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Each morning, as the sun blasts through our east-facing window, I’m treated to a colorful sunrise over the water, with the silhouettes of palm trees. It’s better than any alarm; it tends to get me up a little earlier than normal, and boosts my dopamine immediately. 

Upon waking, I walk out to the deck of our bedroom just to take in the beauty of the morning, marveling over the sun sparkling on the water, the warm breeze, the foggy blue distant islands, and the warm air kissing my skin. I’m feeling inspired. 

The Hunt for Inspiration

One of the reasons I travel so much is because I’m always on the hunt for beauty and inspiration. To me there is nothing quite as wonderful as getting out of my comfort zone, walking on cobblestone streets, changing foreign money, eating local and regional foods, and being unable to understand the language fully. It’s not only a vacation, it’s a mental break and a chance to feel invigorated. 

Last October, after our annual fall Fine Art Trip, I was totally inspired. Though this is a collectors’ trip, visiting lots of museums behind the scenes, artist studios, and collector homes, in my free time I always sneak away to paint en plein air, even if it’s after dinner and late at night under the streetlights. 

Inspired by Artwork

It’s hard to imagine this because so few in the world have ever experienced it, but I’ve been in the Prado, one of the most important and busiest museums in the world, having it all to myself and my small group, and no one else in the building. 

I can walk up to important paintings with no crowds and no pressure to move, and study them in depth. In one case, after seeing every painting in the museum, I kept returning to this one painting, over and over again. It captivated me, and I kept seeing more depth in it as I studied it. And after taking dozens of close-up photos, I’ll return home and try to copy parts of it as a learning experience. 

I gain tremendous inspiration from gazing at endless artworks by the world’s great masters in top museums. 

The Gift of Travel

I feel extremely blessed that I get to travel as much as I do. In just a couple of weeks, I’m leading a group to paint cherry blossoms in Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo, Japan. Then in May I’ll be painting at the Plein Air Convention in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and in June at my painters’ retreat in the Adirondacks of upstate New York, where I’ll spend my summer. Then I’ll host another Fine Art Trip in Europe (to be announced soon), and my Fall Color Week retreat in Monterey and Carmel this year. 

Gasping for Air

An important lesson was bestowed upon me by living the life of an entrepreneur, never able to come up for air, spending months on end working from sunrise till midnight, and then experiencing levels of burnout, depression, and lost relationships. Something had to change.

Sometimes it takes a kick in the teeth to stop bad behavior and reinvent yourself. The new me, I told myself, was not going to work weekends again, was going to travel to Europe at least once a year, and travel to paint with friends. 

The life of a workaholic is a dead end street, no matter what the books tell you. Life isn’t about working, it’s about living. Work becomes about providing enough fun tickets to live the life you dream of. It took me a couple of decades to shed my bad habits, my bad moods, and my work addiction to start living life.

Are You a Living Zombie?

Sometimes we feel like the walking dead … commuting to work, putting in the required hours or late nights, being workaholics, involved in endless projects and mind-numbing meetings that seem like Groundhog Day.

Are You  Burning Out?

Burnout and being stuck happens across all jobs and industries. It seems like we’re working hard to support our families, yet our families wish they could see us more, even if it means having less. It’s a trap too many of us fall into, convincing ourselves we’re “doing it for the family.” One friend recently said his wife told him, “If you think you’re doing this for the family, think again. If this continues, there will be no family for you to come home to.” 

So how do we break out?

Start with what you hate. While most people tell you to focus on goals, goals are of no value if you have to do things that make you miserable. Make a list of the non-negotiables, then start building a plan to unwind all the things you no longer want to do.

Instead of goals, make your dream list. “If I had all the money and time in the world, and no restrictions, what would I do?”

Do that. 

Even if it takes 10 years to figure out how. If you don’t do it, you’ll continue to burn out. But if you have a plan and know you’re working your way to freedom from the things you hate and toward the things you love, you’ll have hope. Hope with an action plan removes burnout.

