Plein Air Art Podcast · PleinAir Magazine

Four Painters Share Their Best Advice

·1 hr 52 min·5 clips

Bill Schneider says drawing is "the most trainable" because it comes down to length and direction.

1. Plein Air Art Podcast episode 251 centers on a live four-artist discussion about personal style, painting problems, and artistic growth. 2. Eric Rhodes leads the panel, with guests Jill Stephanie Wagner, Albert Handel, Aaron Schur, and William A. Schneider, each speaking as working painters with different approaches. 3. The episode asks how artists find a voice, recover from blocks, and move to the next level without losing honesty in the work. 4. Jill Stephanie Wagner says a mentor told her, "your style will come to you," not the other way around. 5. Jill says she painted one subject 25 times, using river stones, and that the series helped her build a recognizable direction. 6. Albert Handel describes struggling with oils, feeling depressed by a process that no longer worked, and then finding pastel after an ACA Gallery show was approaching. 7. Albert says pastel felt "like a fish going into water," and he says it changed how he sees transparency in both pastel and oils. 8. Bill Schneider says he stopped chasing a pension consulting career and returned to art because "art is a calling." 9. Bill says drawing is "the most trainable" part of painting and reduces it to length and direction. 10. Bill recommends copying masterworks at least once a month, citing Sargent, Sorolla, Velazquez, Chopin, Bach, Rachmaninoff, and the Beatles. 11. Aaron Schur says style comes from being a student, making "glorious mistakes," and painting from life. 12. Aaron says plein air painting matters because it shares "my experience of a place" instead of just replicating a scene. 13. Aaron says he prefers being outside because light changes quickly and he has to be decisive within a couple of hours. 14. Aaron describes using paired questions like "too light or too dark" and "too warm or too cool" to guide himself while painting. 15. Jill says she started painting again around age 48 after art school at the University of Michigan, then later moved into advertising. 16. Jill says she writes down what she loves about a scene, identifies the focal point, and makes a value study before touching paint or pastel. 17. The panel has a practical, conversational tone, with Eric Rhodes interrupting for follow-up questions and the guests answering in long, direct turns. 18. The format feels like a live roundtable, with several guest voices overlapping on topics such as comparison, discipline, and solving visual problems. 19. Painters looking for style, discipline, and studio habits. 20. Listeners wanting narrative storytelling or beginner-only basics.

As heard by us

Four guests turn artist-path questions into practical advice on style, composition, and simplification.

Eric Rhodes keeps the episode practical, and the four guests give it useful range. Albert Handel, William A. Schneider, Jill Stephanie Wagner, and Aaron Schur each leave a mark as the discussion moves through an artist's path, style, composition, and the habits that help…

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Why you'd press play

Four painters answer the questions you keep asking about your path as an artist, with style, composition, and simplification in the mix.

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