot of lot of beauty out there. And it’s first time we’ve taken fall color week this far west. We did do Canada. We did Banff in Lake Louise one time. So that’s as far west as we went. There’s no workshops, no demos, it’s just a week of painting and no lessons, but making a lot of good friends, hanging out at night. We do all kinds of things. We sing, we dance, we we party, not hard, not too hard anyway, and then we we paint portraits, we paint all day, landscapes, and we just have a good time. The reason I’m telling you this, even though it’s sold out, is that we were able to get 10 more rooms because the facility had some open up, and we grabbed them, and we have to let them know. So if you want one of those rooms, go to fall color week right now. Fallcolorweek.com and register last but not least. Well actually, not last, but not least. Either. Plein air convention is coming up in May that’s going to be in Lake Tahoe and Reno, it’s doing really well. It’s people are buying it in advance. I think, because Tahoe is going to be a popular location, I’m going to go out to Tahoe in a in a few weeks and just get all the painting locations put together and meet with the hotels and the facilities and and you do what it is we do when we’re there, so we’ll make sure it’s right for you. It’s going to be good. Also, if you have not subscribed to plein air magazine, well, duh, done. That’s pleinairmagazine.com. All right, we have a digital edition that has 30% more content than the print. Most people get the print, but a lot of the people overseas are getting the digital. Coming up after the this special session with Harley Brown, I’m going to answer your art marketing questions. You can send your questions to me, [email protected] that’s a good resource for you, too, by the way, artmarketing.com So today on the plein air podcast, my guest is Harley Brown. Now this was recorded during a special broadcast I did with him last week, and it was so good, I decided to convert it to a podcast as well because it was really worthwhile, and even if you heard it before, you’re going to pick up things again. Now this was a broadcast we did to promote pastel live. We’ve removed that part of it from there, but you’re going to hear a lot about a legend who’s been painting for 70 years, and the essential core basics that he finds are really important in painting. Plus he did something that he hadn’t done in 50 years, and he completely surprised us. And so we’re going to do that. And then also he picked up some pastels and just started painting, which we weren’t expecting. So if you’re watching the video portion of this, you’ll you’ll see that, but if you’re not, you’ll still get the essence of it. So anyway, we’ve got Harley Brown. He’s got a book out on Amazon. It’s called Harley Brown’s essential truth for every artist. So let’s do this. Harley’s not only a friend to the art and artist. He’s open to the marginalized and all who wish they could strike up a conversation. He is very generous. He’s giving of his time to his friends and his fellow artists who need encouragement and support and a quick esthetic lesson. He believes that everyone, to some extent, can learn to draw and paint, and is willing to spend time to help them, confirm that. That’s why he’s here today. He’s taught in Canada, the United States, and further abroad to support fellow artists. His books are sought after because they don’t just compile his brilliant art. He shows eternal truths for every artist, engaging artist through its foundational approach to art. Critics say that Harley is an inspiring painter and a mentor, and others call him a legacy. I would be one. I would say he is a legacy. We’re so honored to have him today. His Confessions of a starving artist includes some of his impressive collection of art equally compelling is the raw insight of his lived experiences and the fact that art has always been the driving force behind his happiness and his success and his books validate why he stands up. He wants to help others embrace art. That’s why he’s here to find your inner vision. Your imagination, and he encourages those individuals to immerse themselves into an artistic genre that will elevate their lives. He’s not just an artist, he’s a legend. He encourages all other artists without reservation or fear of competition. I’m so excited. Please everyone give thumbs up and applause. Meet Harley Brown, Harley. We’re so glad that you are here.
Harley Brown 10:26
I applaud all of the people watching.
Eric Rhoads 10:29
Well, this, this is a monumental occasion. Why is it you decided to come out of hiding to do this today?
Speaker 1 10:37
it’s one of those things where you have to almost be shocked into it. Oh yeah, okay, I’ll do it. And I didn’t know I was that smart till that build up. It’s kind of a thing where you like to talk about where you’ve been, how you’ve gotten there, because there’s so many, as I say, passing it on. That’s what I used to do at the workshops, passing on whatever knowledge I picked up. And a lot of it I picked up, strangely, you wouldn’t believe it, and it’s just a matter of, I think the way I got going from the beginning, if we can talk about that when I was seven years old. And I hope you can see this.
Eric Rhoads 11:28
I’ll just mention this. Okay, so the top of your head was getting cut off when we were on full screen. Maybe, maybe we can fix that. Okay, what do we have here?
Harley Brown 11:41
Okay, that’s a drawing my dad did in the 1930s for my mother. She loved Ronald Coleman, so he did this picture of him. That was the first draw I saw when I was seven years old. And at that very moment, I decided to be an artist. I wow, I didn’t know artist and this and that I knew that that’s what I was going to do for the rest of my life.
Eric Rhoads 12:09
And I have and your so your dad was an artist.
Harley Brown 12:13
He was an artist, and he kind of got me going with the sketches and so on, the things that little doodles and such, you know, through, through the schools. And in fact, in the schools, in the high school I went to, even the teachers understood my idiosyncrasies when I was supposed to be sitting there doing this and that I was drawing pictures on the pages, and they walked by, and eventually they started giving me money to go to a movie theater. I pass all the grades, but they if there was a Latin class or chemistry, go watch a movie, darling. And then I went out and got a job after grade 12, I don’t know if you want all this. This is Oh, we do. We want to hear it all. After Rachel, I went out and worked at a display company. And my dad, you know, I was working there every day, $150 a month. And my dad sat down in front of me one evening, and he said, Harley, do you like I said, I love art. Do you like art? I love art. He said, I’m going to give you a choice right now, and you got five minutes to come up with the answer. You can go back to work and do this, but I’m going to start charging you rent. Or you can sign in tomorrow to the art college for four years, and you’re here for four years and pay nothing. I’m giving you five minutes. Within one second, I said, I’m signing up to the art college, and the next day, I told the boss. He said, You and artists don’t make a living. You’ll be back here begging for the job. Anyway, I did go up to the art school, and it was quite an amazing I mean, I can tell three hour stories about the art college and what it did. What was the art college? Where was it? It was in Calgary, at the College of Art up there, Southern, southern Alberta Institute of Art and Technology. And that’s where I went, and that’s where I got my first kind of grounding. And along with my dad and and I started for the first time, looking at, you know, I had always the years Rembrandt and so on, the one picture that stuck with me, and to this very day, the Mona Lisa and, of course, portraits by Rembrandt. And there’s a lot to be thought about those. There’s more than just portraits and figure drawings. What do you mean? Well, how he did those portraits, the angles, the shading, and of course, that’s one of the better if you really want to look at those lost edges, you know, soft edges, lost edges. Uh, the lost edge is where Dark hair would go into the background or the shadow under the neck. A baby understands lost edges, because when you’re a child, you see your mother coming in the dark room to give you whatever bring something, and all you see is light and dark. All the dark is the edges are gone. So when you’re a baby, you understand all of these things. So an artist doesn’t have to put in the edge to make sure, you know, okay, that’s the cheek edge. The cheek can go into the shadow as soft right there from the light to the dark. And often, the artists say that that one little place where the light goes to the dark is the richest color. It’s not neither in the lightest light, in the darkest dark, it’s a rich if it’s a cheek, it’s a little rosier there, then it goes into the dark. I don’t know how lighting is.