Near Death

A near-death experience gave me instant clarity, from which I made my list, set my dreams in motion, and found a way to do them.

Be There

Science has a lot of recent research that says when you imagine yourself IN something, you find a way to become it. If you constantly tell yourself you’re miserable … you’re IN misery. If your brain is living your dream, it will find a way.

I could not afford to go to Europe once a year. My brain found a way once I started making that part of who I am.

BE where you want to be. Don’t tell yourself, “Someday I’m gonna.” Tell yourself you are there. 

Sometimes being delusional is the best thing to motivate your brain to find a way to climb out of a bad hole.

Eric Rhoads

PS: Tonight I’ll board a big bird and fly home to Austin, where I’ll be hosting PleinAir Live all week. It is one of my favorite weeks of the year because I see so many lives transformed. You are joining me, right? Be a DO IT NOW person, and you’ll move closer to your dreams.  

Coming to a dead stop in her flight across the sky, an eagle dives straight down to the water and scores a sizable fish with her massive golden talons. She has no fear. She does not think about what might happen if she fails, if she hits the water wrong and crashes. She is focused on her sole purpose. Getting food. 

“Do the thing you fear to do, and keep on doing it. That is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.” —  Dale Carnegie

Some of us are born with no fear. 

That’s not me. I have fear of a lot of things. But I never have feared starting a business, even from a young age when I made lemonade stands and sold candles, and over decades of business startups.

The Gift of Youth

When you’re young and naive, you don’t fear life as much. You have not yet seen the repercussions of doing doughnuts in the parking lot, racing down the highway at top speeds, or daring to dart in front of a speeding train just before it hits the crossing.

I did all those things. I was strong, confident, and I could never die. 

Sadly, others did die. I had four classmates in high school who were driving drunk and were hit by a train. Three of the four died.

And as we grow older and wiser, we have more stories to tell of others whose reckless pursuits did not go well. That helps us mature.

When we start up a business for the first time, we have never experienced the difficult days — the decades of experience that make us exercise caution and play the “what if?” game.

At a young age, we have nothing to lose. Even if we lost our life savings, how much could it be? And we know we can easily make it back again.

No Pressure

It’s a lot easier to start a business when you have no spouse or partner, no kids, no mortgage, and no pressure. Once you have those things to consider, reckless pursuits are dampened by fear of loss. 

The joy of parenting includes watching my kids make reckless decisions, like jumping out of airplanes, even though I begged one of them not to do it — a dear friend urged me not to let my kids do it after the painful loss of a child. 

I, too, was an adrenaline junkie until I got married and had kids. 

A New Chapter

A couple of weeks ago, one of my sons lost his job. I was not unhappy about it because he was never happy in that job, did not love the way he perceived he was being treated, and he was making almost no money. But of course we worried that he needed to get something else quickly so he could pay his rent. Plus, he is like me and can’t work for others. He rejects authority, as I do.

So he and his friend decided to start a tree service. He put out the word and got a customer to pay them a couple thousand bucks for a project the first day.

Beaming with Pride

For the first time in a long time, I saw pride of accomplishment in his face, and he was determined to get other customers by making flyers, knocking on doors, and making posts on Nextdoor.com and Facebook Marketplace. 

He has no fear.

Proud Papa

You can imagine how proud I am of my kid when he is launching his own business and got his first customer, and for the first time in his life, generated money from his own brain, his own labor, not getting his money from a job or a parent, but from a customer. 

What Experience Tells Me

Of course, in the back of my mind I’m thinking, “This could be tough.” It may have been beginner’s luck to get a customer, and the others might not come as easily. And of course, it was not long till he was discouraged because other customers were not jumping in the boat like the first one had. 

Yet he continued doing all the right things to market and promote his business. And he’s learning just how hard it is, but still he has no fear. He is confident he will figure it out, and so am I. And once he has had a taste of business success, he’ll never have a job working for anyone else again. 

