Plein Air Painting

 

                  Keepers of the Creek

 

“Plein air” is a fancy French term that simply means outdoors or fresh air. In America, outdoor painting and sketching came into it own during the 1800’s with the invention of the paint tube; artists of every stripe, suddenly released from studio confines, were free to roam the countryside and paint wherever they chose.

Hudson River School painter Asher Durand advised, “The most valuable study has been under the open sky. Go forth and listen to nature’s teaching,  while from all around earth and her still waters,  and the  depth  of air,  comes a still voice.”            

For decades abstract art has dominated the art world, forcing any type of figurative work to the back corner. In recent years, however,  a  resurgent interest in landscape painting is propelling an unprecedented number of artists out their studio doors, to explore and absorb nature’s teaching first hand. Perhaps our growing awareness of the fragility of the earth is giving landscape painting a new meaning and a new purpose. 

Beginnings

Touch of Gold

As a plein air painter I paint the old fashioned way as did Frederick Church and Asher Durand, who hiked into woods and across fields carrying their precious paints and brushes. I like to think I have their nineteenth century spirit and am as tough as they were, but truth is, I'm a fair weather outdoor painter; with the first blast of arctic air in November, I head to a warm studio, hot coffee in hand.

My studio is housed in a great old dairy barn that came complete with a family of raccoons, ten thousand ladybugs (no lie), and the smell of cows in the tractor shed. Rain poured through where roof shingles had once been, and winter winds howled through weathered old barn boards, yet it still stood proud, waiting for someone to care. ( . . . but that is another story)