Eric Rhoads 15:51
Some people call that the bed bug line.
Harley Brown 15:53
Well, there we are. But there’s a, you know, I could go on with my life, Clint Eastwood, if I can quote him, my life is loaded with coincidences that happened most you would not believe, but a lot of it has luck to coincidence right time, and I remember Clint Eastwood was asked, Mr. Eastwood, was luck? Did luck have a lot to do with your career? And Clint Eastwood said, Absolutely. He said, but when it happens, you better be prepared,
Eric Rhoads 16:32
And so before we get into the seven essential truths, what I’d like to understand Harley is, what were a couple of the seminal moments in your career? Because I think that there are a lot of people watching who would love to take it to the next level in terms of being able to make a living selling their art, or having a belief in themselves that they can even do it. What, were a couple of the moments that kind of transitioned you to being, you know, you’re out of school, out of art school. What then transitioned you to being able to kind of make it,
Harley Brown 17:13
I can make this into a kind of a simple thing. Erase the word hope. Use that if you say, I hope grandma gets better, but don’t hope for yourself. Do and I’ll explain that I was, the teachers at the school said, Harley, we’re not going to do it. They said, the last year, I was doing portraiture, certain ways of it, and they said, you’d be doing yourself a favor by, you know, going out and on your own. So they led me out the door, and I want to thank them for that. I was out in the parking lot, and I looked at the city, Calgary, and I said, Okay, it’s me and you the next day. And I said, at that moment, I am going to be an artist. Period, that was it. I wasn’t going to hope I was going to be. And the next day, I went and got a peddlers license and started knocking on doors. Bang, bang, bang. Hello, I’m an art student, and I’d show pictures and and they’d slam the door, 35 doors. And finally, I got the first door $1 profile portrait, and it just came from there. So the you, you, you have to be absolutely committed that you’re going to be an artist and number and and also, with that, keep the prices low. Uh, bend over backwards to please the whoever you’re selling to. That’s the first, the first woman that gets erased very soon after. But you have to start low. You never want to lower your prices, but you can raise them. My first profile portraits in bars. There were 50 cents a piece in the saloons and at the fairgrounds, but they went up to do a dollars, $4 that, and then $35 and so on.
Eric Rhoads 19:10
Well, you got it. You got to tell the story about what you discovered painting in a bar,
Harley Brown 19:17
how I discovered?
Eric Rhoads 19:18
No, what you discovered?
Harley Brown 19:20
Oh, that is so special. Always doing sketches, 9b pencil. You know, people in the bar, and they take, they fold them up and put them in their pocket, the portraits. Anyway, one time I got it, I think it was eight or 10 pastels, just cheap little things. There’s chalk. And I thought, I’ll do that. I’ll do pastels this time in the bar. And I started with my pad, and I started putting down colors in my eyes. My head started buzzing. And I do mean it was buzzing when I was putting down these strokes. And then I’d rub it a bit, and then I could put another. Stroke on top, totally brand new feeling for me. And I was actually shaking and I was doing one portrait to the next. Not good, let me tell you, because I still get used to how it worked, the feel of it. Then the that day, that night, the next day, one day was oils and pastel. The next day having oil and pencil and the next day pastel, I went out, I think it probably borrowed money, went out and got a whole set of all the different colors, got the paper, got everything from the art supply place, and from that day on, mainly pastels. 98% once in a while, somebody wanted oil. I’d do it. But the pastel excited me beyond I cannot tell while you pastel artists know what I’m talking about it. And from to this day to this very day when I set up and do a pastel, I’m as excited now as I was that first number one day.
Eric Rhoads 21:10
let me ask you a couple questions about that. Do you still do anything other than pastel? Do you paint in oil or watercolor?
Harley Brown 21:18
I did well, I did a watercolor. Did several watercolors, but that’s another world, another world. And once in a while, if somebody really wants an oil, but God, I think in the last two years, I think I did one oil or two, it’s all pastel. Now I live and breathe pastel, and I got every make in the world. So
Eric Rhoads 21:38
I have a theory, and I’d like to get your opinion on this theory. You know, people are always asking me. We have a lot of people who watch, who say, you know, I want to learn how to paint. And, you know, I always, I always, kind of started them out with, okay, you need to learn values and so on and drawing. But what I realized is that if, if somebody’s attacking paint right away. I remember when I was trying to learn oil paint, it was totally intimidating, because I didn’t know what kind of oils to use, or cleaners and all that stuff. And of course, I now, I now am an oil painter, and I now know it. But I think, you know, the the idea of mixing colors is kind of intimidating, you know, chemicals and mixing things with a brush and laying it on and and I’m wondering, I kind of think that, as an artist, a starting place, because we all played with crayons when we were kids. And I think pastel is like adult crayons, right? It’s more vibrant. It’s pure pigment. It really, it really does vibrate, and I think that that’s a really great place to learn to paint for the first time. And then, of course, you’re going to get to the next level, and the next level by learning how to layer and mix the colors on on there. What are your thoughts on that?
Harley Brown 22:53
Well, I, I don’t know about starting off with pastels. I did cranes, of course, but what, what I loved about pastel, you get the colors right there. Grab it fine. You can put cut. You don’t have to wait for drying and this and that, and you put another color on top. It’s just a matter of, of how, how it does things that you takes a little more time mixing the right you know that with the oil paint, and I did like oil paint at the time. I got a couple of here that I’ll show you that was the same. My pastels are almost the same technique, but, you know, brush work and so on. In fact, I have right here, oh, a self portrait. You may get a laugh out of this. This is my serious day with oils. Do you see any?
Eric Rhoads 23:46
Hold it up a little higher.
Harley Brown 23:51
That was serious. Harley. You know, when you’re an art student, you have to have that serious look. You look like a movie star going in. Well, I don’t know about that, but that’s an oil, and I just blobbed it down on there. And then here’s another one I’ll show you, and it’s the same technique as I do with pastel. I just, I did this a while ago, and that’s an oil, that’s an oil that’s beautiful. Well, thank you. So it’s, it’s that kind of a thing that, oh, and then here’s another more refined oil. Just throw it on the floor. Beautiful. Thank you very much. You know, that’s an oil that, you know there. There’s a certain thing about oils that are great fun.