The Power of Encouragement

I knew this would not be easy, and my first temptation was to talk to him about all the things he was not thinking about … like insurance and taxes and safety and 900 other things business owners have to think about. I could have told him all those things, but I bit my tongue. Instead I told him I had confidence in him, that I knew he would figure it out, and that he is doing all the right things, and that I was proud of him.

The Power of Discouragement

People are fragile. If someone they love and respect tells them that they don’t believe in them, or gets overly negative about everything that could go wrong, they will often stop and never try again. I’ve seen it far too many times in life. When people stop trying, they always wonder what could have been.

A Discouraging Word

When I was about 11 and told my aunt I wanted to get into radio, she told me it was a bad idea, that radio people were poor-quality people, that it was not a good industry to be a part of and I should pick something else. Instead of swaying me, it made me determined to prove her wrong. “One day I’ll be successful and show her,” I said to myself. I was passionate, I had found what I loved, and nothing was going to get in my way. And ultimately, my dream came true. I got into radio at 14, had my own show, worked on top radio stations, and even ended up as an owner of radio stations and radio-industry magazines and conferences. But what if I had listened to my aunt? I would have missed a lifetime of wonderful experiences and friends. 

You Can’t Make a Living as an Artist

I can share countless stories of people whose parents told them to pursue something other than art, because they “couldn’t possibly make a living.” I have stories of people who allowed their parents to influence them and spent an unhappy life in some other industry before coming back to art and finding their joy. I also have stories of people who proved their parents wrong and became successful and made more money than they ever imagined (even though it was never about money).

Don’t Squash Dreams

Be a dream weaver, not a dream destroyer.

If I had known all the difficult things I would face in business startups, I probably would have backed out. Getting your teeth kicked in is part of the growth process, and though it still happens on a regular basis, it hurts less every time, and the benefits outweigh the difficult stuff.

Encourage people. Build them up. No matter how much you see that they might be in for a tough year or two, let them find out for themselves. Though your instinct is to protect them, we have to let them experience the tough stuff too. We grow from adversity.

What I Discovered

Most of the people in my life are dream destroyers. I’ve launched 20 or 30 businesses or business products over the decades that I was told would never work, were likely to fail, were stupid ideas that no one would buy. I even did research that told me something would fail, did it anyway, and had huge success. It’s important to understand that someone with passion or an idea has a vision others can’t see. So no matter how much you don’t understand it, or even if you think it’s already being done elsewhere, give them all the positives and none of the negatives unless they ask. Even then, be thoughtful about not destroying or discouraging them. 

Besides that, nothing ever ends up the way you envision it. A good entrepreneur will pivot with the needs of the market. 

Stories of Success

The world is littered with failures, but it’s built on successes. Every startup person will tell you they had more discouragement than encouragement, and that sometimes it was one person believing in them, and offering ideas or help, who made the difference between success and failure. You can move mountains when you know others believe in you.

What dreams did you not pursue?

Did someone discourage you? Did you do it anyway or did you listen to them? Do you have regrets?

Don’t do it to others. Build them up. Give them encouragement. Help them see even bigger visions. With your encouragement, they might change the world.

Eric Rhoads

PS: Over two decades ago, I started PleinAir Magazine. But I almost didn’t because so many people told me it would fail. I ran it for two years and it did fail, and then they said, “Told you so.” But I believed so deeply in it that I found a way to bring it back, and started the Plein Air Convention. Again, people told me not to do it. Yet it’s been wildly successful. Thank goodness I did not listen.

The 11th annual convention is taking place in the Great Smoky Mountains, near Great Smoky Mountains National Park, this coming May.

A few years ago several people cornered me and said, “You always do your conventions in the West. Why not bring it east?”  I told them that the majority of attendees come from the West and that our fear is that if we hold it in the East, those people may not come. And if they don’t, we would have a financial disaster that could kill the convention.

Their response was, “We’ll make sure every plein air painter from the East comes, so it won’t matter if people don’t come from the West.”

So I took a chance, booked a facility, and we’re holding our first convention east of the Mississippi. Will it work?

