Roosters crow before dawn here. Not as an annoyance … as a reminder.

Instead of sleeping in one of the tourist-filled hotels in the Renaissance city of Florence, I chose to spend my five weeks here living on a quaint old olive farm, 20 minutes outside of Florence, high in the hills overlooking this magical city. 

Crazy Drivers

My drive involves 50 hairpin turns, on roads barely wide enough for one car, threading between ancient stone walls. Meeting another car head-on means someone backs up. As I wind through the Tuscan hills, I pass ancient villas with giant manicured trees meant for royalty, gates buried under cascading wisteria, and farms with rows of purple cherry blossoms. Springtime here is magical.

Distinct Purpose

But here’s what I keep thinking about: I chose this.

I could have done this differently. Found something more convenient, more economical, more practical. There are a few strong art academies in America. But I could not resist the lure of living here for five weeks, fully immersed, in the place where Michelangelo and Da Vinci lived and worked, surrounded by the things I love … great art and great artists.

Most people never make that choice, and settle for what is.

Nobody Had a Reason

Twelve students are completing the program alongside me, mostly a mixture of professionals checking off a bucket list dream and most between their early 30s and late 70s. Almost no one came with an economic argument, an end game, or a career plan. Just a bucket list box to check.

Except one.

A young oil engineer from Dubai. Tired of spending her life doing something she does not love, she is trading it in for something she does … and hoping a living will follow. She may be the wisest person in the room.

The question she’s wrestling with, the one that brought her all the way here, doing three five-week stints in a row: What if the thing I love is actually the thing I’m supposed to do?

Consistency Produces Magic

Here’s what has genuinely surprised me.

Every instructor this week has been completely consistent, teaching the same methodology, none of them trying to insert their own system or shortcuts. What’s mind-blowing is what that consistency produces. 

Students with zero drawing experience. Students like me, who need significant improvement and are trying to unlearn bad habits. Yet on the very first day, after just a few intense hours, the exercises produced significant, visible growth in every person here, including complete novices. 

Each day has built on those lessons. We are fully immersed from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon, with optional evening drawing sessions added on top. I have attended every session and have watched my own progress improve significantly in three days by forcing myself to stay focused, immersed, and practicing,

Three days.

I cannot imagine how it will feel after five weeks. Which, though I love my work and my career, I already know will end too soon.

Your Olive Farm

Which brings me to you.

What is the thing you have been putting off, the skill you have been meaning to deepen, the place you have been meaning to go, the version of yourself you have been meaning to become? 

What is the equivalent of your olive farm in the hills — your desire to check off a lifelong dream?

The roosters don’t crow forever. At some point, you stop waking up.

While some might say, “I had my time, I had my career,” one man here, a world-famous photojournalist with multiple Pulitzer Prizes, is here because life “shouldn’t stop with retirement. That’s when life begins.” 

The surprising truth I’m learning here: The reason most people never improve at the thing they love is not lack of talent. It’s not even lack of time. It’s the absence of full immersion in an environment built specifically for that growth, surrounded by others doing the same thing, under the guidance of people who have walked the road ahead of you.

You don’t need five weeks in Tuscany. But you might need something.

What would your something be?

Eric Rhoads

Two stories compete for my attention this Easter morning as the Texas heat starts pretending it’s summer and it’s 95 already. 

One involves pastel eggs hidden in dewy grass, chocolate rabbits, and very docile bunnies.

The other involves a brutal public execution, a borrowed tomb, and the most shocking reversal in human history.

Both are true. Both matter. But only one changes everything.

Red Blazer Days

Easter morning in our house went off like a starter pistol.

My brothers and I would tear through the rooms hunting eggs and baskets, then commence the serious business of consuming as much chocolate as humanly possible before anyone noticed. Then came the transformation: Sunday best.

The 6-year-old version of me had firm opinions about fashion. My favorite red blazer was non-negotiable. But no blazer was complete without my 007 gun and holster strapped underneath, two Hot Wheels cars wedged into my pockets, and the general confidence of a man who had already solved breakfast.

Mom, meanwhile, was an act of art. She made her own hat for every Easter, always elegant, always a surprise. She covered her shoes in matching fabric, pinned on the corsage Dad had brought her, and led us out to the big blue Oldsmobile like a parade marshal who also happened to be the most beautiful woman in town.

The sermon, I will confess, was not always riveting for a 6-year-old. I had a system: Hot Wheels tucked inside a hymnal. Or Mom would quietly hand me a pen and paper so I could draw airplanes. The Lord, I suspect, was amused.

After church came the real prize: cousins, grandparents, Easter dinner, the beautiful noise of a large family filling every room.

What We Miss

I think about those gatherings more as I get older, not less.

Earlier this year my friend Joe in Boston described holiday chaos with 25 people at every dinner, and I felt something I can only describe as a mild, loving envy. Living far from family is a choice, and like all choices, it carries a price. The big gatherings happen less now. The cousins scatter. The grandparents are gone. The Oldsmobile is a memory.

But the feeling of it, that specific warmth of belonging to something larger than yourself, never quite leaves. It just changes shape.

A Personal Resurrection

Last fall I visited friends in Florence, Italy, and something happened that I can only describe as a calling.

I toured the Florence Academy of Art, one of the finest classical art schools in the world. Standing in those studios, where students draw from live models in the same quality of light, in the same neighborhoods where Da Vinci and Michelangelo once worked, something in me shifted. The romance of it. The weight of it. The terrifying excitement of it.

I signed up. Five weeks. Starting Tuesday.

There is no grand plan behind this. I am not quitting my job. I am not expecting to emerge a master. A solid three- or four-year program would really move the needle; five weeks is a beginning, not a conclusion. But I will work 10-hour days in class, come home to homework, and push limits I have grown too comfortable ignoring. That is enough of a reason.

Later today I board a flight for London, then I fly to Florence, pick up a rental car, and drive to a tiny apartment on the outskirts of town, arriving on Easter Monday.

I will be alone. Really alone. Perhaps for the first time since before I was married.

I will admit: The silence intimidates me more than the drawing does. I am not someone who has spent much time with no agenda, no family, no one needing anything. 

I hope to fill the off hours with new friendships, long walks through Tuscan hills, and the particular joy of being beautifully lost.

But I am stepping into this without a map. Which, I suppose, is exactly the point.

Serving No Purpose

Dreams do not require justification.

This trip is impractical. Finding five weeks in a schedule like mine requires real rescheduling, real faith, and a sustained effort to ignore the voice cataloguing all the reasons it was a bad idea.

But here is what I have come to believe: Dreams that require no sacrifice are not really dreams. They are preferences. Real dreams cost something, frighten you a little, and make the people around you raise an eyebrow.

Which brings me to you.

Light the Fuse

What just popped into your head?

Not the responsible answer. The first one, the one you immediately started explaining away.

Was it a place you have always meant to go? A skill you quietly abandoned somewhere in your 20s? A version of yourself you set aside when life got loud and practical?

That dream did not disappear. It just went quiet. It has been waiting.

You do not need a reason. You do not need perfect timing, because the timing will never be perfect. You do not need permission.

What you need is to light the fuse, throw the bomb, hold your ears, and be ready for an explosion that enriches your life beyond what you can currently imagine.

The question is not whether you can afford to pursue it. The question is whether you can afford not to.

What is one bold, impractical, slightly irrational step you could take today, not someday, today, to make it real?

Dreams are meant to be lived. Not remembered. Not mourned. Lived.

Happy Easter.

Eric Rhoads

A fierce storm tore its way across the state, blowing sticks and branches, leaves and debris with the force of a baby hurricane. The looming dark sky provided warning before its full dramatic performance: billowing clouds, gusting winds, whitecaps on the water, and winds you could hardly stand against. Then the curtain finally came down.

The responsibility of home ownership includes cleanup after the storm. Lots of branches down, lots of leaves, and as I walked out to survey the damage at the waterfront, I spotted what looked like a good-sized log drifting against the side of my dock.

I should move that, I thought, like a responsible adult. So I kicked my shoes off and was about to wade into the water … when the log moved, and stared me down like it was ready for an oversized meal. It was an alligator pretending to be a log. I have decided he can remove himself at a time of his choosing. I will not be rushing him. I don’t need the drama. Nor will I dangle my feet in that water again.

But here’s the thing about that storm: It cleared the air. It stripped the dead branches off the trees. It reminded the yard … and me … what actually matters and what’s just deadwood waiting to fall. Storms do that. They’ve always done that. And so, apparently, do alligators.

The Storms We Hate

I’ve spent years preaching the importance of embracing storms … the metaphorical kind. And I want to be completely honest with you: I didn’t look at hard times the same way when I was young.

Hard times were bad. Difficulty was an obstacle. I wanted none of it. I wanted the straight line from here to success. No pain but all the gain.

I still don’t love a storm. Let’s not romanticize this too much. But I understand them now in a way that the younger version of me simply could not. Because almost every storm I’ve ever weathered was one I created myself. Unbridled ambition, moving too fast, not thinking about the human beings in my path, not paying close enough attention, overspending and under-listening. I bumped into people. I bruised egos. I left some wreckage in my path.

The storm was the universe handing me the invoice.

Brilliance or Arrogance?

Recently I worked with a brilliant young man. Talented. Driven. A force of nature. And watching him was like finding an old photograph of yourself that you’d prefer no one else ever sees.