Eric Rhoads 24:41
Well, I think that what I also have found is that a lot of the great artists dabble in a lot of different things, because there’s a moment when oil might be more appropriate than pastel, which might be more appropriate than watercolor. I have found since I started doing these online event. Events, I felt obligated to learn these other mediums I wasn’t painting in, and I find like I’m I’m freer, right? So now I’m able to do pastel, I’m able to do watercolor, I’m able to do oil, I can do gouache. And these things have really stimulated me. Get me more excited about painting overall, because sometimes you get bored, and it’s nice to have something to kind of get you reinterested.
Harley Brown 25:27
Well, I’m a one track guy. Yeah, with my medium, it’s strictly to me. I love doing pencils as well. You know, anything along with that immediacy of what you do with pastels. I can do a pastel, roll it up, and in the in the good old days, and I had big shows I had to do, roll it up, send it off to the dealer. They frame it. I just like the whole feeling of the pastel, yeah, with the people watching this, with pastel. You know, if we, if everybody watching this, had the same face, the same light and shadow, and had the same face in front of them, everyone would be slightly different, like we have different finger
Eric Rhoads 26:23
fingerprints.
Harley Brown 26:25
Well, fingerprints and features of our own face. We have different personalities. All of these things come out and that same The beauty is that we’re all different, and we should allow that. You know, when I was young, I was influenced by Rembrandt and and and so on, and looked at their work and how they did this and that, and people would say, Oh, you don’t want to certain. People would say, you don’t want to copy him, this and that. And it was like a maybe, like a surgeon learning from a brilliant surgeon. You know the point going forward, but you eventually your your your heart gets into it so much, your confidence comes in and your own self comes out onto the paper. People maybe didn’t know it was a Harley brown years ago. I don’t know. I’ve never asked, but you can sure see that it is now. A lot of people go to art shows and that, and they can spot mine from the other side of the room. So to become yourself, it takes a little while, like when you’re going through all the schools and the different levels. As you get older, you shuck aside all the things you think are cool, and you become yourself. And that confidence comes also with your drawing and your working out values. And I think values, values is on the top of the list.
Eric Rhoads 28:03
This is a good way to to transition into the list of the seven essential truths. So let’s talk about values.
Harley Brown 28:09
Well, values, everybody knows light to dark, and if you screw up values, no matter how well you draw with the reflected light, you know, with the shadows, with the background, all of that, lights and darks. And I would suggest that anybody who’s a little off on that concentrate deeply, if you’re working from photographs of real life, make sure that you’re getting those values right. Sometimes the dark looks darker if it’s next to white and the in the same other way around. Sometimes, when a face is really light, the shadow looks darker than it really is. Sometimes I’ll get a piece of black paper, something like that, put it next to the neck, or from the distance, the light is often not quite as white as we think it is. A lot of people will put the highlights very too light. So values, but values, let’s connect that with one thing, an artist friend Donald Teague, friend of mine. So the final thing I ever heard from him, I said, Give me one word that I can take with me as I hopped into my car, and he yelled out, design. And design can’t be designed without values. And the number one, you can draw all sorts of wonderful stuff detailed this, and then, oh, that’s wonderful, but it doesn’t build up as a great painting without design. And he said that to me, and it’s stuck with me. And you can do a wonderful head or a figure, but if somehow the background on the fort. Around aren’t worked into like angles and maybe the horizontal and vertical, you know, for stability and turnings and this and that, and having something in front, like for depth. You have the hand in front. You have a cat in your hand. You have somebody standing in front of a house. You have a building in front of the mountains, or whatever, causing depth in a painting, and you have to understand that the value, say, of a mountain, is much greater and lighter than if you were standing right up against them. So the further away things go, the colors are grade down slightly. You’ve got to be very careful about that. So that up whatever’s up close, a red apple would be a red apple. Then far in the distance, the person would not have big rosy cheeks and and all of that, you would kill so that’s all the depth area, but the but the values, you have to understand the values from close up to far away, and the value when you look at a hand, you see the different things handing on the hand. A lot of people, when they do the light side of the face, then start putting that light part into the reflected light on the other side, which, if it really is okay, but most cases, the reflected light is down a bit, and it’s not all the same. The reflected light may be lighter up here, so some artists will just go to with the reflected light, if anything you take home with you, or whatever is here lighting on a figure. Face can be drawn like crazy, wonderfully drawn, but the values on the face, the cheeks, the neck, the forehead, the arms, the folds, the folds in the shirt, white shirt, red shirt, whatever you can simplify. You don’t have to make it photographic. In fact, many people say, I don’t do realism. It’s like a photograph and and I say to them, I’m not a camera. I’m an interpreter, in much in the same way with the piano, people play exactly what Rachmaninoff wrote. Vladimir Horowitz played his third piano concerto. Our third piano concerto the way he would play it, his interpretation of exactly those notes an artist, as I was saying, if you had the same model in front of you, you couldn’t help but make it yours, that so it’s not a photograph at all. It’s a combination of subject and artist, subject. Remember that subject and artist well?
Eric Rhoads 32:53
And so make it yours, I think is really important too. You know, it’s interesting. We have the plein air convention, and we’ll be outside, and there will be 1000 artists painting the same view, and every single one of them interprets it different. And it’s so wonderful to see. And you see ideas that you’ve never thought of.
Harley Brown 33:10
absolutely
Eric Rhoads 33:13
So, values is one of your central truths. What’s next?
Harley Brown 33:19
Subjects? John Singer Sargent did a painting with just posts in it brilliant. There are artists that will do complex things, but without the design, the subject will flatten, be uninteresting. You walk through a gallery. Most people, when they walk through a gallery, they look around and the subject could be interesting, but if the design in sometimes color, but if the design is not there, subject I have always figured and I’ve tried to prove it to myself, any subject can be interesting. It depends on what you do with it, like the plot of a movie. You can do a plot of a movie in one paragraph, but it depends on that plot right there that makes the the music or the movie. It makes it work. You should be able to cut it down to just a few sentences. And the same way with the subject, if you want the person just to sit there with the hand, you know, like that, or looking to the side like this, or just looking right straight. I have done it sometimes with the person the subject looking right straight at me, but what I would do around that person was, was what what counted, but the subject I say this, subjects are wide open to everything.
Eric Rhoads 34:55
All right, so you’re what you’re saying is, don’t rely on your imagination. Rely on yourself. Object I don’t,
Harley Brown 35:01
yeah, people should not use their imagination what I’m doing. I’ll tell you I’ve done art all my life, but I will not fake and I’ll stress them maybe, but if somebody took off and I hadn’t finished off the nose area, I guarantee you, I’d make a terrible job putting in that nose with the shadows. It would look fakey. It would look one example was when we were out painting the ocean and and the artist got tired of putting in the pebbles and rocks, and he said, I’m going to finish it off in the studio. So he did pebbles and rocks in the studios. Everybody looking at it said, What the hell isn’t that? You know, he was trying to do them out of his head. I say this with something representation like this. Do not try to do it out of your head. Go and see those rocks. Go and see that forehead, the hair, even the hair, Don’t fake it. Work from life or photograph.
