Why Paint Plein Air?
Plein air painting is the practice of painting outdoors from direct observation of nature.

When I tell people that I do most of my painting on location I know in the back of their minds they are wondering “what’s up with that - why’s isn’t he painting in the comfort of his studio.”

I have a plein air workshop scheduled for April, so I figure it might be helpful if I can put words to why I think plein air work is so crucial to developing as an artist.

The camera is a poor substitution for the human eye
When I was first studying art I used to hear people talk about how the camera cannot capture all that we can see. I’d nod and I thought I knew what they were talking about. As I’ve developed as an artist I now realize that I didn’t really appreciate the extent to which this statement is true. The camera either washes out the highlights or loses all color variation in the shadows. The camera can only capture a limited range of values and colors whereas the eye can see the full range. Once you begin to see this difference (and it takes quite a bit of practice to really appreciate the magnitude of this difference) you can never go back. I now feel as if I have my hands tied behind my back if I need to paint in the studio without at a minimum having plein air sketches and my memory of the location to supplement any photo reference.

Forced to paint fast and loose
I started painting plein air to loosen my painting up When I caught myself standing in front of a big canvas with these little brushes I concluded I needed to shake things up. This was the moment I starting painting in the field. When painting plein air you have no choice but to paint fast and loose. You have about 90 minutes to capture the light (and sometimes much less time). You learn to observer more accurately, paint more decisively, and you build a visual memory that will serve you well for the rest of your life.

Opportunity to really learn how light and atmosphere affect all that we see
When your try plein air for the first time you’re likely to find it very difficult and frustrating. Even accomplished painters struggle when first painting from nature. There is just so much information and things are changing all the time. However, working through this adversity lets you slowly build up a much greater understanding of how light and atmosphere (moisture, haze, etc.) effect what we see. This knowledge will ultimately help inform all your painting. Just know going in that your first dozen paintings are going to stink and go easy on yourself. It’s well worth the effort because your paintings will get better and – likely exceeding where you were with your studio work.

Healthier way to work
Since I’ve been painting plein air I’ve noticed a notable improvement in my health. Physically I can now stand for an entire day (or week :-) without experiencing any discomfort or pain, and mentally I feel refreshed. When outside there is no accumulation of dust (when working with pastels) or solvents (when working with oils). The sunshine is good for us and gives us an opportunity to add some vitamin D to the system (studies are showing we take in WAY too little vitamin D). To top it off, the University of Essex found that spending time in nature is the equivalent of taking a dose of an anti-depressant. So cut back on the Prozac and start plein air painting!

Stay away from the computer
Plein air painting keeps you away from the computer and other day-to-day interruptions. It’s easy to get sidetracked when working in the studio and I’m much more focused when painting on location.

Makes driving more enjoyable
Everywhere I go I see more: more color, interesting compositions, negative shapes. To top it off all these bits of information help inform my painting. Painting plein air teaches you to process vast amounts of information and to wean it down into the fewest possible number of marks to express a feeling or sense of place. This ability then makes it possible to process scenes while speeding down the highway. You’d be amazed at how much more enjoyable this visual acuity can make a long road trip.

Camaraderie of painting with other like-minded people
I started this piece lamenting that most people have a hard time understanding why we paint outdoors in the first place. Doing it with others that have tasted the joy and understand the benefits of painting this way helps confirm that we’re not insane :-)

Joy of being outdoors
Plus it’s just a joy to be outdoors.

California Winter Paintings

Last week I took advantage of the 'good weather' in California and got out painting plein air a solid 5 days. All things are relative, and with record cold temperatures everywhere across the US and Europe except the Pacific coast I figured 55-65 degree highs were nothing to take lightly.

The days were generally overcast. In the past I've been turned off when painting these kinds of days. Interestingly I'm finding that by immersing myself in the the overcast weather I'm discovering a whole new appreciation for the various forms of gray sky.

I'm even getting a bit addicted. One morning I was painting a beautiful foggy valley and when the sun suddenly broke out I found I was disappointed.

Here are two of my pieces from the week. What do you think? Can overcast paintings still deliver an upbeat emotional response?

Poplar Beach, Half Moon Bay

Here's another of my favorite locations of late for plein air painting.


Cliff-Defying
Pastel
12x16

Poplar Beach in Half Moon Bay offers dramatic views. Take the pathway South from the parking lot, and you come to this cyprus grove overhanging a cliff.