All he cared about was forward momentum. Career trajectory. Results. Speed. And if you weren’t keeping up … if you didn’t respond fast enough, produce fast enough, think fast enough … you were either getting a very pointed conversation or he wanted you fired. He had the impatience of a man who had somewhere important to be, and you were on the escalator and in his way.

He thought he was impressing me, yet I recognized every single move. Because I made every single one of them myself at his age.

He didn’t bruise my ego. He couldn’t … I’ve been working on that particular vulnerability for decades. My approach now is borrowed straight from Ted Lasso: Be a goldfish. Short memory. In one ear, out the other. Don’t carry what other people are putting down.

But watching him, I felt something more interesting than irritation. I felt clarity. Because that relentless, forward-at-all-costs energy … that is the arrogance of youth. And the arrogance of youth creates storms. And those storms? That’s the classroom. That’s where the actual education happens.

Screaming Billionaires

I’ll give credit where it’s due: Some of the most driven people on the planet … the screaming, table-pounding, “sleep-is-for-the-weak” crowd … have built extraordinary things. I genuinely admire the output, even when I cringe at their methods.

But I don’t have the stomach for it. And honestly? I don’t want it.

Because here’s what I’ve noticed: The people who rule by fear or pressure may win on the scoreboard. But they lose something far more valuable: the trust of the best people around them, who are counting the days until they can work somewhere else. Quality people don’t stay where they’re not respected. And a life surrounded by people who are merely tolerating you is a lonely kind of winning.

I’ll take a slower lap with people who actually want to be in the room. And if that prevents me from being a billionaire, I’m good with that. I have to live with myself.

Gift or Trap? 

Now here’s where I turn the mirror around. Because the opposite of the arrogant young man isn’t wisdom. It’s the risk of becoming calcified.

Ancient wisdom … the kind you earn after decades of hard lessons, failed ventures, relationships tested and sometimes broken, and a few alligators you almost grabbed … is a remarkable thing. We understand human psychology now in ways we couldn’t at 30. We can accomplish through patience and insight what we used to try to brute-force. We know which fights aren’t worth having and which relationships are worth protecting.

I wish I’d known then what I know now is probably the most universal human sentiment in existence.

But. And this is a big but.

The dark side of ancient wisdom is being stuck. Closed. Certain. Done learning. Convinced that the way things used to be done is the way things should be done. Treating new ideas like threats. Treating younger thinkers like they don’t get it yet.

To me, that is the kiss of death.

The Echo Chamber Curse

What I fight against every single day, if I’m honest, is the seduction of my own certainty.

It’s comfortable to be right. It’s comfortable to surround yourself with people who agree with you, who validate your worldview, who watch the same channels and read the same social media posts and conclude the same things you do. The world becomes very small and very manageable and very … wrong.

I intentionally fill my life with people who are not like me. Different ages. Different backgrounds. Different cultures. Different starting points. Different political views. I love the energy of someone at the beginning of their career … hungry, maybe a little pushy, occasionally exhausting, always alive. I love the people in my world who are mid-career, dropping the worst habits of youth, picking up the first gifts of wisdom, and holding me accountable to keep up.

They make me better. Sometimes they make me uncomfortable. That’s how I know it’s working. Because discomfort is actually a key to all growth. When you find yourself squirming a little … embrace it.

Your Brain Is Rooting for You 

Here’s something worth knowing: Your brain, unlike most things past a certain age, actually wants to keep growing.

Without getting too technical, neuroscience has given us the concept of neuroplasticity: the brain’s remarkable ability to form new neural connections throughout life. Not just in childhood. Not just in your 30s. Throughout life. The brain retains the capacity to rewire, adapt, and strengthen well into old age … but only if you use it. Challenge it. Expose it to novelty. Make it work. The brain changes itself based on what you do and what you don’t do.

And here’s the one nobody expected: Your brain loves cholesterol. Loves it. The brain is the most cholesterol-rich organ in the body … it contains roughly 25% of all the cholesterol in your system, most of it used to make your neurons fire efficiently. We spent decades demonizing the stuff, and it turns out the organ doing the demonizing needed it to function. And statins, it turns out, are not what they were cracked up to be, only extending life for about four days and often causing memory problems or worse.

An unused brain atrophies, just like an unused muscle. Sitting still … intellectually, emotionally, experientially … is a slow erosion. The people I’ve watched become their worst selves in later life almost all had one thing in common: They stopped being curious.

What I Can’t Control

We have very little control over what happens to us. But we have enormous control over what we do with it.

We can control what we put in our bodies and what we let rot inside our heads. We can control whether we say yes to a new experience or talk ourselves out of it with excuses or fear dressed up as reasons. We can control whether we get on a plane to someplace that scares us a little,  learn a phrase in another language, try the food, and sit with the discomfort of not understanding something, and come out the other side larger than we went in.

Personally, I don’t want to sit mindlessly watching the news. I want to travel the world. I want new languages stumbling out of my mouth. I want to understand why people who seem so different from me fight so hard for what they believe, and to genuinely ask myself what I might be missing. I want to read what challenges me, not just what confirms me.

The lounge chair and the news cycle are always there. They will wait for me. The world will not.

Questions Worth Asking

I ask myself some version of these every day. What about you?

What are you treating as settled that might actually be worth reopening?

Where is the arrogance of your youth still running the show, and where has it finally started to quiet down?

What has your ancient wisdom closed off that you should still be curious about? You don’t have to be old to be set in your ways. I’m fighting like mad to get someone I know to adopt some new technology that will change his life, yet he refuses.

What are you accepting as gospel simply because you’ve believed it for a long time, or because your parents or grandparents believed it?

When did you last do something that made you feel genuinely new? Or really uncomfortable?

What is one thing you’re calling “I’m too old for that” or “I’m too young for that,” which is actually just fear with a better vocabulary?

I don’t have clean answers to any of these, but I have a commitment to keep asking.

The Bottom Line

Youth’s greatest weapon is its energy and hunger, but those are also its greatest liabilities. It’s why insurance for reckless young men is expensive. Age’s greatest gifts, perspective and patience, are also its greatest threats, if we let them calcify into certainty.

The goal is to stay in the tension. Stay curious. Stay in the room with people who make you stretch. Let the storms clear out your deadwood. And for heaven’s sake, before you reach for something at the edge of your dock … look more carefully. Some logs have teeth.

Now go do something that surprises you.

Eric Rhoads

The water does something at this hour that defies explanation. Thousands of shifting diamonds blink across the surface as the Florida sun finds its angle. I’m squinting from the shore at silhouettes of palm trees and lounge chairs so perfectly arranged they look airbrushed into a brochure.

A dolphin surfaces 50 yards out, indifferent to my admiration, then disappears. And overhead, an osprey circles in that slow, focused way that tells you she’s not sightseeing. Then she stops.

She announces, then dives.

The osprey calls out before she commits. It’s not a warning to the fish; the fish can’t exactly reschedule. It’s an announcement: I’m here. I see you. Here I come. Then she folds into a javelin, hits the water with the kind of commitment that makes you wince, and rises with golden talons wrapped around something that didn’t get a vote in the matter.

She didn’t circle forever. She didn’t weigh the risks or consult anyone. She didn’t overthink it. She announced. She dove. She ate.

I’ve been thinking about that all morning.

What the Osprey Knows

Here is what the osprey is not doing: She is not explaining to her osprey friends that she’s “taking some time.” She’s not posting about it. She’s already circling again.

I say this not to shame anyone whose definition of a good Tuesday involves a golf cart and a satisfying nine holes. If the green fills you the way a fish fills an osprey, then play every course on the continent with my blessing. There is no right or wrong here.

But I have a suspicion that some of you are circling without committing. That you feel the pull but have slowed the wings a little because someone or something … a decade, a culture, a well-meaning doctor … suggested you’ve earned the lounge chair. That maybe this is the phase characterized by the gradual, graceful reduction of ambition. And maybe some mornings you’re not sure you agree.

Breaking What Works

Here’s what I know about myself: I try to be like the osprey. I have insane ideas, and so I announce them, to shame myself into getting them done. Without the announcement, there is no accountability. Without action … the dive … I’d keep circling with no consequence, no skin in the game, no reason to actually leave the air.

The announcement is the commitment. It’s not bragging; it’s burning the bridges behind me. 

Most people keep their big ideas private, and that’s precisely why most big ideas die quietly, somewhere between the coffee cup and the calendar. You can circle a private idea forever. The moment you say it out loud, to someone who will remember, the dive becomes non-negotiable. Your reputation is now in the water ahead of you.

Breaking Old Habits

I didn’t build a company to produce the same widget for a thousand years. I love reinvention. Not reinvention out of crisis, but the deliberate, mildly reckless act of breaking something that isn’t broken, just to see what happens next. I like to do it personally and professionally.

The thrill isn’t in the outcome. The thrill is in the not-knowing. The moment before the dive, when anything is still possible. It’s a dopamine rush, and I’ve decided I’m not interested in giving it up just because I’m old enough to know better.

So my next stop: The Florence Academy of Art in Italy, five concentrated weeks of classical drawing and painting training, starting right after Easter, where excellence is the only acceptable standard and they will tell me with precise Italian politeness that my drawing is structurally incorrect, to erase and start over, and slow down this time.

I don’t need this to sell more paintings. I’m not building a curriculum around it. I’m doing it because the box exists and I want to know if I can check it. That’s the whole reason. And I just told you, so now I have to.