Eric Rhoads 36:07
So you’ve, you’ve done a lot of plein air painting over the years,
Harley Brown 36:10
people, you can let things disappear, you know, in the background and so on. You don’t have to put all the details in this. But if you use imagination, that’s you’re ahead of me.
Eric Rhoads 36:23
Okay, but you, you did get out and do plein air painting. Is that correct
Harley Brown 36:28
I have over the years? Okay, I’ll show you this. I did this, and I this was the painting, and coast of Mexico, a quick is that, can you see it? Yeah, yeah, we could see it, uh huh. And that was a quick I’ve done my life, when I had lots of activity and energy, we’d take us artists would go all over the world and paint. We’d get people off the street and have them sit in a studio somewhere. Even the workshops, I had a there was a fellow in the Fiji walking by with a mule and and I asked, we asked him if he would stand there with his mule. And we, we did some quick drawings of it all. Working from life is I’ve always felt that a novelist has to live life to put in the words make it an interesting, real novel and an artist. I think working from life is so important, not all the time. I work for photographs, but working for life. Oh, here’s one I did of in Trafalgar Square, the lion. Oh, beautiful. Thank you. And I did a different you know, I don’t know if you want to see Oh, there’s one I want to show you here. I did a lot of these. That’s okay. Just let them go. Let them go. We’re
Eric Rhoads 38:07
getting some unexpected pleasures today. This is nice.
Harley Brown 38:11
Well, bring that girl over on the left, in case
Eric Rhoads 38:15
you guys are just tuning in. Our guest is Harley Brown, and he’s going to be going through seven essential art truths, and he’s showing us some work right now, while we’re while he’s gathering those up.
Harley Brown 38:24
Okay, here’s one that shows a lot. This is done from life in a one of my workshops. Can you see it? Yes, okay. Now this was done very simple tones. Now, if we can do it, close up there, can we can you see her face?
Eric Rhoads 38:40
Yes, we can lift it up just a little higher. There we go. Okay.
Harley Brown 38:45
Now her face is literally two values, right? And it go, and it shows her expression. So in other words, your expression can be very simplified with this pastel, of course, and she was sitting there. And of course, it takes a little bit of tiny work to it, but you see the simple values throughout the whole figure, and yet the personality is there. So in other words, I didn’t have to put all the details in, all right. Let me just show you. I don’t know if this can No, I won’t. It’s too big. I was going to show you a portrait here in two values, okay, and, and this, I may have to stand with this, May, I may have to stand back with this. But this is the perfect example of values. This is I hope this, all this moving around is okay,
Eric Rhoads 39:45
yep, we’re cool with it,
Harley Brown 39:49
friend, oh, exactly. And all you need is that value. And that value, two values. And you know, see how individual. Well, we’re all everybody watching this has that same great grand thing about them is that we’re all slightly different. And like you say, you can tell it’s Marlon Brando
Eric Rhoads 40:15
outstanding. Okay, so let’s get back to our seven essential art truths, because I know some people have limited time. I want to make sure we cover those so you said values, and you said relying on the subject. What else is next?
Harley Brown 40:30
Oh, what would you like to think? Well, value subject design. If we talked about design, I think design okay, if you want to really understand why Rembrandts are so good, is because the design he put in, not just the faces and the expressions in that, but the design he put into those, are phenomenal. Look at those. Look at the fashions. Work thereof. Another. Thing, while we’re talking about design, another thing, of course, is color. Now, let me put it the Munsell color theory. Everybody should get period color in the months out. Color Theory is five colors, red, yellow, green, blue, purple, not orange, red, yellow, green, blue, purple. Quarry exists, but do it even red, yellow, green, blue, purple. In other words, the opposite of red is blue, green, turquoise, blue, green, not green because green is too warm. Blue. Green is cool enough for the red better. Many of the great artists of the turn of the 1900s the late 1819 in the 1900s in the early 1900s started to get into this. And also think in this term, with color, make a painting with value should not be equal light and dark value. It should be either mostly mid value, a lot of it dark value, kind of a dark street scene, or light value with some dark in it. But it should not be equal values and the same with color. It should not be equally like cool and warm you see often with the French impressionist, the cools, with the skies, the mountains, the trees, the grass, and then they may put in a red barn. Now, all of these things I say you can cheat on a little bit. The thing you cannot cheat on a bit is the design so colors you can throw and don’t put colors on just for the sake of putting on colors there. There’s colors that are grayed down, great down, maybe far reaches of the you know, where there’s the Greens there, but you kind of make them less intense. And when I’m doing a portrait, the richer colors are generally around the head, and they cool off a little. Sometimes I’ll maybe cool it off as the chase go back, but color is important. And the Munsell theory, I picked that up a number of years ago, and it was, whoa baby. And it just, it’s not just somebody handing you a theory. It’s a it’s a kind of a theory that means so much when you’re starting to work and you say, whoo, this is working. Okay, so color, all
Eric Rhoads 43:32
right. So I have my list of of truths. The next one is universal principles. Will you talk about that?
Harley Brown 43:41
Well, you principles universal. I don’t exactly understand what that is, other than I think that
Eric Rhoads 43:52
anything we paint, the principles are basically the same,
Harley Brown 43:56
exactly. If I do a horse, I have one there, a horse’s head, or if I do a still life, lovely. I don’t know anything about horses or lions or dogs or mules. I’ve done burros galore. I know, okay, this is a good one for you. I know nothing about anatomy. I don’t know the anatomy of the face, but I do know light and shadow shapes. So the universal The thing is, if you can draw, and I think that people should take the time to be accurate. Accuracy is the most important thing. When you’re doing a portrait or a building, if you get it sloppy at first, you’re going to have to fix it later, but you’re going to have to fix it more complex, if the face, if the eyebrows too high, or the nose is too wide, you’re going to have. To paint it out and put it in, so get the accuracy first. Now, accuracy doesn’t mean inner what is it? Artificial intelligence is not only accuracy means your accuracy. When I’m doing a personal portrait, I’m it takes three times longer because it’s a very specific face that I’m doing most of the time. A lot of the time, I will take a face and be able to push this and that and the other thing. But it is accurate, accurate in a human, personal way. So anything people out there, if you can draw, whatever a dog, a bow, whatever you do with light and dark and shape, and that you can draw anything. If there’s people that can only do still life, or just did still life most of their time, please go do a human face.
Eric Rhoads 46:00
Okay, now talk, talk to me about the illusion of depth.
Harley Brown 46:04
Well, the illusion of depth is like I say, when something’s in front my hands in front of me, my head is back, my hand may be a little bit larger, the face may be a little slightly less detail, not necessarily, but as I say, things that go back the illusion of depth, meaning graying down, killing this rich colors as things go into the distance, like the mountains. To say, when you’re doing landscape, you know the foreground, the rich, maybe a cabin or something like that in the foreground, and rather rich color. But as it goes far or depth is when there are some people together and some are behind others. It just gives the illusion of depth and and and, I think that’s important, that the feeling of depth, without having a 3d camera, when you’re looking at, for instance, once again, Rembrandt, or any of the great artists, figurative artists, when they have people in the distance and the people in the foreground, that is depth. Now
Eric Rhoads 47:20
you also on on your list of essential truths. You put, you put understanding edges. You talked a little bit about that when you were talking about Ren Brandt. Do you want to get into to a little bit more excuse the expression depth, with with the with the edges.
