Episode 85 - Eric Rhoads

Artists of New England

Eric Rhoads is an artist, an author, a marketing expert, and a career entrepreneur, with several decades of launching and building businesses and more than 40 years’ experience in radio broadcasting, 35 years in publishing, and two decades in the art industry. Rhoads is founder and CEO of Streamline Publishing, Inc., which creates consumer and trade magazines, digital media properties, virtual conventions, live conventions and events, and art instruction videos. He entered the art world after taking his first art lessons. When his wife asked him to remove the smell of paint from their home due to her pregnancy with triplets, he started painting outside and eventually discovered other plein air painters, which made him believe it was the beginning of a movement. Since he made his living as a publisher, Rhoads started PleinAir, his first art magazine. Streamline’s art brands include: Fine Art Connoisseur, a magazine for affluent art collectors PleinAir, a magazine about the outdoor painting movement for painters and collectors (and the top-selling art magazine in America at Barnes & Noble stores) American Watercolor Weekly Fine Art Today Plein Air Today Realism Today Streamline’s broadcast brands include Radio Ink, Radio + Television Business Report, and Podcast Business Journal. Streamline’s events include the Plein Air Convention & Expo; the Figurative Art Convention & Expo; the Publisher’s Invitational Painters’ Retreat in the Adirondacks; the Fall Color Week artists’ retreat; the Fine Art Connoisseur Fine Art Tour; PleinAir Live, the first virtual art convention in history; Realism Live, a virtual convention; and Watercolor Live, also a virtual event. Streamline also holds the annual PleinAir Salon art competition, offering a $15,000 grand prize and over $27,000 in cash prizes, and the Artists & Selfie competition, with a total of $44,000 in prizes. Rhoads conducts the weekly PleinAir Art Podcast, which has had millions of downloads. He interviews artists and offers art marketing advice. He can be found daily on Facebook Live and YouTube Live (@streamlineartvideo). In 2010 Rhoads decided to devote his life to eliminating the “starving artist” by putting his decades of marketing experience to work for artists. He began an art marketing blog, ArtMarketing.com, which contains articles to help artists overcome marketing issues and learn how to take control of their careers. He then started doing Art Marketing Boot Camp live at the Plein Air Convention and has since produced a series of six video training courses about art marketing. He is also the creator of ART MARKETING IN A BOX, a program that helps artists with their marketing by offering pre-written campaigns. Rhoads is the author of the Amazon best-selling book Make More Money Selling Your Art. He also produces a weekly Art Marketing Minute podcast. In an effort to educate, inspire, and inform artists, and to preserve their techniques for historical purposes and to help others learn, Rhoads founded Streamline Art Video in 2014. Upon the passing of the founders of two competitors, he was asked by their families to carry the businesses forward; therefore Streamline now operates Liliedahl Video Productions and Creative Catalyst Productions. The company also operates PaintTube.TV, an art instruction channel that can be found on Roku, Amazon Fire, and Apple TV. The companies together offer more than 400 videos from over 150 artists. Streamline recently produced its first printed art instruction book, Unlimited Color with a Limited Palette, with author John Pototschnik.