So I’ve been going to life drawing groups, practicing more than I normally would, trying to arrive less embarrassing than I currently am. That has limits, but I intend to reach them.

Business Gets the Same Treatment

And it’s not just the art. Back at my company, I’m launching new things — not out of pressure, not because the old things aren’t working, but because the best version of what I can offer my customers doesn’t exist yet, and I want to build it.

The excitement isn’t in knowing how it will go. It never is. It’s in the dive itself, the commitment before you know what you’ll come up with.

Every new thing I’ve built felt slightly insane and very scary in the early stages. I usually get resistance to every idea, rolling eyes, “Here we go again, another harebrained idea” from some of my advisors. That feeling, I’ve decided, is a good sign. Comfort is not a reliable compass. If everyone immediately agrees it’s a great idea, it’s probably not that great an idea.

It’s About the Hunt

Life, it turns out, isn’t about the fish you catch or accumulate, though those are nice perks. It’s about the hunt — the challenge, the unsettling electricity of knowing you’ve put yourself at risk, and announcing it so loudly that failure is no longer a quiet option.

The osprey doesn’t circle because she’s afraid of the water. She circles because she’s choosing her moment. But here’s the thing most people miss: At some point the circling stops being strategy and starts being avoidance. And the fish doesn’t wait.

You know which one you’re doing. We always do. Even though we tell ourselves stories about timing and finances, and convince ourselves that someday will come, most times there’s not another fish coming. 

The osprey is already circling again. The water is genuinely spectacular. And somewhere overhead, something is about to dive.

Where will you dive?

What are you in need of circling?

Eric Rhoads

God clearly has a sense of humor.

While much of America spent this week battling hurricane-force snow, record lows, and the kind of ice that makes your driveway look like an Olympic luge track, I’m watching the sun rise over the Atlantic. Pink clouds. Mild waves. A forecast promising near 70 by afternoon.

I’m in Hilton Head, SC, and hosting my Winter Art Escape artist retreat, reconnecting and painting with old friends and new, each of whom had stories of missed flights, white-knuckle drives, and the kind of slipping and sliding that makes you question all your life choices.

Meanwhile, I’m sipping coffee in paradise, wondering how I got so lucky.

Except I know exactly how I got here, and “lucky” had little to do with it. Blessed would be a better term.

The Pinball Theory of Life

When I was a kid, there were these magnificent contraptions called pinball machines. You’d stand there gripping two paddles, fire a silver ball upward into a maze of lights and bumpers, and pray it didn’t ricochet straight into oblivion. The goal was simple: Land that ball in the high-value hole. The reality was chaos. No matter how skilled you were, random bumpers would send your ball careening in directions you never intended, landing you in circumstances you never predicted.

Which, as it turns out, is a perfect metaphor for life.

I run my schedule with surgical precision. Every calendar slot filled. Meetings stacked like Jenga blocks. Recording sessions, broadcasts, online events, conference calls, employee and customer meetings, in-person conferences … barely a breath between them. I’m the guy who plans his bathroom breaks. And yet, all it takes is one unexpected bumper — a flight delay, a last-minute emergency, someone running 20 minutes late — and suddenly the entire day ricochets in a new direction.

The thing is, I’ve made peace with other people’s chaos. When someone’s late to my meeting, I don’t stress. But that pinball still fires off sideways, creating a cascade of rescheduling, apologies, and dominoes falling in slow motion.

Our New Post-College Rhythm

The last few years, my bride and I developed a rhythm: Christmas at home with the family, then we’d load the dogs in the back seat and make the two-day drive south to escape the frozen tundra we’d tolerated most of our lives. We don’t fly because we need a car, and our dogs — well, let’s just say they don’t have the credentials for air travel. 

But this year, the rhythm broke. One of the triplets moved home between college graduation and his first real job, starting mid-January. Another came home job-hunting and landed something around the same time. So we stayed put to be with our kids. I hosted Watercolor Live from home, attended a two-day board meeting, and had exactly one week — one glorious week — to escape to sunshine before my next trip.

Packed and ready to go, a week ago Friday, we were minutes from loading the car.

Then Chewy, our oldest dog, a tiny maltipoo with more personality and confidence than any dog we’ve ever owned, started crying out in pain as his body slowly deteriorated at 17 years. The meds that had been working stopped working. And a week ago yesterday, his suffering stopped and we said goodbye.

The Grief Nobody Warns You About

Only pet owners truly understand the weird, gut-punch grief of losing a fur-baby you’ve held and played with for years. It’s surreal. They’ve always been there — background music to your life — and suddenly the soundtrack goes silent. You trip over little landmines: blankets, leashes, bowls. Each one detonates a fresh sting.

My friend Steven Burke lost his beloved cat, Charcoal, the same week. We commiserated. There’s something oddly comforting about shared grief, even when it’s about creatures who can’t talk back but somehow communicate more clearly than most humans.

Here’s the strange part: Losing Chewy that week actually worked out. If we’d been halfway to Florida when it happened, we’d have been dealing with it in a hotel parking lot somewhere in Georgia, debating whether to turn around or keep going. Instead, we were home. Together. Present. And Chewy was with us and part of the family as he faded away.

Now we can’t leave for two more weeks anyway — I had to fly here for Winter Art Escape, then fly back to host another online event, Gouache Boot Camp, and shoot a new pilot for PBS, before we can finally slip away for a brief stay.

The pinball landed exactly where it needed to land.

Which brings me to the question everyone asks when they lose someone — furry or otherwise: Will I see them again?

The Heaven Question Nobody Wants to Answer Honestly

Our pets supposedly don’t have souls. At least that’s what most theologians tell us. I hate that answer, because anyone who’s looked into a dog’s eyes knows there’s something there. Personality. Loyalty. Love that puts most humans to shame.

Some people say pets go to heaven to be with us. Others say they reincarnate — dogs become humans, humans become dogs, and we all keep cycling through until we get it right. I’d like to believe my dogs will meet me in heaven one day, tails wagging, ready to spend eternity playing fetch.

But heaven is a tricky subject.

Do Bad People Go to Heaven?

Have you ever been to a funeral where everyone talks about some questionable character like he’s Mother Teresa? “He’s in a better place now,” they say, while you’re sitting there thinking, Really? That guy? The one who stole from his business partner and cheated on his wife? THAT guy gets heaven?

Yet pretty much every funeral treats the afterlife like a participation trophy. Everybody gets in. Just show up to life, then collect your golden ticket on the way out.

Except that’s not how it works.

“I’ll be there because I’m a good person,” some say. Sounds reasonable. Except the Bible doesn’t grade on a curve. No matter how good you are, good doesn’t buy your ticket.

“I’ll earn my way in by doing good works,” others insist. Volunteering. Charity. Helping little old ladies cross the street. Noble? Absolutely. Enough? Not even close.

Here’s where I lose some of you, and I know it. I’ll get emails saying, “I loved your Sunday notes until you got religious.”

But here’s the thing: I’m not religious.

Being religious means belonging to a religion — following rules, checking boxes, attending the right building on the right day, saying the right words in the right order. That’s not me. Rick Warren nailed it: “You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense.” Many religions tell you the only way to God is through them — their rules, their rituals, their secret handshake. Some claim all religions are just different paths up the same mountain, that it doesn’t matter what you believe because we all end up in the same place.

I think that’s naive. Especially if you’ve actually read the texts. They contradict each other on pretty fundamental stuff — like whether God is one being or many, whether salvation is earned or given, whether Jesus was divine or just a really good teacher.

Nothing to Earn, Which is Refreshing

The bottom line: You cannot earn your way into heaven. It’s not Jesus plus church attendance. Not Jesus plus helping orphans. Not Jesus plus saying the right prayers. Not Jesus plus anything.

The “plus” comes after. A changed heart creates the desire to be better, to love more, to help others. The good works flow from grace, not toward it.

Billy Graham put it perfectly:
God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, ‘I love you.’”

Which is why — painful as it is — we’re probably not going to see our dogs in heaven. Or good people who never accepted the invitation. It’s not complicated: Be a Jesus follower, not a religious person.

There are hundreds of documented witnesses who say Jesus wasn’t just a prophet. He died on a cross — horrifically, publicly — and was resurrected, and was seen by over 400 people afterward. This isn’t just religious propaganda; it’s documented in ancient texts written by people who had no reason to lie and every reason to recant when some were being executed for their testimony.

One of my favorite books is The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel — an atheist investigative reporter who set out to debunk Christianity once and for all. His conclusion? The evidence was so overwhelming that his only rational option was to accept Christ, who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Grace for Leaky Cups

Now the critics are sharpening their pitchforks, so let me be clear: I’m not saying this to earn brownie points or secure my reservation upstairs. Despite all the terrible things I’ve done — and trust me, there’s a list — I’ll be there. Because we’re forgiven. All of it. Every mess, every failure, every regret, when we accept Christ. Therefore even bad people can be forgiven.

Here’s my favorite analogy:

Imagine a paper cup filled with water, and the water represents God’s Spirit; His presence, His glory living in us. We were created in the image of God, designed to hold His Spirit, for fellowship with heaven itself. But when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, it shattered that image. It pierced the cup. Suddenly we couldn’t hold water anymore.