So far, the West is winning.

What I mean is that there are more registrants from the West (in other words, they are coming anyway), but the East is not doing its part. Don’t get me wrong, we have hundreds of people coming from the East. But unless we can see more participation from the East, it could impact future decisions about coming back that way. 

So the challenge is on. Who will win?

If you’re a plein air painter in the East, the driving time to the convention from most of the U.S. is less than a day. This is your opportunity to prove the East has just as many plein air painters as the West. 

If you’re thinking … “I’ll do it another year,” please know we may never be this close to you again. We have four pre-convention workshops: one with Joseph Paquet, one with Indian artist Amit Kapoor, one with pastel artist Aaron Schuerr, and our Essential Techniques Day for beginners, which is a great way to learn the whole plein air thing.

If you don’t know anyone, come anyway. You’ll make friends.

Oh, and the price goes up on Valentine’s Day. So sign up today. www.pleinairconvention.com

If you’re thinking, “I’ll attend the online version of the Plein Air Convention,” we are NOT doing that this year. But if you can’t come to PACE, you can still attend PleinAir Live, coming up in March. This has top masters teaching plein air, but it is not the online version of the convention.

The rumble of rockets soaring through the air and the sight of giant balls of fire in the sky never seem to lose their excitement here on the Space Coast of Florida, where I’m spending much of the winter. They say a big one will make your teeth chatter, something I’ve yet to experience, but a massive rumble and sonic boom are felt with each launch, just 11 miles from my dock. With two or three rockets going up a week, we set our alarms, even in the middle of the night, to experience each launch. So far there have been 10 this year that we’ve been able to view from our dock.

The Rockets’ Red Glare

When friends come to visit, we love watching their jaws drop in amazement when we visit the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. The size and scope of these machines is mind-boggling, as is the tech behind them, and it takes thousands of people to make them fly. Clearly Elon Musk and his team possess something special, doing things others have been unable to accomplish, like landing a spaceship (which we had the pleasure of watching this week) or reusing ships that previously would have become space trash. Of course, later this year NASA’s Artemis mission will take man to the moon again. 

One Small Step

When I was a kid, I watched the moon landing from the National Boy Scout Jamboree at the national park in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I was a reporter for a local Indiana news outlet and won a prize as the most ambitious scout reporter there. I thought by now we would be living on the moon. But at the moment, the closest I can get is to do my own moonshot.

Have you considered your moonshot?

Entrepreneur Peter Diamandis has famously coined the term “moonshot,” meaning the big thing you do in your life that seems impossible to achieve. 

I’ve always thought that if you’re going to live a life, live it with gusto, try to do things that significantly change the world, and live boldly in pursuit of big ideas that seem impossible.

What does YOUR moonshot look like?

Tap into your big dreams, the things you always thought you would do. Then ask yourself, “What about that frightens me? What feels unobtainable?” Then ask yourself, “What else could I do to make it even more spectacular?”

Break It Into Chunks

They always say the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. If you take your giant goal and break it down into small, easier-to-obtain chunks and manageable objectives, it’s easier to track your progress and not be overwhelmed. Sometimes moonshot ideas are so big we can’t do it alone. Who else could you work with who shares a similar vision? Collaboration is a great way to get things done more quickly. 

Expect Things to Turn Out Differently

Whatever you set out to do, it won’t end up exactly the way you envision it. So keep an open mind, and don’t be so set in your ways that you miss better ways of accomplishing your goal. You have to be willing to experiment, and to adapt when you hit obstacles. Expect and embrace obstacles as growth.

Be a Risk-Taker

Not everyone can go to the moon. Only those who are willing to take the risks get the giant rewards.  And stay committed — never give up. I have a moonshot project I’ve been working on for five years. I keep getting kicked in the teeth and discouraged, and I am not letting go. I will find a way. You can too.

Your moonshot does not have to be about space. It’s about ideas so big they seem impossible, ideas that change your world and hopefully the world around you.

