When I speak of my view, looking out at the fog rolling over rows of distant pines; when I describe the loons cooing, with their eerie calls bouncing off the distant water and echoing back; or when I articulate sitting in the screened porch, 140 years old and with the original wicker couches and chairs that squeak every time I shift my weight, I do so to help you escape for a brief moment to take on my character and place, so my words might be understood from a different perspective … my perspective. 

From some of you who occasionally open my weekly e-mails, from time to time I get questions. There have been more lately. Possibly because I say what I’m thinking about, without thinking about signals it might send. 

Are you OK? 

That’s a polite way to ask if I’ve developed some disease that has ravaged my previously stocky, bloated body. 

I set a goal to live the rest of my life under a certain weight and with more strength because the excess was going to eventually cause problems I would rather avoid. Unlike some things that can’t be undone, weight loss can solve a basket of problems. So over the course of one year, I gradually removed the weight of a small child by hiring a trainer, sweating like a pig (do pigs sweat?), and fighting the urge to overindulge in cookies. Self-discipline is all it took, and it is what it takes to come back when I lose my way with an occasional binge.

Not only am I healthy, my deeply researched supplement and exercise protocol is reversing my biological age. My only issue is a cranky back from time to time. Thanks for asking.

Are you gonna retire?

Ha! Three of my four grandparents lived active and healthy lives to their mid-90s, as did both of my parents. My dad worked 15-hour days until about two weeks before he died. He started a new business at 70, made it giant, then closed it at 80 when he discovered something he loved more, which he did till he died. It was not a small hobby business; he accomplished incredible things in his last 14 years. 

So why would I stop? What would I do?

I love the people I work with, I love my customers, and I’ve never been happier in my work life. I’ve made more friendships than ever, and I’ve been able to scale things to exceed a goal I set in 2018 to teach a million people to paint. My team and I have been able to help millions of people find their artistic inner voice and teach them how to harness its power to help them be their happiest selves. 

There is nothing I can currently think of that I would rather be doing. I get to travel to amazing places, take people behind the scenes at museums, paint the world with friends, and help people find their true identity through art. (But if I come up with something, I’ll let you know.)

I don’t intend to slow down, I intend to speed up. 

I have big, audacious goals, boxes I need to check, and I have to figure out a strategy to pass the baton in the event I get hit by a truck, so we don’t leave anyone hanging without the gifts we’ve tried to provide them. That means less day-to-day reliance on me, and letting my team run things better than I ever could.

Are you going to continue with your daily YouTube show?

If you don’t know, when COVID started, I felt the need to step up and do something to set people at ease. So at the end of the first week of lockdowns, I started going on Facebook and YouTube daily at noon. I did it 7 days a week for 7 months, then I shifted to 5 days a week and have done that ever since. I don’t think we’ve ever missed a day, though we’ve done some replays for a while here and there, but we do fresh new shows every weekday now. 

There is good news and bad news. The good news is that the show has reached millions of views and helped millions learn art. We’ve heard from thousands who have told us their stories of discovering their inner artist because of the show. And a lot of new people have discovered us, which has increased the size of our in-person and online events. 

But there is a downside. Booking guests, preparing shows, doing marketing for shows, teaching guests how to be on shows, editing shows, uploading shows — it takes a team of people. When we first started, we just overloaded our existing team, but now we’ve had to bring on more teams for the purpose. That of course increases our expenses. It also changed how I work, because I now need to devote a couple of hours a day to the show, which means I’ve got to get up two hours earlier to get those two hours of required work time back. But I think it’s worth the extra effort and expense, because it continues to touch lives, and every day someone new tunes in, discovers art, and starts doing it. And there is a community who tune in live daily, and who love to connect in the chat. 

Our biggest single show has had 200,000 views. But millions of people have watched, and we hear from people all over the world who are tuning in.

I was tempted to cut down to one day a week, which would be easy, but I don’t want to take the easy way out, I want to be there for people every day (which sometimes requires guest hosts during travel times). I started doing “Marketing Mondays” live to answer art marketing and sales questions, and I’ve started doing “Feedback Friday,” where I critique paintings. So we’re on every day at noon Eastern.

There will come a time when I’ll stop. I don’t know when that will be. 

Note: When you watch for over 20 minutes, when you subscribe, and when you make a comment or a like or a forward, YouTube rewards us by pushing the show out to new people. That always helps.

What do you need? How can we help?

  1. I need to know what you need, what I can create or provide, that will improve your quality of life. It does not have to be about art. A simple e-mail with your thoughts or feedback would be welcomed. I promise I’ll read every single one. This is my personal e-mail: ([email protected]). This will help me know what books or articles to write, what trips or products to create, what to fix or improve, who you want us to do projects with, and  what we need for our future together.
  2. I’d love to hear your story if we have somehow enriched your life, because we need to share these stories to give others the courage to step out and try something that they don’t believe they can do.
  3. Tell others about their options. My mission is simple. Teach millions of people to paint even if they don’t believe they can do it. Introduce them to us, expose them to things we do that others might like. A simple forward of an e-mail to someone with your comment, “We should do this together,” or, “You should try this,” will be more meaningful than anything I can say.
  4. Last but most important, keep me and my family in your prayers if you pray, and if not, keep us in your thoughts. I need the full armor of God to guide me in everything I do.

My wife says I’m an ideas guy. The other day she told a neighbor, “Eric comes up with big ideas and then figures out how to do them.” 

Like you, I have doubts. When I set a goal of teaching a million people to paint, I had doubts it would happen, but I continued telling myself I was doing it, and it came true. 

I have some dreams I’ve yet to figure out, things like …

  • How to get our own show about the plein air lifestyle on Netflix. I need help with that … contacts and financial support. By doing this we can bring plein air painting to the masses and touch millions of lives. This was moving forward before COVID, I had a deal with a network, but I needed to raise a million bucks to produce it. I’ve decided to shift to a different network and allow someone else to produce it in order to get it done. 
  • I want to build the world’s first museum devoted to plein air painting. I need a big-city location so it will get visited, a building, and a lot of money to build or remodel it, support it, and acquire paintings. Of course, I’ll contribute my collection, but I need an example of every important painter in our generation to reflect this movement, plus the history leading up to this current moment. You can help by forwarding this to someone who shares our passion and has the financial ability to make this happen.

Those are a couple of the big ones, but there are dozens of others, including books, courses, and other things, which I’ll reveal as the time is right.

I’m sorry to make this “about me.”  But as the intensity of questions continued, I felt this provided a lot of answers.

Eric Rhoads

PS: Our world is in turmoil. More than ever, we need the ability to escape the constant drum of rhetoric. The magic of painting is that I can walk into my studio after a stressful day, and my stress melts away in just a few minutes of painting.

I never saw myself as a painter, never believed I could learn to do it, and felt that “natural-born” talent was required. It’s not. I’m living proof.

One of the best ways to start painting is by discovering pastel painting, because we’ve all used crayons as kids. Pastel is vibrant, the sticks are usually hand-held, and it does not require learning to mix colors before painting. It is, I think, the best place to start.

My Pastel Live online event is a global conference on painting, featuring the world’s leading pastel artists. It’s important to start learning from the best, since that’s what we all aspire to become. Pastel Live is coming up in September, and it’s a 3- or 4-day event (optional 4th day for new artists or as a refresher of basics for established artists). I’m inviting you to attend — and if you cannot be there live, replays are available.