Every sin we commit pokes another hole. No matter how hard we try to be good, to fill ourselves with God’s presence, it leaks out. We can’t contain Him on our own. Our brokenness destroys our intimacy with God.

But when we accept Christ, He covers our sin — like slipping another perfect cup around our broken one. Now the water doesn’t leak out. The essence of Christ, the Holy Spirit, can fill us and stay because Christ has covered every hole, every flaw, every sin. There are no leaks anymore.

That’s called being justified by faith. That’s what it means to abide in Christ. And with the perfection of Christ covering us, we can enter Heaven. Otherwise scoundrels like me would never have a chance.

The struggle is that we keep trying to do it on our own, forgetting that we need that outer cup covering us constantly.

Or picture this: You’re being robbed. A man points a gun at you. Just before he fires, someone else steps in front and takes the bullet because he loves you that much. That’s what Christ does when we accept Him.

But here’s the part nobody tells you in the brochure: Life doesn’t get easier. Things don’t magically improve. Problems still pile up. Bills still come due. Dogs still die. The pinball still hits bumpers you didn’t see.

But you don’t go through it alone. And sometimes — often, actually — He wants you to have problems so you’ll learn to depend on Him instead of yourself. Part of accepting Christ is losing ourselves, our pride.

Prayer doesn’t always work the way we want, either. I’m thankful for most of the things I prayed for that didn’t happen, because in hindsight I can see that something better came along.  I just had to be patient and trust the plan — even when the plan looked like chaos.

When I read my Bible daily, things go better. I’m more focused. More grounded. When I don’t, I slip up, say things I regret, make decisions I have to undo later. It’s a lot like painting. If I don’t paint every day, I slip up. If I don’t stay in the Word, and in prayer, I slip up.

I’m far from perfect. I battle my ego constantly. I fight for humility, trying to remember that the good things that happen aren’t because I’m special — they’re grace. It’s a constant struggle, because human nature wants to beat its own drum, to claim credit, to believe we’ve earned what we have.

But I believe all good things come from Christ.

Why I’m Telling You This

If you’re still reading — and bless you if you are — I’m not sharing this to convert you. I don’t have that power. But once you find this kind of joy, you kinda want others to experience it. The Bible says we’re invited, and if our heart is stirring, we need to accept the invitation. I’m not here to push anything on you. I’m just sharing my thoughts on heaven so you can understand a little more about who I am, what I stand for. I don’t want to be the church lady or act in the ugly way the media portrays Christians.

It’s hard to understand why bad things happen to good people. A young star quarterback with a huge future was killed in our state a couple of weeks ago. It’s heartbreaking to see TV ads with kids in cancer clinics, fighting battles they didn’t choose.

Why?

All I can say is: Trust the plan. There’s a reason we may never know. The pinball hits bumpers we can’t see, ricochets in directions we don’t understand, and lands in holes we didn’t know existed.

But someone’s running the machine.

Chewy’s Last Lesson

I miss that little guy. His blanket is still in the corner. His bowl is still by the door. Every time I see them, I feel the sting.

But here’s what I’m learning: The unexpected redirections aren’t accidents. They’re part of a game I can’t follow from where I’m standing. Maybe Chewy’s timing wasn’t random. Maybe staying home that week mattered for reasons I’ll never understand.

The silver ball is still in play. The flippers are still in my hands. And even when the ball drains and the game seems over, someone keeps feeding in quarters to let me play again.

That’s grace.

And I’m grateful — even through the tears, even seeing the empty dog bowls, even through the pinball surprises I never saw coming.

See you next week,

Eric Rhoads

How can something so beautiful be so dangerous?

One of my favorite things to photograph is a thick coat of ice drawing down from a tree branch — nature’s chandelier, delicate and crystalline. But of course, when branches sag and break and fall on power lines, everything gets complicated. 

Finding Beauty Everywhere

As many as 40 states are dealing with this weekend’s massive storm. The ability to find beauty in tragedy is a gift. We can’t always control our circumstances, but we can at least control our response to them. 

Pay Attention Now

The grocery store shelves are bare. It’s alarming to see people who weren’t paying attention to the storm warnings scramble at the last minute to find almost nothing left. It pays to pay attention.

Perspective Changes Everything

It makes me appreciate the life I have — the simplicity of life when groceries are there when we need them, when the heat in the house works and the electricity works. It reminds me that compared to people in war zones or famine zones, this little three-day outage doesn’t give us much to whine about. Others deal with this every day.

Change Is Possible

Not everyone in the world has the ability to lift themselves out of their circumstances, which is why I find it so puzzling that those of us who live in a place where anything is possible don’t make changes when we have the ability. Don’t like your life, your job? Simply change it.

It Starts Inside

“Well, Eric, it’s not that easy,” you say, and it’s true — I’m not walking in your shoes. I don’t know the intricacies of your circumstances. But I do know that it’s possible to change those circumstances with some thinking and some planning. Maybe it’s not instant, maybe it takes years, but change starts in your head. If you can change how you process information and how you think about things, you’ve taken the first step.

Different, Not Harder

“You don’t understand, Dad,” said one of my kids who was whining about something related to their circumstances. “Things are different now than when you were my age.”

And they’re right. In some ways things were better, and in some ways things were worse. I struggled to get into my dream radio job because I was competing with thousands of people. I didn’t have the benefit of the internet or email — I had to find ways to stand out when applying for jobs. What could I do to make myself different? What could I do to get a slight advantage over others? The answers come from the questions, and when you keep asking questions like that, answers always come when you least expect them.

Do What’s Required

The hard part, of course, is having things fall into place the way we hope they will. They rarely do.

Once I got tired of never having enough money, I had to do things I didn’t want to do to pull myself out of my circumstances. I had to work two other jobs, seven days a week — literally from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. every day, all weekend, every weekend, morning into late night, for a few years. 

Rather than telling myself how awful it was, I told myself how fortunate I was to have a brain good enough to come up with ways to pull myself out of my mess, get the income I needed, and eventually morph into a better career. While others would tell me they could never do it, my motivation to get out of my current circumstances was powerful. Almost anything painful and inconvenient was worth it.

Reframe the Struggle

And though I would not want to do it now, I would if I had to. I look back and tell myself the struggle was fun. I met lots of great people, I learned a lot, and I felt good about myself, doing what it takes.

Rich Versus Engaged

Success is sweet, no doubt. My late friend Norm Pattiz used to say, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.” Yes, he had a giant house in Hollywood, six or eight garages with every imaginable car, and an art collection most would envy. In his later years, he continually reinvented himself, he sold businesses, but he never retired. I believe he lived a rich life till the day he passed. He was intentional about not becoming a couch potato.

Yet others I know have also achieved great wealth. They have lots of stuff, but they’re bored, feel useless, and would probably give it all up if they could feel as engaged and invigorated as in earlier parts of their career.

Retirement’s Hidden Trap

Lots of friends who have retired want things both ways. They want something to do, they want to be relevant and engaged, but they don’t want to give up all that golf and sleeping in.

Reinvention Keeps Alive

Here’s what I’ve noticed: The people who stay alive — truly alive — are the ones who have mastered the art of reinvention.

Age Is Nothing

My mother-in-law is 92 and still gets up at 5 a.m. every day to paint. She didn’t start painting seriously until her 60s. Sixty. Think about that. Most people at 60 are calculating their retirement date. She was calculating which brushes to buy.

Starting Over Works

I didn’t discover painting until I was 38, after building a career in radio. Everyone thought I was insane to start over. “You’re going to do what? Learn to paint? Start a magazine about painting? You don’t even know how to paint!”

Exactly.

No Permission Required

The beautiful thing about reinvention is that you don’t need permission. You don’t need perfect circumstances. You don’t even need to know how it’s going to turn out. You just need to be willing to be terrible at something new.

Beginners See Differently

Because here’s the secret nobody tells you: Being a beginner is a superpower.

When you’re a beginner, you ask different questions. You see things the experts miss because they’ve stopped looking. You bring fresh energy to tired fields. You connect dots that nobody else thought to connect because you don’t know you’re not supposed to.

Multiple Lives Possible

I’ve reinvented myself at least four times now. Radio to publishing. Publishing to painting. Painting to teaching. Teaching to … well, we’ll see what’s next. Each time felt terrifying. Each time felt impossible. Each time people said, “But you’ve already succeeded at X, why would you risk it for Y?”

Stagnation Slowly Kills 

Because the opposite of reinvention isn’t stability. It’s stagnation.

And stagnation, my friends, is just a slow death with a paycheck.

Don’t Wait Forever

The storm outside reminds me that sometimes circumstances force reinvention on us. The ice breaks the branches whether we’re ready or not. The power goes out. The grocery shelves empty. Life doesn’t wait for us to feel prepared.

Break Your Branches

But what if we didn’t wait for the storm? What if we broke our own branches before the ice did?

Age Isn’t Real

What if 60 isn’t too old to start painting? What if 40 isn’t too late to change careers? What if 70 isn’t too advanced to learn something completely new?

Stories Stop Us

The only thing stopping most people from reinventing themselves isn’t age or circumstances or money or time. It’s the story they keep telling themselves about why they can’t.

Do It Scared

Here’s a better story: You’re not too old. You’re not too late. You’re not too stuck.

You’re just scared.

And that’s OK. Do it scared.

Beautiful and Dangerous

The ice is beautiful and dangerous at the same time. So is starting over. So is trying something new. So is admitting you’re not satisfied with the life you’re living and deciding to build a different one.

