About me
For the past fifteen years my artistic passion has been plein air landscape painting! This offers a never ending challenge and a constant stream of fresh experiences. Painting en plein air gets its name from the French for outside in the open air. Artists love fancy words for simple things.
Plein air painting is currently the fastest growing movement in art. There is an annual convention with draws over a thousand painters world wide. Plein air festivals take place somewhere almost every week of the year.
Painting outdoors from life has a long history. Artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci would bring sketching materials into the field to record nature as they saw it. The practice really took off in the 19th Century with the introduction of tubed paints. This made it easier for artists to bring their materials on location. The Impressionists in France were inspired by capturing the shifting light on subjects observed directly. Artists who followed such as Vincent Van Gogh and John Singer Sargent worked en plein air to produce finished canvases. Others such as the artists of the Hudson River School and the Canadian Group of Seven would produce plain air studies and sketches that they would use as references for large, finished studio works. Our local Adirondacks were an inspiration for such noted artists as Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington. I have set up my easel and painted the same views from the same spots as some of the legends of painting. It is a humbling experience.
Working en plein air offers both artistic and practical challenges. The potential subjects are unlimited and the world is vastly larger than even the biggest canvas. What to include and what to leave out? Do you paint a sweeping panoramic visit? Or focus in on a tiny delicate flower? How do you capture the colors and light of nature?
“Conditions are always changing. The sun moves across the sky, causing shadows to shift and bringing to light new details. Clouds come and go. There are the challenges posed by weather, it can be scorching hot, freezing cold, windy or pouring rain. Curious onlookers both human and animal can provide close encounters. More than one horse or cow has decorated its nose with a splotch of paint from an artist’s canvas!”
“There are moments of sheer magic. I have had a mink sun itself on the rocks by my easel while I quietly painted. Birds have perched and posed for portraits. Nothing beats the sounds of a mountain stream on a quiet afternoon. There is a wonder shared with people who may be watching a working artist for the first time. “Where is the photograph?” “I live in that house!” “It’s like magic to watch!”
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