Update 5.2 Plein Air Wisdom

Color and drawing decisions made painting outside need to be quick, but not rash; accurate, but not obsessive and confident but not insistent. The trick to then working indoors from photographs is to use all this information in an honest, not artificial way. It's all about the painting after all.

I am re-posting a previous essay I wrote on plein air painting:

True Magicians

Contemporary Plein-air painting and contemporary Blues music have a lot in common. Both have a wide appeal to a large and diverse audience. Both also have identifiable formats and loose sets of boundaries that are deceptively simple and direct. Yet despite that simplicity, both are extremely difficult to master, and not many do. Like the Blues, plein-air painting is a very democratic art form. It is not pompous or pretentious, it does not exclude anyone with its form or vocabulary, and there is little if anything preachy about it. And also like a good blues song, when it all comes together a great plein-air painting is nothing short of magic.

A plein-air painting is a conversation of sorts; it is a sharing of an experience in as direct a way as possible. The scene goes in the eye of the artist, rolls around in the head a bit and then goes right out the hand onto the canvas. The magic occurs when the sum of the experience results in a painting that equals more than its parts, and includes a universal truth, an understanding, or genuine emotion.

We've all seen them, those magical paintings. What is it that makes these paintings work? Whether plein air landscapes or huge abstract pourings, they all have one thing in common. They have a quality that we recognize, but can't adequately describe in words. They do more than transport us into the head of the artist. These paintings validate our consciousness; they verify our experiences and emotions. For those that are open to the experience, seeing their own personal emotions, or observations on display can sometimes be very unsettling, and even cause some to deny the artwork its magic and the artist his skill. Although truly poignant plein-air paintings will more often than not bring a whispered, "YES" than a disturbed denial, they are no less powerful because of it. Sober cityscapes or desolate industrial views are not often "pretty", but their honesty can still affirm an experience and elicit a profound response.

Although a certain level of realist skill is often admired, it isn't solely the representational qualities that make a painting magical, otherwise only tightly rendered and highly detailed pictures would have it. In fact it can sometimes be as simple as a relationship of colors or values that will move the viewer. The experience can be like catching an elusive and reminiscent scent in the air. Before you know what has happened, you're transported somewhere else. When this happens it is sometimes unnerving, but it's always interesting.

Can there be a formula to create such artwork? There may be, but if so it is not something that can be taught directly or copied honestly, because any formula is the result of the individual artist's hand, an awful lot of paint, canvas, time and very hard work. To make such paintings it is important to be honest with yourself, absolutely fearless, ruthless with your intent, and equally open to both utter joy and intense pain. However hard we try, these are not things anyone is capable of feeling all the time. Still, when it all comes together, it is truly magic, and worth all the effort.

copyright 2008 Frank Gregory.