You Still Choose

The power might go out. The shelves might be empty. The branches might break.

But you? You get to choose what grows back in the spring.

Eric Rhoads

P.S. The ice storm will pass in a few days. But how many years will you let pass before you reinvent yourself? The branches that break in the storm will grow back stronger. The ones that never break just get heavier with ice until they snap under their own weight. Which would you rather be?
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P.P. S. I’m not a bragger, so when I say this, I say it to make a point — I’m not looking for attention. At my various events, retreats,​ conventions, and online programs, I’ve met hundreds of people who told me they reinvented themselves because I gave them the courage, challenged them, and provided the instruction to set them on their new course. Though we’ve exposed over 20 million people to painting, what if just 10 percent tried something new, took up painting, even though their heads told them they were not talented or capable? People tell me their lives are more rewarding since they took up painting. I’ve taught everyone from students to housewives to high-powered attorneys and heart surgeons. They all tell me it has changed their life.
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In almost every case I’ve heard of, they lacked belief that they had it in them, and they went for it anyway.
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If painting isn’t for you, I’m not gonna push it on you.
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Howard Stern, the radio host, took up painting. I sent him a bunch of our training videos. I saw some of his artwork, which was magnificent, but he gave up painting for guitar — I’m told because he felt he would never get that good at painting. I do both. Guitar is harder. No matter what your frustration, stick with it. You will overcome it. Success never comes until deep frustration sets in. It’s a signal.
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I know how to have fun. I get a bunch of my friends together, and we go painting, we attend classes to learn together, we hang out, we go to dinner, then we do more classes. We do that every day for five days. Wanna do it with us? It’s called the Plein Air Convention, this year in the centrally located Ozarks near Branson, Missouri. It’s an easy drive for most of America. But the price jumps up significantly on Valentine’s Day. Book your seat now at PleinAirConvention.com.
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This past week at Watercolor Live, the world’s largest online art training event, we had people from 18 countries, and we had a blast for four days. Eighty percent signed up for next year already — it was that good!

Something is amiss. Summer weather filled our holiday season, and we’re still getting amazing sunny days when we should be shivering. The birds are singing like spring. The dead trees are about to sprout spring greens. Nature is confused here in Austin, Texas, this year.

The house has a different sound now.

I noticed it first this morning when I meandered into the kitchen in my bare feet — the floorboards creak louder when there’s one less person moving around upstairs. The coffeemaker’s gurgle echoes off the kitchen walls. Even the dogs’ collars jingle differently, as if the sound waves have more room to travel before finding a surface to absorb them.

The Last Sunday Dinner

A week ago today, we gathered for what would be our last Sunday dinner as a complete family for the foreseeable future. Yesterday, Berkeley, our youngest triplet, drove away with a U-Haul to start his dream job at a space company five hours away. As I said grace over our meal, my voice cracked. The words caught in my throat like breadcrumbs. The reality of our last Sunday dinner, after 23 years of them, was, well, pretty hard to take.

You see, I know how this story goes. I left home at 17 and never moved back. Not because I didn’t love my parents, but because that’s what you do — you launch. You fly. You build your own nest. And now, watching my son’s taillights disappear down our street, I recognize that same fierce independence in him. The same need to forge his own path, filled with joy and possibilities, yet tearing up to say goodbye.

Ambushed by Memories

Memories ambush you at moments like these. His surgery at eight months old — repairing something we discovered by pure chance that could have caused serious problems in adulthood. Teaching him to tie knots for Scouts, shooting BB guns, driving him on his first date, and countless band concerts at school. That first blacksmithing lesson when he was 9, his eyes wide behind safety goggles as the hammer met hot metal. Now he’s making more money than I paid for my first house, having sailed through 11 interviews when most people don’t survive the first.

Here’s what nobody tells you about success: Sometimes the things you’re most proud of are the things that hurt the most.

Flipping the Switch

When I was in my 40s, I was still allergic to the idea of children. I watched my cousin’s baby vomit on him once, and I nearly gagged myself. How could he just … not care? He wiped it off like it was nothing, kept cooing at her, completely unfazed, no drama. I swore that would never be me. I had plans. Big plans. Plans that involved me, myself, and I.

But life has a way of flipping switches you didn’t know existed.

When I met my wife, something fundamental shifted. Suddenly, the thought of creating humans who would call me Dad became not just acceptable but essential. We had them later in life — triplets, if you can believe it. The doctors sat us down, tried to convince us to “reduce” the pregnancy. Better odds, they said. Lower risk of complications. What they really meant was better statistics for their university hospital’s funding reports.

We didn’t even consider it. “We’ll take whatever we’re given, thank you.”

And we did. Three babies. Fifty thousand diapers. Three college tuitions. Fifteen trikes and bikes. Three broken hearts as each one drives away to start their own story. Fortunately for us, one is working and living at home to save money before moving out.

Joy Versus Happiness

The Apostle Paul wrote his letters to the Philippians from prison. Ten years behind bars for preaching what he believed. You’d expect complaints, bitterness, maybe a little “woe is me.” Instead, he writes about joy. Not happiness — that’s conditional, tied to circumstances. Joy is different. Joy exists in the midst of pain, in the center of loss, in the heart of change.

My friend Gary Bertrum taught me this. He’s been coming to my painting retreats for years, filling our evenings with his guitar and his laughter. Two years ago, he went home feeling unwell. What followed was two years of unbearable pain — an incurable disease that stripped him down to a skeleton, hundreds of hospital visits, and treatments that would break most spirits. Yet every time I hear from him, he radiates something I can only call joy. He doesn’t talk about himself, or his pain, or the treatments. He continues to be encouraging and loving, asking about others. He is selfless. He’s teaching me how to live by showing me how to die. And he’s not questioning or blaming God, he is praising Him.

Music in Silence

This is what I’ve learned from empty chairs and quiet houses: Joy isn’t found in keeping things the same. It’s not in the accumulation of stuff or the achievement of milestones. It lives in the terrible, beautiful reality of loving people so much that letting them go feels like tearing off a piece of your soul — and knowing you’d do it again in a heartbeat.

The house may sound different now, but I’m learning to hear music in the silence. Each empty chair is a trophy, proof that we did our job. We raised humans who can fly.

And that sound you hear? That’s not emptiness.

That’s joy.

Eric Rhoads

P.S. If you missed my free online event last Thursday about goal-setting for artists (though the principles apply to anyone), you can still catch the replay [here].

Watercolor Live is coming! We’ve made exciting changes this year that will transform how you see and create watercolor art. Whether you’re a beginner or looking to refine your techniques, this is your chance to learn from masters who will share secrets it took them decades to discover. The energy of creating alongside hundreds of other artists is absolutely electric. [Join us here.]

Valentine’s Day Deadline: The early bird deadline for the Plein Air Convention is February 14 — save $300 if you register before Valentine’s Day. This is where the entire plein air world gathers to paint, learn, and push boundaries together. After last year’s record attendance, spaces are filling fast. [Secure your spot here.]

The crackle of burning embers fills the living room — that primal sound that’s comforted humans since we first tamed fire. Wood smoke mingles with the lingering scent of pine needles from the Christmas tree and leftover scented Christmas candles. Outside and across the backyard at my art studio, the porch by the outdoor fireplace has become our gathering place for holiday moments, including that magical night when old painting friends reunited — brushes in one hand, Christmas cookies in the other, a model to pose,15 years of weekly painting nights warming us as much as the flames.

The Box in the Garage

This weekend we’ll be boxing decorations, each ornament wrapped and boxes labeled, stored on sagging garage shelves until next year’s resurrection. Time to remove the wreaths, the four-foot toy soldier, and the Christmas lights. It’s the ritual of transition — the careful packing away of one season to make room for whatever comes next. And we are entering a new season.

But there’s another project that’s been haunting me that finally got attention this week. Thousands of photos finally made it from old hard drives to my phone/cloud. Still waiting: more years, more boxes, slides from the pre-digital era when every shot cost money and seemed to matter more.

My father spent his last decade scanning every photo he’d ever taken in his life. Organized them. Uploaded them. What a gift — his entire visual history, our childhood, his childhood, all searchable, all saved. Now that torch passes to me. First Christmas decorations come down, then the garage that’s been ignored for a decade, and then, if there’s time, attack the photos.

When Pixels Become Portals

Here’s what they don’t tell you about old photos: They’re time machines with faulty steering.

One minute you’re organizing files, the next you’re reminiscing over a friend who’s gone, or tearing up seeing your kids as babies, their faces round with possibility. Old photos are reminders of good times and tough times, yet those tough times don’t seem as bad now. Looking at photos is bittersweet, especially as two of the kids won’t be here after Christmas. 

My son Berkeley is moving five hours away for his dream job next week. Brady is already on his own and supporting himself. Grace will stick around as she’s starting a new job next week. Bittersweet because I remember when I became independent and never again lived at home, and I know those kids may not be here for any length of time again. The house grows quieter. We celebrate their launches while mourning the noise.

The Fat Kid Still Lives Here

Then came the photos I wasn’t ready for. Elementary school. That overweight kid with greasy hair and thick glasses who didn’t have the strength to climb the rope. The gym teacher who used my struggles for cheap laughs. The locker room towel snaps. The whispers, the snickers, the pointing, the bullying. I had not seen those photos for several decades, and the moment I did, the pain returned. I quickly realized that the very same pain is stuck in my subconscious mind, which speaks up to prevent more pain when making decisions.