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Pastel Underpainting

A number of times I’ve been asked about my pastel underpainting process. I’ve developed a unique technique of using a monotone (or sometimes duotone) underpainting to start my pastels. Here’s an example of a painting done on location in Half Moon Bay California. This was a beautiful day in December looking East around 10am.

I started with a few quick sketches each around 2” x 3” to try different compositions. From this I quickly moved to blocking in a composition using a water-based media on Wallis sanded paper mounted on museum board.

My goal when underpainting is to block in the major shapes and relative values to develop the composition. I do this fast and loose. Using a single color makes it very easy to add and subtract paint rapidly without concern for the color composition or for colors going muddy. I also like using a uniform color because later I’ll let some hits of underpainting color peak through the pastel and the consistent color adds cohesion to the painting. I also often use very vivid colors to add liveliness to the finished painting.

For this painting I primarily used magenta gouache (Bengal Rose by Winsor Newton). Near the end of the process I also used a darker blue to push some of the darker values since the magenta isn’t very dark even when used thick and full strength.

When I’m using a toned support (this was Wallis Belgian Mist) I sometimes find that bits of the paper color peaking through a very light value sky can be distracting. For this reason I blocked in some very light values where I anticipated I’d be adding clouds.

Here you can see the start of the underpainting in relation to the site.



And here's the finished underpainting.









For this underpainting I used 2 colors plus white (duotone). I’ll often only use just a single color (most recently I've been drawn to magentas), and I find this works really nicely as well.



And then the final piece …

Cleaning Up Photos of Paintings in Photoshop

Artists often struggle to get good professional looking photos of their work. It used to be very important when shooting slides to have pristine lighting conditions and to shoot bracketing shots at various exposures. But in this digital age I have found that with Adobe Photoshop the quality of the photo is much less important (within limits).

In my critic group I was explaining the steps I take to cleanup photos of my paintings. There was a fair amount of interest, so I thought I’d write it up for those that are curious. Following this process I can now reliably touch up a photo in just a few minutes.

First - it's a good idea to have your computer monitor calibrated. I use a product called 'color munki' from x-rite. Otherwise you might adjust a photo to look good on your monitor, but it will look wrong/incorrect elsewhere. The first time you calibrate your monitor you will probably find that the monitor needed to be tweaked quite a bit (which incidentally also points out that anyone viewing your work without a calibrated monitor is likely to see variability in the colors, so don’t get too worried about perfection if you are only cleaning up photos for use on the web).

I photograph artwork in my studio. I'm fortunate that I have good natural light, and I often rely on this. But I also have good artificial light with a mix of full-spectrum bulbs - and I find I can take photos at night with acceptable results. The photo must be in focus and evenly lit with no hot spots. But color temperature and dim lighting can be adjusted. The photo should also be nice and square in the viewfinder (it should look like a rectangle with 90 degree corners – not like a trapezoid).

Once I have the photo, these are the steps I take with Photoshop to clean it up:

• Crop - cut the photo down to just the artwork. Be sure to square up the horizon line at this point if it doesn't appear level. In photoshop you can correct the horizon by dragging the mouse outside the crop box to slightly rotate the image to get the horizon level if necessary. Another great trick is to shrink the crop box so that the bottom edge overlaps the horizon, then rotate so the bottom of the crop box aligns with the horizon, and then re-stretch the crop box. This takes a lot of the guesswork out of the alignment process.
• Levels - Under Image->Adjustments->Levels you will find a tool that shows a spectrograph of how much information you have across the full value range. You’ll almost always find that you have no information within the darkest darks or lightest lights. With this tool, you can slide the sliders to ‘cut out’ these unused area, and photoshop will re-stretch your existing values across the full value range. This makes a huge difference.
• Color Balance (Image->Adjustments->Color Balance) - this lets you separately adjust the highlights, midtones and shadows. I find that if I adjust the highlights very slightly towards yellow and the shadows very slightly towards blue this usually brings the photo closer to the original artwork.
• Exposure (Image->Adjustments->Exposure) - sometimes I take the exposure down just a touch if after these previous steps the photo seems too bright or over saturated.

If you’re unfamiliar with the tools I’ve mentioned, use Photoshop help to get some additional instructions on using any of these tools. Good luck.