Harley Brown 47:35
Well, can we somehow? What do you want? Can we get? Let’s see that part. Okay, that portrait of me,
Eric Rhoads 47:50
not you guys. We’re gonna get to your questions in a few minutes. If you just hang in there with us. We also have some prizes we’re gonna give away, so just hang, hang in there while they’re getting this painting ready? Okay, now we have, Ooh, that’s nice. Guess who that is on the cover of your book? Or wasn’t that part of an article or something you wrote that
Harley Brown 48:11
was kind of me looking that other one little bit friendly and little self possessed. Here’s me, just Mr. Nice Guy. But see the edge, how soft it is going into the background, and
Eric Rhoads 48:28
we hold that a little closer to the camera. There we go. Good, all right, yeah, you can see that disappearing edge there that really has form three dimensionality. Okay, good. Now we’ll let you go ahead and talk about it. Oh, and,
Harley Brown 48:48
you know, putting in the shirt, can you still see it? Yep, yep. Okay. Now here all that warm, put in a little bit of cool. But I naturally do that. It’s almost like I’m I don’t want it all hot. I want something like that. And now you don’t see all the hair on the whiskers. It’s just shapes. But you know that that’s a beard, a goatee, and their whiskers there. You see now the forehead brightest, and then things go down a little bit. I put in the glasses, not exactly all around, but highlights. That’s all you need. Little highlights, maybe a little edge here and there. The shadow going down the side, and then this reflected light, which is a cool light, there’s a warm side, and that’s kind of got a green, cool look to it. So you see the difference in values. You see the design room, and then going up here for stability, movement down there. And fact is that that light against that dark, very sharp. Once in a while you want to do that in a painting to make. Sharp areas, they’re kind of fun, so a little bit, but in the edge of the whiskers there, in the side, they’re slightly sharp, a softer right in their teeth, teeth are tough to do, let me tell you, really got to spend time with them that don’t make them look like false teeth and the ear little lighter there, shaping it, taking my time. And you see where the head does go, fades right into the background there, fades right into the background there, so there. Oh, and as you see, it’s warm there, the cheek is warm there, and it goes into the back. It’s cooled right off.
Eric Rhoads 50:42
Yeah, so there’s that. Okay, so understanding edges is an essential truth. You also have getting it right from the start. Now, you talked about that earlier, but let’s just go a little bit more depth on that. You said, don’t, don’t be sloppy.
Harley Brown 51:00
Get sloppy. Frame the tuba… don’t get sloppy.
Eric Rhoads 51:03
Are you gonna play the tuba for us?
Harley Brown 51:07
Oh, look at let me. Can we do? Can we do the piano? Yeah, I want to show you something on the piano. Look at this. Can you see this? Yeah, that’s the one and only two by ever done. But I had to be absolutely accurate with it. And it’s a bit of a piece of art, I guess. But, you know, with the shapes and all this, I had to be extremely accurate with all of that down there. Can Can I do the piano it it to show you the similarities, yeah, just like George Balanchine, he does this choreography, but the ballerina puts her own into it. Now I’m going to show you with the piano. Can we do this? Yes, okay, I hope this works.
Eric Rhoads 51:57
We’re getting to see a lot of art today. This is very exciting,
Harley Brown 52:03
okay, now, when I started out, can you see, yeah, when I started out, it was everything, all of that, and then I had to learn, you know, it kind of stuff. I’ve learned all of that, and then I’ve learned it all. And as time went on, I got confidence, and my confidence kind of while I played piano. I shouldn’t say … okay, I play piano in a brothel.
Eric Rhoads 52:54
this is a classic moment.
Harley Brown 53:02
I Whoa. What you do is you learn the techniques you learn with everything, when you’re writing, when you’re doing art, whatever you do, you know, you learn the basics, then you go into the I haven’t played the piano, believe me, I have not played the piano for 50 years. I quit playing in my 30s, and now I play Happy birthday for the family, you know, and then. But there’s other things that when I was going to art school, it was people like Brubeck that impressed me. So I went through areas concerts, Beethoven. You know Beethoven? You know the his second piano concerto, those things that just thrilled me. So I’ve spent massive amount of times with art, massive amount of times with my music, and my parent drove my parents crazy, and the teachers knew it, that everybody knew that there was a nut in town and kind of a but I loved it, and I would, incidentally, this is kind of a weird part. I was very, very shy. And I won’t give you this story on it, because too long, I became unshy in one hour when I was 19 years old, what happened? I had my first drink. I became totally eccentric. Eric, I did things that so eccentric that when I was married, I got, I saw in a newspaper three words, Londoners are eccentric. I sold everything in the family. We moved to London, England for two years. Went to the Camberwell school. I was there things like that, that that there it is. I won’t give you the details, but there was a film company wanted to do something about my life, dramatize it. And they saw my book confessions, and they said, these are the very words. They said, Mr. Brown, Harley, your life was much too bizarre, and nobody would believe it. And when I stopped drinking at 35 I then had confidence, so I didn’t go back into shy. But I was no longer invited to parties, and I had nothing but time to develop my art, and I worked at it, and had luckily a gift from heaven. I had luckily had one of the major artists in the states follow me up. He happened to accidentally see one of my pictures and invited me to a big art show on the states, and it went from there, I was able to follow through. So like Clint said, We, like Clint said, we have lucky things happen to us. Fortunate things happen, we better darn well be prepared when they happen and make them happen. The big thing is, do not hope. The main thing is, do, if you’re going to be an artist, be an artist. We got this one life, and that’s what my decision was. I, when I was a teenager, that I wanted to one day play in Carnegie Hall and have the women look at me. I was that shy.
Eric Rhoads 57:04
Well, what I want to do, Harley is go through just repeat the essential truths from the list that I’ve made here. One is, rely rely on the subject. Don’t rely on your imagination. Universal principles that anything we paint are basically the same illusion of death. Depth, accuracy is important. Color, you talked about Munsell design and find value in values, understanding edges and then getting it right from the start. And I’m told that we’ve got a couple of bonus ones that you threw in there. One of them was excitement. Talk to me about letting your excitement show through your paintings.
Harley Brown 57:46
Well, the excitement can happen, but you have to earn it. And and at first I was I had an alter ego. That’s something else. I did have an alter ego, and I can’t get into him, but he did exist. I wasn’t prepared.
Eric Rhoads 58:22
Well, let’s not go there then, because we’ve got a limited time … talk about excitement showing through your paintings.