It was an “aha moment” for me, an epiphany of sorts. Years of being mocked as the weak fat kid explains why I have to fight myself daily to work out, and why I tend to overeat. The mocking undermines my confidence in certain situations, quietly in the dark corners of my brain.

Decades later, when strangers laugh in a restaurant, my first instinct? They’re laughing at me. My adult brain knows better. My child brain doesn’t care about logic, which explains why some goals never get achieved — because my self-esteem in some areas is rotten from my first 10 or 12 years.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Author and hypnotist Jim Curtis explained it perfectly on Lewis Howes’ podcast last week: Our self-talk programs our subconscious mind, which drives 85% of our decisions. Those childhood experiences become our “I am” statements:

“I am fat.”
“I am not athletic.”
“I am the one they mock.”

Curious, I looked it up, and research from Stanford’s Carol Dweck backs this up — our mindset literally shapes our reality. Neuroscientist Dr. Joe Dispenza’s brain scan research shows how repeated thoughts create neural highways that become our default patterns. Negative thoughts and negative talk actually impact your outcomes.

My buddy Chris used to mock my positive mindset. “Be careful what you say,” I’d warn him when he’d complain about work killing him. “Your subconscious is listening.”

Turns out, it really is.

The “But” That Breaks Dreams

This week — this quiet week between Christmas and New Year’s — might be your most important of 2025. Because right now, you’re considering setting some goals or making New Year’s resolutions.

But here’s the trap: State any goal out loud. Listen quietly to what your brain says immediately after.

“I want to double my income … but I’m not smart enough.”
“I want to get in shape … but I’ve never been athletic.”
“I want to write that book … but who would read it?”
“I want to meet Elon Musk … but why would he care to hear anything I have to say?”
“I want to be successful enough to own my own jet … but I’ll never be rich enough.”

Those “buts” are assassins. They murder dreams before they draw their first breath.

The research states that you need to place yourself in your “I am” statements even if you don’t believe them. “I am a world-class artist.” “I am the president of my company.” “I am the owner of a Gulfstream jet.”

Rewriting the Operating System

We’ve all heard all the stuff about goal-setting, but the goal is only part of the story. There’s more that’s required. We need a strong reason why we want it. We need a deadline. We need to understand what we face so we know how to overcome those things, and we must absolutely reprogram those “but” comments that float into our consciousness when we set a goal.

It looks like this:

Goal: What you want
Purpose: Why it matters to you (make this huge)
Deadline: Exactly when it needs to be done (not “someday”)
Roadblocks: External obstacles to overcome
Beliefs: The internal saboteurs

That last one — that’s where the real work lives.

Because that overweight kid who couldn’t climb the rope? He was traumatized at 12. But why is a grown man still letting a 12-year-old’s pain run his life? He doesn’t have to, yet most of us are carrying far too much PERCEIVED trauma from our past.

The Paradox of Comfort in Pain

Here’s the sick psychology of it: Sometimes we stay broken because broken feels safe. I just learned that psychologists call it “repetition compulsion” — we recreate our wounds because familiar pain feels safer than unfamiliar healing. A misbehaving child gets more attention by misbehaving, and somehow, it feels comforting, even though he or she hates it.

But awareness is the first step toward rewiring.

What Matters Now

What are you still carrying from your childhood self that your adult self needs to release?

If, like me, you spent years with unrealized goals, it’s important to listen carefully to those voices in your head when you write down your goals and dreams. Take note, then work to reprogram and overcome those thoughts by trying to figure out what drove them in the first place. Then work to retrain your subconscious with rational adult thoughts instead of irrational childhood thoughts.

Unexamined beliefs are prison bars we build ourselves, and most of us don’t even realize we’re holding the key and have the ability to reprogram our past.

You probably have a little more time this week. What if you used it for self-examination? What are the old wounds that never healed? How are those wounds getting in the way of living your fullest life?

Here’s to burning what needs burning, keeping what needs keeping, reprogramming what needs to be changed, and knowing the difference.

Happy New Year.

Eric Rhoads

P.S. These three things would be a great start if you’re feeling undeserving or unqualified:
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December 31 deadline is approaching for Winter Art Escape — a week in Hilton Head and Savannah, painting beside others, making friends who understand why we chase light and shadow. Details at winterartescape.com. 
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January brings Watercolor Live — three days online with masters like Thomas Schaller, Shelley Prior, and Antonio Masi — 24 in total, teaching their secrets online. Whether you’re starting fresh or refining skills, this is your chance. Register at watercolorlive.com. 

​​May’s Plein Air Convention in the Ozarks — 1,200 artists, 80+ instructors, the world’s largest gathering of outdoor painters. Where else can you learn from and paint with dozens of top masters in one week? Lock in the lowest rates at pleinairconvention.com.

The fireplace in the living room crackles like small bones breaking, and the smell of burning cedar mingles with the steam rising from my mug of hot tea. Outside, the frigid cold arrived this past week to remind us winter is here — sudden, decisive, unapologetic. I’m bundled in blankets and fuzzy sweat pants.

My tea tastes particularly bitter this morning. Or maybe that’s just the aftertaste of an email I received last week. I know I shouldn’t let people get to me, but some things sting like winter wind through a cracked window.

The Surgical Strike

Sometimes life delivers pain when you least expect it. Earlier this week, between meetings and YouTube shows, an email struck with surgical precision: “Eric, your ego is out of control.”

I could have deleted it. Should have, maybe. Instead, I took the bait: “Thanks for the feedback, it usually is, but is there something specific you want to point out?”

To his credit, he didn’t retreat.

“You talk about yourself too much. You talk about how many houses you have too much, about all the portraits you have of yourself. You need to let the artists on your show shine and stop interrupting them.”

My response: “Thank you for pointing it out.”

And I meant it.

Mirrors and Angles

As hard as it is to see, sometimes we need someone to hold up a mirror at an unflattering angle. Because that is the funny thing about mirrors — different angles show different perspectives. Some might say my enthusiasm to know more is why I interrupt my daily YouTube show guests, acting as a representative of viewers who may not understand everything at the same level. If I can get the artist to explain something or go deeper, I’m going to step in and ask. Is that ego, or is that service? Is my interruption an act of narcissism or navigation?

Take those portraits he mentioned — thirty-plus paintings by the world’s greatest artists, many since deceased. Sure, commissioning that many portraits of yourself looks narcissistic from one angle. But tilt the mirror: I commissioned them to help keep portraiture alive, to give these masters meaningful exposure, to feature them in Fine Art Connoisseur and show the world that portrait painting from life still matters. It resulted in each of them selling dozens more portraits. Was it ego that drove me to sit for hours while these artists worked? Or was it patronage disguised as vanity?

The houses? I broadcast from different locations because that’s where life and business take me — it’s logistics, not showmanship. But I understand how it lands. Everything can be viewed through the lens of ego or the lens of purpose, and sometimes even I can’t tell which lens I’m looking through. But I’ll be more careful.

I don’t think I’m a narcissist, but I’ve battled my oversized ego my entire life. What I can’t decide is whether that’s a curse or a gift.

My Two Egos

There’s the ego that drives me forward — call it my engine — and the ego that needs applause — call it my needy child. The first confidently declares, “I can build something amazing.” The second insists, “Look how incredible MY contribution is.” One builds, one performs. Yet both spring from the same source, the same psyche, the same childhood insecurities transformed into adult ambitions.

Is it possible this flaw we call ego is also our superpower?

Domes and Blindness

I returned from Europe just a few weeks ago, and I can’t stop thinking about Brunelleschi’s massive dome atop the cathedral in Florence. He built it without scaffolding — a feat so remarkable that no one can figure out how he did it. And here’s the kicker: He refused to share his method, ensuring no one could build something as magnificent.

Was that selfish? Absolutely. Was it human? Undeniably. Was it necessary for greatness? That’s where things get interesting.

When Saint Basil’s Cathedral was completed in Moscow, legend says Ivan the Terrible had the architect Postnik Yakovlev blinded so he could never build anything more beautiful. That’s carrying ego way too far — when your need for supremacy literally destroys the eyes that created beauty.

The Builders’ Burden

I’ve never talked to a professional about this, but I wonder: If egos didn’t exist, would anything remarkable ever be built? Is it possible the world is shaped by egomaniacs who need to prove themselves, to show what they can do, to change the world in ways that outlive them?

I suspect the experts would say that the drive that ego creates is a positive thing, but that if you carry it too far, in a need for constant recognition, then maybe that’s a bad thing. Yet look upon the greats who have built great things over and over again, topping their prior achievements each time. If they are doing it for repeated recognition, isn’t that OK, because they are making massive contributions? Perhaps drive eventually transcends pure ego, motivation shifting from the need to prove oneself to having something valuable to contribute, with the ego providing fuel. It’s all beyond my pay grade.

Last summer in China — which was more amazing than I expected — I walked through cities so modern they made Manhattan look like an antique shop. Is this driven by collective Chinese ego, by the need to surpass other nations? Or is it simply the drive to be the best, regardless of recognition? And isn’t wanting to be the best just ego wearing a different mask?