What big idea do you want to pursue?

What’s stopping you?

I want to remind you of something I said last week: My father started a company at 70, another at 80, and another at 90. All were moonshots for him. He never told himself he was too old. You’re never too old or too young. Dream big, and execute.

YOU CAN DO THIS!

Eric Rhoads

PS: In spite of Covid being over, our online events designed for Covid times are still getting massive worldwide audiences and continue to be strong. My next one is about landscape and plein air painting, called PleinAir Live, and it’s coming in March. I’ll see you there.

Instead of the sound of rustling trees, rain hitting the tin roof of my long Texas porch, and the chorus of a flurry of birds hanging out in my twisted oaks, I’ve awakened to the slow low rumble of of an elevator, the rattle of an ice machine dropping ice into a cheap plastic bucket, and the knock on my hotel room door and shout of “Housekeeping!”

I’m in Dallas. Yesterday we attended the wedding of the son of two of our favorite friends. It was a perfect day, and it’s fun to see a child we watched grow up become a man and a husband. We wish them well.

Why I Hate Weddings

This wedding was beautiful in every way. I don’t regret attending a bit. In fact, it was loads of fun and I spoke to some interesting folks. But there was a time when I swore I would never attend another wedding in my life. I avoided weddings for over two decades. 

A Rough Moment

When I was a young radio DJ in Miami, I supplemented my income as a wedding photographer. I’m not sure how many weddings I photographed, but it was one too many. My final wedding was the one I screwed up. No matter how many backup cameras, sets of film, and plans for disaster, that time was the perfect storm, and something I did ruined most of the photos. I don’t know if it was a bad batch of film, a processing mistake, a bad light meter, poor exposures, or human error, but I had the displeasure of showing up for the viewing at the family home. 

The anxious bride was on my right, the parents were on my left. Stuttering and stumbling with fear, I had to show them the two dozen photos that turned out OK, and the hundreds that did not. The result was not pleasant. I was loudly berated by the enraged father of the bride and was kicked out of the house. Of course I gave the couple their money back, but I’d botched the photos of their special day. It was one of the toughest days of my young life. I was so mortified that I canceled all the other weddings I had scheduled and swore I’d never do another. And for years I refused to attend weddings because it brought back such a difficult memory.

Looking Back

In hindsight, I should have gotten back on the horse and continued. I was pretty good, well paid, and very entertaining. And I had lessons to learn that would have come in handy in future years. But I was too immature, and pain avoidance was all I wanted at that time. I should not have allowed one angry customer to discourage me. (I’m lucky I didn’t get sued, but then again, all I had was my 72 VW and some cameras.)

Photographer to the Stars

Picture this. It’s 1977, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack is the number one album worldwide, and the Bee Gees are at the top of their game. Their sound engineer, Carl, was an icon in the recording industry, and he fell in love with the receptionist at the radio station in Miami where I was working as the night DJ. The couple hired me as their wedding photographer. So I showed up at the beachfront park in Miami to learn that the wedding included the Gibb brothers … all of the Bee Gees, and their little brother, Andy. Here I am, posing some of the most famous people in the world in wedding photos. It was a little intimidating.

At the reception Robin Gibb invited me to sit with them and invited me to an afterparty at their house. I politely declined, but kicked myself later; I should have attended. But I had to go on the radio later that night — and I was so insecure that I did not feel deserving. In hindsight, someone could have filled in for me on the air. 

Thankfully, those wedding photos turned out perfectly. 

My Best Marriage Advice?

When I got married, all the older couples were giving me their best marriage advice, but it fell on deaf ears. And I resisted the urge to take the young couple aside at the wedding yesterday because anything I had to say would also fall on deaf ears. There are days when I wonder how even my wife puts up with me. Here’s what I wanted to tell them, but didn’t.