Harley Brown 58:40
Excitement is you have to work at it. You’re going to go through these serious times. We really but as it will slowly and really develop very slowly, sometimes a little faster, depending on how much you put into it. But I was very kind of caught into what I was doing with a rather serious nature. But as time went on and I understood the lights and the values and the design and all of that, I found inside of me glowing, radiating, and as time went on, and I felt this feeling just Rapture. And so even to right now, when I’m doing the excitement that I feel, you can see, if somebody wants to get up close it, they say, Whoa, was he caught up in that one.
Eric Rhoads 59:39
How do you if you’re not, if you’re not excited about your work, you’re having you’re stuck. How do you pull yourself back to excitement?
Harley Brown 59:51
Okay, I do a lot of if, if, if I’m on working on a big thing, it’s a lot of labor. Oftentimes I will go to bed, and before I do I do some sketches, quick little sketches. You can’t you can’t buy happiness. You can’t find that you’re going to get happiness going to a movie and that you have to earn it, it. But the in one way that I did when things were not perfect for me and things were going downhill, I do a sketch, and I promise you that would be like taking a happy pill. Do a few of them. Don’t try to get, you know, it’s just for yourself. And then do 234, and and do something that you’ve never done before. Get that old vacuum in the corner, or a pot or flower, whatever that is, the happy pill, and boy, I can guarantee the people watching this right now tonight, get a pad out and do a quick sketch while commercials are on.
Eric Rhoads 1:01:01
Okay, so next on the bonus truths, we have attitude. The greatest obstacle to most people isn’t skill, it’s attitude. You want to talk about that.
Harley Brown 1:01:10
My attitude changed over time. My attitude was, I’m going to be an artist, an attitude, I guess. I wonder if that means also for with your attitude, with other people, and your attitude, and my attitude, but I never, never condemned myself for anything. I never looked down on myself or anything. I tried to do what was right for me. My attitude was, I have to say, ego driven, and I think a lot of people saw my attitude as they would never know my insides, but they’d look at me as very nice, gentle type of guy. But within was an absolute flaming Dragon, and that was for many years now I’ve settled down a bit. That used to be that I go to Russia or Spain, now I go to the grocery store. So my attitude goes all over the place. If anybody watching this, you’ve got to get yourself some pads and get yourself some nine B’s get kneaded erasers, and just have the joy of doing that and that next day. And also make sure when you’re going to bed, that you solve some of the problems that you have with your work, so that when you get up, you feel, well, I’ve got that okay. Oftentimes, if I get if I’m down on a picture, I’ll walk away and come back to it. In those few moments, my brain, my brain cells, somehow resolve it as I look at, oh, I see what’s wrong. Got it done? It?
Eric Rhoads 1:03:01
Yeah, step away. Okay, so the last bonus truth we have is don’t paint for others. Talk to us about that.
Harley Brown 1:03:09
Okay. Now, I cheated on that at first. When I wanted to make the door to door, one person had me come in and do a mural on the wall for $35 so I cheated a bit in doing what people wanted. I want to get my mother. Would you paint me a rose? Harley, I did. So I sold myself out, but I was still doing art. A lot of people looked, I have to say, looked down on me as having selling my soul, type of the thing. And at the time, I didn’t understand all of that, but I kept on doing it. And I as time went on, I did not I have done paintings just for me. I did. I won’t explain them all. I’ve got stacks of paintings just for myself. I would do paintings. If a gallery wanted a specific bunch of paintings, I would go through the wood I’ve done that would be good for them. Specifically. I did for many years. I did indigenous individuals. I lived in Calgary, near the sarsi nation. I did a lot, because they were right near me within blogs. And I did portraits, of course, nudes I have, yeah, I did hundreds, maybe 1000s, and all of that I did, I say this to people. Do not think is it? Are they going to like this? Do not think that way. Do. Are, are the viewers of the art? Are they going to accept what I’m doing here? Be damned outside when you’re in the studio, when you’re outside painting, it’s you and your subject, nothing else. Nothing else gets in your way.
Eric Rhoads 1:05:17
Great, great advice. Harley. Are you ready for questions? Depends, okay, okay, all right, Harley,
Harley Brown 1:05:27
if it’s about art, fine,
Kari Stober 1:05:31
Harley, do you remember your first set of pastels? Do you remember what they were?
Harley Brown 1:05:35
I think they were Rembrandt. You know, way, way back. I think that’s what they were and and I went through many, many, you know, I have right now every brand in the world.
Kari Stober 1:05:54
I think a lot of us are going to be jealous of that, because everybody would love to have all the pastels in the world.
Harley Brown 1:06:00
It was so Nelly, the the French you know, the the talents, you know, I’m just trying to think of I, every one that you can think of I, and I have right now, believe this or not, if I was encompassed in this house, I have enough pastels. If I lived another 30 years.
Kari Stober 1:06:23
So there, wow, that’s a that’s quite the collection.
Harley Brown 1:06:27
So buckets.
Kari Stober 1:06:30
So our next question is, who, who were the artists that first inspired you, and are there any artists that inspire you now?
Harley Brown 1:06:41
The first artist when I seven was my dad, give him my heart. And then I went on to young Of course, Rembrandt, I would have to say, is amongst the first and the early Russian artists from the late 1800s and early 1900s there’s so many the cowboy artists, Freedom West. A lot of those artists are just to me right now, I’ll say this. I think right now we are going through a classic, grand, great era of art. I’ll put the art right now, many of the paintings of right now up along with any of the old masters. You know, it’s not like they’re all from the past. Right now. We’re going through a phenomenal time of great art, one after the other. Some I just my heart, you know. So there we are.
Kari Stober 1:07:44
That’s great. No, that’s great. So our next question is, what surface Do you usually paint on? And have you ever made your own surfaces?
Harley Brown 1:07:57
Good question. Well, here’s a one that I did of still life. I now I work with and I how I started, is this, okay? This is how I start like that. And then I rub it down like this. You know, I may put some all over, and then, you know, I’ll just start…
Kari Stober 1:08:32
What kind of paper is that Harley
Harley Brown 1:08:35
Canson. You know, can sand paper,
Eric Rhoads 1:08:45
you make it look so easy.
Harley Brown 1:08:55
Oh, really give him a beard. I put a hat on.
Eric Rhoads 1:09:10
I want to tell you guys, this was unplanned. We didn’t know he was going to do a demo. This is really terrific. Hang in there.
Harley Brown 1:09:27
then you put a white collar there and so on. Then, of course. You can, I wish I won’t, do you know, then you can start putting in, you know, the lights and so on.
Kari Stober 1:10:10
So that goes into my next question, which is color temperature in shadows and highlights. How do you decide what to do for those
Harley Brown 1:10:23
well, for instance, the shadows, you know, as they come in there, I’ll probably even with the female. I’ll sometimes cool it down on the side there, and the ears. I don’t make those enrich but there’s areas that I’ll cool men generally cooler down in there. And then, of course, the the hat and the hair. There’s a lost edge right there. This is in shadow up here. Big, tough guy.