Names We Remember

Would Apple exist without Steve Jobs’ legendary drive for revolutionary ideas? Would we have Facebook-Meta without Zuckerberg’s need to connect and control others? Would SpaceX launch without Elon Musk’s desire to be remembered as the man who made us multi-planetary? Would Dubai’s skyline pierce the clouds without someone’s desire to build the biggest and best? What about Gates, Firestone, Ford, Edison — people whose names we know precisely because their egos demanded we remember them?

Is there anything wrong with wanting to be the biggest and the best?

The Holy Paradox

Here’s what haunts me: I try to live biblically, to be humble, to give credit to my maker. Yet the same voice that calls me to humility also whispers: “Do bigger things, touch more lives, help more people.” But isn’t there some ego in believing you’re the one who should be doing the helping? Isn’t there pride in thinking your influence matters? What if we answered the whisper with, “No, let someone else do it”? Are we ignoring the will of our maker?

I’ll be the first to admit I’m proud of most of my career accomplishments. I’ve often coached people to write their obituary — not morbidly, but purposefully — listing what they want to have accomplished before they die, so they can make sure their list is complete before they stop. But if we can’t be proud of our accomplishments, why pursue them? Where do pride and humility meet? Can they coexist, or are they locked in eternal combat?

Harnessing the Monster

Maybe the answer isn’t to kill the ego but to harness it. Maybe it’s about recognizing that the same force that makes us insufferable at dinner parties also makes us unstoppable in our missions. The same voice that says, “Look at me!” also says, “I won’t quit, and I won’t be satisfied with anything less than greatness.”

Gift-Wrapped Criticism

As I sit here, I think about that email dive bomber. He gave me a gift wrapped in criticism. He forced me to ask: Would I rather be liked or leave a legacy? Would I rather be humble or helpful? Would I rather shrink myself to make others comfortable or expand to my full capacity and risk their discomfort? What if the great women and men of history had listened to their critics, taken the feedback to heart, and changed course for the worse?

The truth is, every person feels this tension. Every action contains both humility and audacity. Every creation is an act of ego — declaring that your vision matters enough to manifest it — and an act of service — offering benefit to the world.

Understanding True Greatness

I’m obsessed with understanding greatness. I believe God placed us on earth to be the best version of ourselves we can be. Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile that when someone is bombastic and full of themselves, they’ve earned it through the amazing things they’ve built against all odds.

Humility is a gift — the quiet reflection of knowing what you’ve done without having to broadcast it. But ego is a gift too. They coexist, two sides of the same coin. Humility can even get in the way of bold assertions, of standing in front of potential investors who need to see your vision burn bright enough to open their checkbooks. Selling people on vision takes guts and self-belief.

Bulls and China

People with vision are often misunderstood, often disliked by those who would rather their world remain undisturbed. Sometimes it’s the bull in the china shop that sees a clear vision of wrecking the status quo for a new future. It’s why some write emails or critical and nasty social media posts. But thank God — he gave us ego, and vision, and the ability to see if we can top our last effort.

What They’d Say

Here’s what the Bible says about this: “Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth; an outsider, and not your own lips” (Proverbs 27:2). But it also says we’re made in God’s image — and didn’t He create the universe and then declare it “very good”?

And here’s what my therapist would probably say: “Eric, your ego isn’t the enemy — it’s the part of you that protected you when you were told at 40 you had no talent. It’s the part that refused to accept that limitation. The question isn’t whether to have an ego, but whether you’re driving it or it’s driving you.”

The Next Email

Somewhere, someone is deciding whether to send an email telling me this newsletter was too long, too personal, too much about me. They will find flaws in good intentions.

Thank you in advance for pointing it out. I’m ready. Bring it on.

Because maybe that’s the ultimate paradox: The same ego that makes me vulnerable to criticism is the one that lets me publish these words anyway.

Yes, Mr. Email, my ego is large. My intent isn’t to brag, I need to remain humble about my accomplishments, but I don’t want to be stopped from doing what I think needs to be done just to please those who feel I’ve gone too far. The key to remember is: It’s not about me, it’s about vision to help others and big ideas to make that happen. Sometimes I’ll screw up, and for those moments, I deserve correction.

Eric Rhoads

PS: Keep reading all the way to the bottom and you’ll discover three announcements of something spectacular and new.

Humbly, this year has been a magnificent whirlwind. Going to China, taking a group to Switzerland and Italy, a week of painting and meetings in Italy, a couple of new portrait sittings, countless events and speeches, and 18 million YouTube views later, I’m both exhausted and exhilarated. The next few weeks offer something precious: thinking time. No airports. No hotels. Just the quiet space to dream about what’s next. 

But before I disappear into my planning cave, let’s talk about the elephant in every artist’s studio…

The Gift They Actually Want (But Won’t Tell You)

Look, I love my family, but if I get one more Bob Ross bobblehead or apron “because you paint,” I might scream. Here’s what artists REALLY want but are too polite to ask for: They want to get better. They want to learn from masters. They want to be with and paint with their tribe.

That’s why I’m sharing my insider’s list of gifts that will make any artist in your life light up like a Sorolla painting at golden hour:

The Game-Changers (Under $200)

PaintTube.TV — Imagine Netflix, but instead of binge-watching shows, you’re learning from 100+ other masters. The world’s largest library of art instruction (100,000+ hours) — any medium, any subject, instantly streaming. A gift card is what I recommend for every artist friend so they can pick one of the 700+ training videos from top masters.

The Stocking Stuffers (Under $40)

PleinAir Magazine or Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine — Give them a year of inspiration delivered to their door. Every issue is like a masterclass in art or collecting they can hold in their hands.

Easel Brush Clip — The tool every painter needs but doesn’t know exists. Keeps brushes handy without the juggling act.

Value Specs — These magical glasses help artists see values correctly. Game-changer for anyone struggling with light and shadow.

The Life-Changing Experiences

Watercolor Live (January, Online) — Four days with the world’s top watercolorists, streaming from 20+ countries. An artist can attend in pajamas and replay forever.

Winter Escape Artists’ Retreat (February, Hilton Head) — While everyone else is shoveling snow, they’ll be painting on the beach in 75-degree weather. Limited to 100 artists who become instant friends.

NEW: Gouache Boot Camp (February 19, Online) — Gouache is having a moment. Perfect for the artist ready to try something new. An event focused on the fundamentals of working with gouache. 

Acrylic Live (March, Online) — Four days of acrylic mastery from artists who’ve redefined the medium.

Art Business Mastery Day (April 16, Online) — A day of coaching from the experts to make your art sell better.

The Plein Air Convention & Expo  (May, Ozarks) —The world’s largest plein air gathering. The main hotel is already sold out — we’re filling four more. This is their tribe, their people, their week of pure artistic joy.

Paint the Adirondacks (June) — My personal favorite. A week painting my beloved mountains with a small, passionate group.
Gouache Live (August 20, Online) — Since gouache is having a moment, we’re having two. This event will be focused on landscape painting with gouache.  

Plein Air Live (September, Online) — Three days of plein air and landscape instruction right in your studio!

Fall Color Week (October, Acadia National Park, Maine) — My other personal favorite. (Like my kids, I love them all.) A week painting in Acadia National Park and fall color.

Realism Live (November, Online) — Three days of demos from the top masters in realism art.

The fireplace in the living room crackles like small bones breaking, and the smell of burning cedar mingles with the steam rising from my mug of hot tea. Outside, the frigid cold arrived this past week to remind us winter is here — sudden, decisive, unapologetic. I’m bundled in blankets and fuzzy sweat pants.

My tea tastes particularly bitter this morning. Or maybe that’s just the aftertaste of an email I received last week. I know I shouldn’t let people get to me, but some things sting like winter wind through a cracked window.

The Surgical Strike

Sometimes life delivers pain when you least expect it. Earlier this week, between meetings and YouTube shows, an email struck with surgical precision: “Eric, your ego is out of control.”

I could have deleted it. Should have, maybe. Instead, I took the bait: “Thanks for the feedback, it usually is, but is there something specific you want to point out?”

To his credit, he didn’t retreat.

“You talk about yourself too much. You talk about how many houses you have too much, about all the portraits you have of yourself. You need to let the artists on your show shine and stop interrupting them.”

My response: “Thank you for pointing it out.”

And I meant it.

Mirrors and Angles

As hard as it is to see, sometimes we need someone to hold up a mirror at an unflattering angle. Because that is the funny thing about mirrors — different angles show different perspectives. Some might say my enthusiasm to know more is why I interrupt my daily YouTube show guests, acting as a representative of viewers who may not understand everything at the same level. If I can get the artist to explain something or go deeper, I’m going to step in and ask. Is that ego, or is that service? Is my interruption an act of narcissism or navigation?

Take those portraits he mentioned — thirty-plus paintings by the world’s greatest artists, many since deceased. Sure, commissioning that many portraits of yourself looks narcissistic from one angle. But tilt the mirror: I commissioned them to help keep portraiture alive, to give these masters meaningful exposure, to feature them in Fine Art Connoisseur and show the world that portrait painting from life still matters. It resulted in each of them selling dozens more portraits. Was it ego that drove me to sit for hours while these artists worked? Or was it patronage disguised as vanity?

The houses? I broadcast from different locations because that’s where life and business take me — it’s logistics, not showmanship. But I understand how it lands. Everything can be viewed through the lens of ego or the lens of purpose, and sometimes even I can’t tell which lens I’m looking through. But I’ll be more careful.

I don’t think I’m a narcissist, but I’ve battled my oversized ego my entire life. What I can’t decide is whether that’s a curse or a gift.