• Love changes. I always heard this, but never believed it would happen to me. You go from that euphoric feeling of being in love to a level of mature love. The changes usually start about year three and peak at around year seven, which is why those are the most dangerous times for a marriage. Mature love is so much different. You care as deeply, probably more, sometimes less, but as the euphoria wears off, you get closer to real life — kids, jobs, mortgages, problems and challenges, what to do with your money, how to raise your kids, the impact of your faith, etc. It’s actually better, but it’s easy to look back at the feeling of early love and crave it. If you know this will happen, you’re less likely to do something stupid trying to regain that feeling.
• Up till now you’ve been living with campaign promises, and now that you’re married, all the pretending will slowly disappear. One friend of mine had never seen his wife without makeup until after they’d been married for a while. Another reported that he no longer closes the bathroom door and no longer hides passing gas. You’ll start seeing the real person behind the actor or actress you’ve been dating the past few years. Don’t let it shock you. Embrace the fact that the real person is better than the person running for office.
• The person you marry will change, and you will change. Ten years out, they won’t be the same person. Twenty or thirty years later, they will have changed dramatically. That’s not a bad thing. It’s like fine wine; we all mature. Again: Embrace change.
• The moment you get married, you’ll discover people want what they can’t have. You become more attractive. There will always be shiny objects who will try to grab you when you’re vulnerable. Don’t ever put yourself in a position to take advantage of it.
• You’ve both been on the hunt … seeking the perfect mate. And you developed a lot of habits you now need to shed. You’re used to trying to win, to conquer. Now you have won the best prize of all, so put your conqueror behavior aside. It’s not even cool to flirt with others. Just understand you have to lose the habit or it could lead you to big problems.
• Speaking of shiny objects: If you shed one marriage for another, the things you don’t like about your previous mate will tend to show up again and again. I have this on good authority from a friend who has been married five times and finally admitted HE was the problem all along.
• You’re a team now. Partners. You’re used to making your own decisions, but you can’t do that anymore. All major decisions require both of you to agree. Don’t dominate. Be a true partner. Things will go smoother.
• Your money isn’t your money anymore. You share it unless you’ve made specific arrangements otherwise. This was a hard one for me. I used to buy things without input, or I’d buy them anyway, even after input. I slip into that behavior once in a while still, but these decisions should be shared.
• Try to agree on who does what up front. Don’t just assume that she will do the cooking and dishes or stay home with the kids. Don’t just assume he’s the one who is going to work to support everyone. Figure this out before you get married.
• Don’t think you can change their mind after you’re married. Make sure you talk about every possible scenario, and if the person you’re with says they don’t want kids, or want to work when you don’t want that, take heed and listen. Have the difficult discussions. Get premarital counseling.
• The “D word” is never an option. Agree up front that no matter how bad things get, you’ll never threaten divorce. You’ll think about it hundreds of times in your marriage when things are not going your way or when you have rough patches. Never make it an option. If before you get married you’re thinking, “If things don’t work out, we’ll simply divorce,” don’t get married. You’re not committed.
• You’re not going to be easy to live with. Whatever you’re whining about because it’s their fault is 50 percent your fault, you’re just not seeing it. You’re in this together.
• When you’re upset, don’t start name-calling. Remember, some things will resonate for years, and some things you can never take back. If you’re angry and about to say bad things, you’re allowed to say instead, “I’m angry and might say the wrong thing, so let’s continue this discussion in an hour” or “tomorrow.” But do always go back to resolve it.
• Don’t keep bringing up old arguments over and over. You get to bring it up one time, not every time you get angry. Get over it. We all make mistakes.
• Honesty is important, but there are some things you should never share with your spouse. If it’s something that might haunt them forever, keep it to yourself.
• The number one reason for divorce is people feeling as though their mate is not paying attention to them anymore. Most divorce happens between year three and year seven, or after couples become empty-nesters. When you were campaigning, you worked really hard at showing them you care. When that goes away, your partner no longer feels special. Find ways to keep the attention fresh and new and show that you still care, even if you’re married a hundred years.
• If you’re going to take sides, side with your spouse, not with your family or parents. Doing anything else is a quick road to division. Even if you disagree, suck it up and support your mate. You’re not married to your family.
• Communicate about what you each need, daily or weekly. Live up to it.
• If you’re getting married for financial security or to escape your parents or to get away from an ex, run for the hills. Those are stupid reasons. Marrying for money is empty once you realize that all the money in the world, all the stuff, won’t make you happy.
  
