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 away

00:10 — 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 guarantees

John Singer Sargent

El Jaleo

The Last Judgment

Moby-Dick

Dracula

The Lord of the Rings

In Part 2 of our conversation with painter Eric J. Drummond, the focus shifts from discipline and craft to something harder: the tension between the work and the world around it.

We get into what it actually means to spend months on a single painting and how that patience is something Eric had to grow into, not something he started with. From there, the conversation moves into the realities of commissioned work: negotiating with clients, balancing truth with expectation, and knowing when a piece is finished versus when it simply has to be delivered.

Eric shares the three core questions behind every portrait: how you see yourself, how others see you, and how you want to be seen. And how those tensions shape the final work.

From there, things widen out:

• The trap of “exposure” and paying to be seen
• Why social media often works against the kind of art he’s trying to make
• Drawing a line between promotion and becoming an “influencer”
• Finding ways to stay honest in how you present your work

The conversation also explores how to make work you don’t naturally gravitate toward — and how to find meaning inside it anyway. From Tolkien’s landscapes to the idea of environment as a living participant, we talk about how artists create connection even when the subject doesn’t initially resonate.

In the second half, the discussion turns philosophical:

• Can you create something truly transcendent in a secular world?
• What makes a piece of art feel real beyond what’s physically there?
• The idea of creating one “true” work — and why artists chase something they can’t fully define

From Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam to the balance between simplicity and complexity, Eric breaks down what it means to “catch lightning in a bottle” and why great work leaves space for the audience to complete it.

We close on the modern tension: algorithms, AI, commodification, and whether all of it might actually push truly human work to stand out even more.

This is Part 2 of a three-part conversation.

00:12 — Part 2 begins

00:22 — Taking months to complete a painting

01:37 — Commission work vs personal work

02:29 — Working with clients and creative compromise

03:26 — The three questions behind every portrait

04:09 — Adjusting the work vs staying true to it

05:12 — “I’m getting paid to paint” — perspective and trade-offs

05:34 — The trap of “exposure” and pay-to-play

06:31 — Art vs product: where does value come from?

07:20 — Social media vs real artwork

08:02 — Promotion vs becoming an influencer

09:11 — Creative energy vs marketing fatigue

10:44 — Sharing context vs performing online

11:16 — Making work you don’t love (and finding a way in)

11:37 — Tolkien and making environments feel alive

13:45 — Lyrics, language, and meaning

14:10 — Words as carriers of meaning

15:45 — Can art be transcendent without something higher?

17:26 — Ego, humility, and answering to something beyond yourself

18:18 — The idea of one “true” painting

18:40 — Michelangelo and The Creation of Adam

21:11 — What makes something feel “real”

22:25 — Perfection vs balance in art

24:59 — Leaving room for the audience

26:03 — “Make art for artists” — and why that fails

27:54 — Systems that reward safe, formulaic work

29:11 — Opting out vs playing the game

29:33 — AI, oversaturation, and human work

30:48 — Live performance and authenticity

31:12 — Could AI actually help art?

33:07 — Focusing on what you can control

34:35 — Hope, quality, and what endures

In this episode of The War with Art, we welcome painter Eric J. Drummond — a figurative artist trained in classical realism at the Florence Academy of Art.

Eric builds his work slowly and deliberately, committed to beauty, discipline, and craft in a culture that often rewards speed and noise. He also happens to be the teacher of our own co-host, Eric Vedder — which makes this conversation personal as well as philosophical.

We talk about what it actually looks like to begin a day in the studio — the rituals, the warmups, the sharpening of pencils and clearing of distractions — and why starting is often the hardest part of any creative practice.

From there, the conversation moves into deeper territory:

• The tension between tradition and innovation
• Following rules vs breaking them
• When technique becomes a cage
• Why your weaknesses might actually become your voice

Eric reflects on his time studying in Florence, the insecurity of leaving that world behind, and a pivotal piece of advice he received: your weaknesses will become your strengths.

We explore what that means across disciplines — painting, music, writing — and why the very flaws you try to correct may be the thing that makes your work singular.

This is Part 1 of a three-part conversation.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Timestamps

00:09 — Introducing Eric J. Drummond

02:05 — What starting a studio day really looks like

03:09 — The hardest part: beginning

04:25 — Blocking in, bravery, and not getting precious

06:11 — Writing equivalents and creative rituals

08:54 — The sacred side of routine and warming up

12:28 — Discipline, the gym, and incremental growth

14:59 — Classical realism and the tension of rules

17:08 — “Your weaknesses will become your strengths”

18:43 — Flaws as style: Tolkien, Pontormo, and vulnerability

21:53 — Control, improvisation, and creative fear

25:23 — Tradition vs pushing the needle forward

27:04 — Moving beyond imitation