Kari Stober 1:11:14
So the last question we have is, when you were talking about getting it right from the start, can you elaborate a little bit more on that? Lynn says that she finds that when she gets towards the end of her painting, it didn’t quite turn out as planned.
Harley Brown 1:11:27
when you get it right, if this, get that nose the right length, get all of these details, the width of it, where the mouth goes … from there to there, all those things, get them right, and get the shapes right, you know, the the Get It Right. From the beginning, I made this too fast, you know, I should have done a little bit slower, but it’s just kind of a quick little bit of Fun. Actually. It’s just two values on the face this.
Kari Stober 1:12:30
Janice wants to know what your feelings are on sanded paper.
Harley Brown 1:12:35
I used to use it almost all the time, but I use that only now for little children, because it the sometimes the texture is not the texture of this is better for grown ups, but I use sandpaper. I used to use it almost all the time.
Kari Stober 1:13:02
And do you work from life, or do you work from photos?
Harley Brown 1:13:05
I used to almost all the time work from life, but now I’m I don’t run around in that. I take photographs of people, but now I work mostly from photographs.
Eric Rhoads 1:13:18
Well, I’m going to have to have I’m going to have to have you do my portrait for the magazine. All the other greats have done it. So got it. I’ll show up in your living room.
Kari Stober 1:13:30
Harley, I have one last question for you is, do you use fixative?
Harley Brown 1:13:34
I do and I use it at the first part. That’s a good question. I use it the fixative at the first part when I’m working, for instance, here, if I want to build on top, but I do not use it at the end, because it kills color and a lot of it, but the very first part, yes, very lightly. And then I can work on top if it’s a rich color, or if it’s something the color that I’ve laid on. Rather than have it mixed with the color I’m putting on, I have it fixed so that I can give a good clean sweep.
Eric Rhoads 1:14:12
Harley, I think that we’re probably coming up on, we’re an hour and 50 minutes. I think probably we should, we should call this to an end. But this has been phenomenal. I mean, to first off, I learned so much from you today that I had never heard before, and I, as you know, I’ve, I know a lot, and have interviewed a lot of artists, and I never knew you were going to play piano, and I never knew you were going to paint for us. So this is like, you’re just like getting lots of gold stars today, man.
Harley Brown 1:14:43
thank you,
Eric Rhoads 1:14:47
Harley, do you want to give us a couple of final words of inspiration?
Harley Brown 1:14:51
Well, there’s, I guess I’m on social media, you know, Instagram, Facebook. I let all my emotions out on those but I say to the artist from now on. And I know there’s many of you know that you’re an individual, know that you’re very unique. You don’t have to copy you. You start off maybe copying like the beginning surgeon, but then you become yourself. Yourself is very powerful, more powerful than you think, especially as you’re developing your art, and it will become you, and you’re much more wanting to go back to your East soul. It’s not an issue and create more and if there’s, I’m trying to think that there’s, you know, if there’s one thing that you learn from my good friend, when he yelled out design, I went to a way back to a workshop, I learned one thing at that workshop, and that made it worthwhile when the artist, Maestro mentor, said that shadows have less detail than the light area. And he said, If the shadow is the majority, and they’re just a little bit of light, then the shadow has the detail, and you take out a little of the detail in the light area, little parts of the light area. So in other words, you cannot put, should not put the same detail in shadow as in light, that’s with faces, that’s with with anything. So I feel if somebody learned one thing here, maybe the scales on the piano or something, if somebody learned one thing, then I’m happy. I am really happy, because I love artists. I love the mind of an artist. I love the way artists say. That’s what I’m going to do and be. And it to me, I can’t think of anything else on planet earth that I would rather be than when it has everything we want. In fact, if you’re a pianist and you make one mistake on the concert stage, then Boo in art, you can fix it up. If you do something wrong, you can fix it, as I did here. Art is also you’re with yourself. You’re bringing yourself out in many ways, visual. You’re being kind to yourself. Your mind. All of my art friends, the vast majority of them, the older ones, lived into their late 90s, and their brain was still cooking. Their brain cells were always active. So if you’re out there and you do art, you are not only inspired, you’re not only inspiring yourself, but you’re always going to be your mind is always going to be working.
Eric Rhoads 1:18:07
I think that is great advice. Harley, thank you so much. What I want to do is just go through and reiterate what the essential truths are. Again, we have a rely on the subject. There are universal principles you want to follow. The illusion of depth is so important. Accuracy is important. Get it right at the start so you don’t fight it later. Understand edges, that there is value and value. Stay excited. Have a right attitude about it. Don’t beat up on yourself, and don’t paint for others, these are all very, very valuable, and I’d love people to put into the chat what they think they learned. Harley, we’re excited about having you on pastel live. We we got so much more than we expected today. You are a showman. I think, I think we need to have you go out by playing the piano one more time for us. Would you do that?
Harley Brown 1:19:05
What am I going to do is Eddie
Eric Rhoads 1:19:06
hasn’t and He hasn’t played in 50 years. Are you kidding?
Eric Rhoads 1:19:22
Oh, All right. Well, thanks again to Harley Brown, that piano was completely unexpected. So was him drawing out a portrait or beginning a portrait. So that was pretty cool. Thank you Harley and thank you everyone. Now let’s go right to the art marketing minute.
Announcer 1:20:38
This is the marketing minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the number one Amazon Best Seller, Make More Money Selling Your Art: proven techniques to turn your passion into profit.
