by Eric, George, & Sheldon
The weekly podcast that helps you fight your creative battles! Hosted by three professional game developers by day, and writer (S. M. Carter), musician (George Spanos), and artist (Eric Vedder) by night. See liner notes for each show at warwithart.com
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
11/29/2017
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May 28, 2026
<p>In this episode, we pull another card from Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s legendary Oblique Strategies deck — this time landing on the deceptively simple prompt:</p><p></p><p>“Do something sudden.”</p><p></p><p>Joined by painter Eric J. Drummond, the conversation turns into an exploration of improvisation, instinct, risk, and the strange balance between structure and spontaneity in creative work.</p><p></p><p>We talk about the paralysis that comes from overthinking, why artists sometimes need to force movement before they fully understand where they’re going, and how “suddenness” can break creative stagnation.</p><p></p><p>Eric reflects on the tension between the rigid technical training he teaches students and the fluid, intuitive process he actually uses in his own drawing and painting practice. From gesture drawing to improvisational mark-making, the discussion explores how mistakes, accidents, and risk often become the doorway to something alive.</p><p></p><p>Timestamps:</p><p></p><p>00:08 — Introduction to Oblique Strategies and the “Do something sudden” card</p><p>02:24 — Overthinking, instinct, and breaking creative paralysis</p><p>04:04 — Improvisation, happy accidents, and fluid drawing</p><p>06:28 — Forced momentum and creating without hesitation</p><p>07:43 — Brutal artistic critique and learning through reaction</p><p>10:16 — Risk, spontaneity, and disrupting creative comfort zones</p><p>12:16 — The Beatles, improvisation, and art as play</p><p>15:13 — Jazz, Pollock, and letting the work evolve naturally</p><p>16:30 — Characters, paintings, and works “taking on a life of their own”</p><p>18:17 — Horror, artistic limits, beauty vs violence, and the role of improvisation</p>
May 6, 2026
<p>In this bonus episode with painter Eric J. Drummond, the conversation narrows in on something fundamental: what it actually means to take responsibility for a creative life.</p><p></p><p>We start with risk—not as a single leap, but as a series of decisions that compound over time. From pursuing art as a career to building something bigger like a school, Eric frames the path not as optional, but as something closer to a calling—one shaped by influence, instinct, and a willingness to listen.</p><p></p><p>From there, the discussion moves into teaching and legacy. Eric talks about skill as a form of cultural inheritance—something that has to be passed on—and why modern art education often misses the mark by focusing too heavily on theory over execution. What he’s after instead is an atelier-style model: learning by doing, building peers, and ultimately creating artists who surpass their teachers.</p><p>We also get into the reality of doubt—especially as a teacher. When are you “good enough” to teach? How do you avoid becoming the kind of teacher who limits students instead of pushing them forward? For Eric, the answer isn’t perfection—it’s honesty, experience, and a commitment to the student over the ego.</p><p></p><p>The second half turns toward failure and self-critique. Eric shares a recent painting he believes didn’t work—not because of a lack of skill, but because of poor planning and impatience. It becomes a case study in scale, composition, and the cost of rushing the process. And yet, the audience responded positively—highlighting the gap between how artists see their work and how others experience it.</p><p></p><p>Throughout, there’s a consistent thread: the tension between internal standards and external validation, and the long process of learning how to live with both.</p><p>This is a bonus episode following the three-part series.</p><p></p>Timestamps<p>00:16 — Creative risk as a series of decisions</p><ul><li>Not one leap—multiple commitments over time</li><li>Art as responsibility, not just pursuit</li></ul><p>01:30 — The feeling of a “calling”</p><ul><li>Influence of family, taste, early signals</li><li>Balancing ambition with humility</li></ul><p>03:20 — Teaching as legacy</p><ul><li>Skill as cultural inheritance</li><li>Atelier model vs modern theory-heavy systems</li></ul><p>04:30 — What students actually need</p><ul><li>Not ideas—tools to execute them</li><li>Technique first, expression second</li></ul><p>06:00 — Doubt as a teacher</p><ul><li>Fear of not being “good enough”</li><li>Success = students surpassing you</li></ul><p>06:50 — Good teachers vs bad teachers</p><ul><li>Insecurity limits students</li><li>Strong teachers push beyond themselves</li></ul><p>09:45 — Career mistakes and lessons</p><ul><li>Working with people who don’t value you</li><li>Learning to align with respect</li></ul><p>11:20 — Relationship to his own work</p><ul><li>Sees paintings as lessons, not finished statements</li><li>Keeps work as a record of mistakes</li></ul><p>13:20 — Case study: a failed painting</p><ul><li>Art Bears the Soul to Man</li><li>Poor planning + time pressure → overcrowded composition</li></ul><p>17:40 — Artist vs audience perception</p><ul><li>Viewers liked what he didn’t</li><li>Process vs outcome gap</li></ul><p>19:00 — Overthinking vs instinct</p><ul><li>Tension between refining and overworking</li><li>Letting the work “be the work”</li></ul><p>Final — The core lesson</p><ul><li>Growth through iteration and honesty</li><li>Patience as a fundamental skill</li></ul>Referenced in this episode<ul><li>Dune (visual composition reference)</li><li>Russian historical painting (czar coronation imagery)</li><li>Classical atelier / apprenticeship model (concept)</li></ul>
April 1, 2026
Part 3 of our conversation with Eric J. Drummond begins in a place most artists avoid talking about directly: not inspiration — but blockage. After finishing a major piece, Eric finds himself stuck. The ideas are there — murals, allegories, portraits — but they won’t translate. They exist as a kind of “fog,” just out of reach.What follows is a clear look at how work actually resumes:* Study leads to a new direction.* Portrait evolves mid-process.* One idea hands off to the next.* The process isn’t linear — it’s iterative and reactive.* From there, the conversation shifts into portraiture and memory. Not just capturing how someone looks, but whether the work feels like them. Eric shares the experience of painting his grandfather from memory — and the moment it was recognized as true through a single detail. That opens into a broader set of ideas:* Art as a way of preserving something intangible — presence, gesture, memory — and carrying it forward.* The final stretch turns to the bigger tension:* How to build something meaningful with your skills* How to draw from the past without being trapped by it* And how to make work that feels rooted in your own place and time* We close on the reality underneath it all:* The gap between what you feel and what you can make* The isolation of carrying that internally* And the understanding that this tension never fully goes awayTimestamps00:10 — Part 3 begins 00:20 — Creative block and the “fog” of ideas 02:14 — Too many directions, no clear start 04:00 — Starting small: studies and momentum 05:21 — The process as a relay, not a plan 07:23 — Returning to ideas with new clarity 10:31 — Why likeness isn’t enough in portraiture 11:45 — The gap between feeling and ability 12:51 — The moment a portrait feels true 15:00 — Art as memory across time 16:33 — Working with history in a modern context 18:03 — Taste, exposure, and composition 20:28 — Moving toward something distinctly Canadian 22:20 — Once you have skill — what do you make? 24:28 — The loneliness of being an artist 25:28 — Risk, uncertainty, and no guaranteesReferenced in this episodeJohn Singer Sargent El Jaleo The Last Judgment Moby-Dick Dracula The Lord of the Rings
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The weekly podcast that helps you fight your creative battles!
Hosted by three professional game developers by day, and writer (S. M. Carter), musician (George Spanos), and artist (Eric Vedder) by night.
See liner notes for each show at warwithart.com
This podcast updates bi-weekly.
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