My Two Egos

There’s the ego that drives me forward — call it my engine — and the ego that needs applause — call it my needy child. The first confidently declares, “I can build something amazing.” The second insists, “Look how incredible MY contribution is.” One builds, one performs. Yet both spring from the same source, the same psyche, the same childhood insecurities transformed into adult ambitions.

Is it possible this flaw we call ego is also our superpower?

Domes and Blindness

I returned from Europe just a few weeks ago, and I can’t stop thinking about Brunelleschi’s massive dome atop the cathedral in Florence. He built it without scaffolding — a feat so remarkable that no one can figure out how he did it. And here’s the kicker: He refused to share his method, ensuring no one could build something as magnificent.

Was that selfish? Absolutely. Was it human? Undeniably. Was it necessary for greatness? That’s where things get interesting.

When Saint Basil’s Cathedral was completed in Moscow, legend says Ivan the Terrible had the architect Postnik Yakovlev blinded so he could never build anything more beautiful. That’s carrying ego way too far — when your need for supremacy literally destroys the eyes that created beauty.

The Builders’ Burden

I’ve never talked to a professional about this, but I wonder: If egos didn’t exist, would anything remarkable ever be built? Is it possible the world is shaped by egomaniacs who need to prove themselves, to show what they can do, to change the world in ways that outlive them?

I suspect the experts would say that the drive that ego creates is a positive thing, but that if you carry it too far, in a need for constant recognition, then maybe that’s a bad thing. Yet look upon the greats who have built great things over and over again, topping their prior achievements each time. If they are doing it for repeated recognition, isn’t that OK, because they are making massive contributions? Perhaps drive eventually transcends pure ego, motivation shifting from the need to prove oneself to having something valuable to contribute, with the ego providing fuel. It’s all beyond my pay grade.

Last summer in China — which was more amazing than I expected — I walked through cities so modern they made Manhattan look like an antique shop. Is this driven by collective Chinese ego, by the need to surpass other nations? Or is it simply the drive to be the best, regardless of recognition? And isn’t wanting to be the best just ego wearing a different mask?

Names We Remember

Would Apple exist without Steve Jobs’ legendary drive for revolutionary ideas? Would we have Facebook-Meta without Zuckerberg’s need to connect and control others? Would SpaceX launch without Elon Musk’s desire to be remembered as the man who made us multi-planetary? Would Dubai’s skyline pierce the clouds without someone’s desire to build the biggest and best? What about Gates, Firestone, Ford, Edison — people whose names we know precisely because their egos demanded we remember them?

Is there anything wrong with wanting to be the biggest and the best?

The Holy Paradox

Here’s what haunts me: I try to live biblically, to be humble, to give credit to my maker. Yet the same voice that calls me to humility also whispers: “Do bigger things, touch more lives, help more people.” But isn’t there some ego in believing you’re the one who should be doing the helping? Isn’t there pride in thinking your influence matters? What if we answered the whisper with, “No, let someone else do it”? Are we ignoring the will of our maker?

I’ll be the first to admit I’m proud of most of my career accomplishments. I’ve often coached people to write their obituary — not morbidly, but purposefully — listing what they want to have accomplished before they die, so they can make sure their list is complete before they stop. But if we can’t be proud of our accomplishments, why pursue them? Where do pride and humility meet? Can they coexist, or are they locked in eternal combat?

Harnessing the Monster

Maybe the answer isn’t to kill the ego but to harness it. Maybe it’s about recognizing that the same force that makes us insufferable at dinner parties also makes us unstoppable in our missions. The same voice that says, “Look at me!” also says, “I won’t quit, and I won’t be satisfied with anything less than greatness.”

Gift-Wrapped Criticism

As I sit here, I think about that email dive bomber. He gave me a gift wrapped in criticism. He forced me to ask: Would I rather be liked or leave a legacy? Would I rather be humble or helpful? Would I rather shrink myself to make others comfortable or expand to my full capacity and risk their discomfort? What if the great women and men of history had listened to their critics, taken the feedback to heart, and changed course for the worse?

The truth is, every person feels this tension. Every action contains both humility and audacity. Every creation is an act of ego — declaring that your vision matters enough to manifest it — and an act of service — offering benefit to the world.

Understanding True Greatness

I’m obsessed with understanding greatness. I believe God placed us on earth to be the best version of ourselves we can be. Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile that when someone is bombastic and full of themselves, they’ve earned it through the amazing things they’ve built against all odds.

Humility is a gift — the quiet reflection of knowing what you’ve done without having to broadcast it. But ego is a gift too. They coexist, two sides of the same coin. Humility can even get in the way of bold assertions, of standing in front of potential investors who need to see your vision burn bright enough to open their checkbooks. Selling people on vision takes guts and self-belief.

Bulls and China

People with vision are often misunderstood, often disliked by those who would rather their world remain undisturbed. Sometimes it’s the bull in the china shop that sees a clear vision of wrecking the status quo for a new future. It’s why some write emails or critical and nasty social media posts. But thank God — he gave us ego, and vision, and the ability to see if we can top our last effort.

What They’d Say

Here’s what the Bible says about this: “Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth; an outsider, and not your own lips” (Proverbs 27:2). But it also says we’re made in God’s image — and didn’t He create the universe and then declare it “very good”?

And here’s what my therapist would probably say: “Eric, your ego isn’t the enemy — it’s the part of you that protected you when you were told at 40 you had no talent. It’s the part that refused to accept that limitation. The question isn’t whether to have an ego, but whether you’re driving it or it’s driving you.”

The Next Email

Somewhere, someone is deciding whether to send an email telling me this newsletter was too long, too personal, too much about me. They will find flaws in good intentions.

Thank you in advance for pointing it out. I’m ready. Bring it on.

Because maybe that’s the ultimate paradox: The same ego that makes me vulnerable to criticism is the one that lets me publish these words anyway.

Yes, Mr. Email, my ego is large. My intent isn’t to brag, I need to remain humble about my accomplishments, but I don’t want to be stopped from doing what I think needs to be done just to please those who feel I’ve gone too far. The key to remember is: It’s not about me, it’s about vision to help others and big ideas to make that happen. Sometimes I’ll screw up, and for those moments, I deserve correction.

Eric Rhoads

PS: Keep reading all the way to the bottom and you’ll discover three announcements of something spectacular and new.

Humbly, this year has been a magnificent whirlwind. Going to China, taking a group to Switzerland and Italy, a week of painting and meetings in Italy, a couple of new portrait sittings, countless events and speeches, and 18 million YouTube views later, I’m both exhausted and exhilarated. The next few weeks offer something precious: thinking time. No airports. No hotels. Just the quiet space to dream about what’s next. 

But before I disappear into my planning cave, let’s talk about the elephant in every artist’s studio…

The Gift They Actually Want (But Won’t Tell You)

Look, I love my family, but if I get one more Bob Ross bobblehead or apron “because you paint,” I might scream. Here’s what artists REALLY want but are too polite to ask for: They want to get better. They want to learn from masters. They want to be with and paint with their tribe.

That’s why I’m sharing my insider’s list of gifts that will make any artist in your life light up like a Sorolla painting at golden hour:

The Game-Changers (Under $200)

PaintTube.TV — Imagine Netflix, but instead of binge-watching shows, you’re learning from 100+ other masters. The world’s largest library of art instruction (100,000+ hours) — any medium, any subject, instantly streaming. A gift card is what I recommend for every artist friend so they can pick one of the 700+ training videos from top masters.

The Stocking Stuffers (Under $40)

PleinAir Magazine or Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine — Give them a year of inspiration delivered to their door. Every issue is like a masterclass in art or collecting they can hold in their hands.

Easel Brush Clip — The tool every painter needs but doesn’t know exists. Keeps brushes handy without the juggling act.

Value Specs — These magical glasses help artists see values correctly. Game-changer for anyone struggling with light and shadow.

The Life-Changing Experiences

Watercolor Live (January, Online) — Four days with the world’s top watercolorists, streaming from 20+ countries. An artist can attend in pajamas and replay forever.

Winter Escape Artists’ Retreat (February, Hilton Head) — While everyone else is shoveling snow, they’ll be painting on the beach in 75-degree weather. Limited to 100 artists who become instant friends.

NEW: Gouache Boot Camp (February 19, Online) — Gouache is having a moment. Perfect for the artist ready to try something new. An event focused on the fundamentals of working with gouache. 

Acrylic Live (March, Online) — Four days of acrylic mastery from artists who’ve redefined the medium.

Art Business Mastery Day (April 16, Online) — A day of coaching from the experts to make your art sell better.

The Plein Air Convention & Expo  (May, Ozarks) —The world’s largest plein air gathering. The main hotel is already sold out — we’re filling four more. This is their tribe, their people, their week of pure artistic joy.

Paint the Adirondacks (June) — My personal favorite. A week painting my beloved mountains with a small, passionate group.
Gouache Live (August 20, Online) — Since gouache is having a moment, we’re having two. This event will be focused on landscape painting with gouache.  

Plein Air Live (September, Online) — Three days of plein air and landscape instruction right in your studio!

Fall Color Week (October, Acadia National Park, Maine) — My other personal favorite. (Like my kids, I love them all.) A week painting in Acadia National Park and fall color.

Realism Live (November, Online) — Three days of demos from the top masters in realism art.