• Communicate up front about your faith. It never seems like a big deal if you don’t agree, until you have kids. Then suddenly it matters and you want to raise your kids the way you were raised. Conflict will arise. And it might not be healthy to confuse your kids.
• Christmas, birthdays ,and major holidays hold family traditions. We used to get our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, my wife’s family got the tree Christmas Eve. I wasted a lot of time and energy debating these cultural things, and there were lots of hard feelings. Decide in advance.
• Most men change significantly between 25 and 35. Most women change significantly between 20 and 30. What you want and need and who you are will change. Wait it out if you can. But if you can’t, you need to be willing to live with what each of you has become. Growing apart isn’t an option. Stay committed. You can get through anything. Even arranged marriages end up with people coming to love one another over time.
• Addictions destroy relationships. Take it very seriously if your spouse is giving you clues about your addictions. Listen and change.
• Make it clear up front that you will never tolerate physical abuse of you or your kids — or emotional abuse. Put him or her on notice that the first time they get physical is the last time they will see you. There are no excuses, and no apology that would ever be enough. If you love someone, you don’t hit them, ever, or threaten to.
• People who give up who they are and what they love resent it. Respect the passions of your spouse and make room for them.
• Don’t clam up. Say what needs to be said, no matter how painful

Nothing is ever perfect. The movies sell perfection that does not exist. If you don’t expect perfection, you’ll be a lot happier.

I’m looking forward to the day when my kids find their soulmates and I can have them ignore my advice. But at least I’ll feel as though I tried. 

Happy Sunday,

Eric Rhoads

PS: A note to my bride. I know when you see this list you’ll realize that I’m aware of the things I should be doing that I’m not doing. I’ll try harder. I know I’m hard to live with, I know I drive you crazy, and I know I do stupid things. Still, I adore you. You’re as beautiful as the day I married you, smarter than I knew at the time, and your advice has been valuable and helped me in ways you cannot comprehend, even though I was often resistant to it. Thanks for being my partner in life.

PS 2: Though I love Christmas, I hate the pressure of shopping and gift-giving. I love to give people what they want, but I don’t love buying things not knowing whether they will like them.

I still don’t know what I want. I honestly can’t think of a thing, yet people are asking. But surprises are wonderful. The best gifts are the ones you make.

PS 3: It all clicked when I stood in front of Anders Zorn’s watercolor paintings in Sweden. Then I went to the home of Stanislaw Zoladz and saw watercolors that I couldn’t believe could be made by a human being. So I’m painting in watercolor and gouache more than ever. I’m loving it. It has given me a fresh perspective on painting, I’m learning and growing in new ways, and I’m having fun experimenting. This week I copied two Zorn masterpieces. I did one that I’ve spent five nights painting.

What I realized through all of this is that I never could do what I’m doing had I not attended Watercolor Live online last January. When I find challenges I don’t know how to solve, I’m able to pull the answers out of my head because they were taught to me during that four-day event. It truly does change you; I’m living proof. As the host, I can’t watch every segment. But there is something to this immersion-training thing. 

Reward yourself with a ticket. www.watercolorlive.com Yes, you can do it even if you don’t think you have talent. Oh, and it’s a great Christmas gift.

PS 4
Other cool gifts 

• For art lovers: Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. www.fineartconnoisseur.com
• For artists: PleinAir Magazine. www.pleinairmagazine.com
• For artists who want to find their inner master: videos at www.painttube.tv
• For artists who want to stop dropping brushes: Easel Brush Clip. www.easelbrushclip.com
• For artists who want to learn to see values: Value Specs. https://painttube.tv/products/paint-by-note-red-glasses