Eric Rhoads 1:20:51
Send me your questions at [email protected] or you can go live if you want to, just let us know if you’d like to do that, and we’ll let you do it. The first question comes from Neil Patrick McMillan. Question is, how can artists craft a compelling artist statement and build a strong brand that reflects their unique perspective and artistic identity? Wow, that’s a tough question. You know, I’ve never really completely understood this artist statement thing. I hear a lot of artists ask me, what should my artist statement be? I don’t know where that’s coming from. I don’t know if galleries are asking for it, or if you think it’s something you need to have on your website, you know, I suppose. And I’ve seen artists statements on websites and it’s like, Oh, why? Why bother? You know, it’s, it’s, you know, does anybody really care? Sorry, I know you do. But, you know, do consumers really care? I think the question is, why do you do it? Why? What’s the purpose of doing it? And I would say, if you’re going to do it, then make it, you know, I’ve seen some that have a lot of platitudes in them, and they’re just kind of overly flowerly Look. Just talk, talk about what you do and why you do it. What, what is it that makes you unique and why you do it? Right? Because that’s that’s differentiation, right? So Neil Patrick McMillan, I don’t know what you paint, but let’s say you say, Hey, I’m a realist painter in the tradition of the 19th century, painters focus on making paintings that kind of harken back to those days, and I fell in love with the great masters, and so I want to interpret their style, but I want to do it in my modern way. I mean, that’s really what and I, by the way, I wouldn’t create a special page to say that I’d have that right there at the top of your website that says, This is what I do, because you want people to be able to assimilate very quickly, you know what? What is this website? What am I going to see here and make sure? Of course, everything kind of falls into that. Now also, you’re, you’re talking about branding, and I don’t know, you know slogans. I love slogans, but slogans don’t always work in branding, and sometimes, especially for artists, the slogan you know, Thomas Kincaid did painter of light that worked. And you know, you see people doing that kind of thing, painter of this, painter that you know, but I don’t know if that’s really all that necessary. Your brand is you. You are your brand, and your brand is your attitude, your life, your lifestyle, and you know what you’re posting on social media about your life, and you know if you’re trying to, if you’re doing a lot of plein air painting, and it’s a romantic life, and and you’re you’re out painting the world, then that becomes part of your brand. But really, your brand is your paintings, right? Your your paintings need to be consistent. They need to reinforce what you do, what you believe in. If it’s a style, you know, you’re the, you’re a modern impressionist, or you know you’re a, you know, hearkening to the past, you know, the, you know, Rembrandt style or something, whatever it is, reinforce that, you know, having a slogan, like Have it your way, like McDonald’s or something, isn’t necessarily going to do it. What does do it is reinforcing your work. Just, and branding is, I mean, we talk about branding all the time, and it’s branding is just, it’s who you are, right? And you’ve got to be who you are. You can’t make up some who you’re not. I mean, people are going to know. I mean, I would think so anyway. So just be who you are and just reinforce that. And you just have to be constantly talking about it, constantly telling your story, constantly letting people see your work, constantly promoting yourself, advertising, looking for ways to get visibility. I mean, that’s what branding is really all about. It’s it’s taking your message and exposing it over and over and over and over and again for the rest of your life, right? It never stops.
Eric Rhoads 1:24:50
Next question from Janet Hall. I don’t know where Janet’s from, but let’s see what the question is says. I’m not even sure how or where to make. Prints in my art, which paper to use? How do I do that, let alone marketing? So I get so overwhelmed because I have so many questions I don’t even know where to begin, because I don’t know what. I don’t know, if you get my drift, thanks for letting me ask questions that are probably obvious to everyone else. Well, Janet, I you know, I you know, I don’t want to disappoint you, but I can’t answer questions about that because I don’t know the answers. I don’t know how to tell you where to get your prints made. I know what a lot of people do. I know what a lot of artists will go out and they’ll buy a good, a good printer, and Epson printer or Canon printer, and they’ll, you know, depending on the size prints they want, those are the two standards. And then you buy your you buy different kinds of paper. You can buy watercolor paper or print paper or photographic paper. You know, there’s a lot of different options. And then, you know, you mount them and do all that stuff. And you can find somebody who can teach you that I’m not probably best to do it. The question I would have is, is that what you want to do is, prints are, is marketing prints? What you want to do and and if so, real question is, if you have them, how are you going to sell them? Where are you going to expose them? Where are you going to put them? You going to do tent shows where you’re, you know, art shows where you’re, you know, everybody’s got a tent, and people are walking up down the street. Are you going to put them on a website? Are you going to put them in a gallery? You know, all those things matter, so you need to figure that out first, because that’s probably more important, because you can make the prints once you figure out how you’re going to sell them. And I would test it, because you don’t want to go out and buy a bunch of expensive stuff and spend a lot of money making prints if they don’t sell. So you got to figure out how to do that. I would say, though, really what I think you’re asking is, where do I begin? Right? Some basics. First off, when you’re first starting out, you know, you don’t know what to do. Read some books. There’s lots of great books on art business and art marketing. I wrote one. I don’t know if it’s great or not, but I tried to make it great anyway. Dip your toe in the water, right? And what I mean by that is, find out first, if you’re ready, get some feedback from somebody who knows, somebody who’s a professional, might be some other artists might be some gallery people try to get them to give you some feedback. Am I ready? What do I need to fix? Don’t tell me all the positives, just tell me all the negatives. What do I need to fix? And if you’re ready, they’ll tell you. You know, I I had a lot of years where I wasn’t ready, and I thought I was ready, and all my friends told me about it was ready, but the pros didn’t, you know. Now the pros say, Hey, you’re ready. Okay, so now I’m ready. Now, then the next question is, how are you going to get yourself out there? What are you going to do? How you put yourself out there? Well, I would say, dip your toe in the water of selling something, right? And so what does that look like? Well, it might be doing an art show. It might be putting your stuff up at a restaurant or local gym, or, you know, I like restaurants because there’s alcohol involved, and people get a little bit looser and and a little bit more open to art than they might be when they’re in a busy, you know, work mode, or workout mode or something like that, you know. So find somebody to do a show, and then, you know, sit through there and see what it’s like and and see if you like it. See if that’s the way you want to sell. Maybe you’re going to find a gallery or something, you know, when you’re first starting out less likely, but it depends on how good you are. And you’re of course, going to have to talk to some galleries to talk to them into it and and I’ve got a whole chapter on that my book. But most important is, don’t spend a lot of money yet, till you you get a feel for things. Test everything. Try everything. You know one answer does not apply to all you just got to see what works, and trying to sell some artwork and see if you get some response is a really good way to go. Anyway. I hope this helps. These are quick, but that’s why it’s the art marketing minute.
Announcer 1:28:53
This has been the marketing minute with Eric Rhoads. You can learn more at artmarketing.com.
Eric Rhoads 1:29:01
thanks for again, for listening to the plein air podcast and for the art marketing minute. I hope these things are helpful. A reminder, pastel live is coming up. Get signed up. Pastellive.com, PACE plein air convention go. It’s going to be a blast. It’s going to be fun. Lake Tahoe, fall color week. Well, you know where to look fallcolorweek.com, and then, of course, get your magazine at pleinairmagazine.com I have a blog on Sunday mornings called Sunday coffee. I talk about work and life, and I think it’s got bigger readership than anything else I do, which means it’s pretty big. Also on the air daily, on Facebook and YouTube. My show is called Art School live. I have hundreds of artists visit and teach and demonstrate, and I’m there every noon Eastern weekdays. Subscribe on YouTube. Just go to art school live on YouTube, hit the Subscribe button. Also, there’s a little bell that’ll notify you when we go live. And please give me a follow Eric Rhoads on Instagram and Facebook. Alright, that’s me. Eric Rhoads, publisher, fine art connoisseur, plein air magazine and plein air painter, especially this summer. Thank you for your time today, and have a really great time. Thanks again to Harley Brown, it was fabulous. Remember, we want to hear from you who you want to have on the podcast, and so make sure you send me an email, email, email, [email protected] now remember, it’s a big world out there. So go paint. We’ll see you soon. Bye, bye.
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.
- Click here to subscribe to the free newsletter, Plein Air Today
- And click here to subscribe to PleinAir Magazine so you never miss an issue!
