Working the Plein Air

From the Rocky Shore 12x16 oil

There are painters, it's true, who can knock out a plein air painting that is ready for hanging, a little jewel, and there are the collectors who snap them up.  And there are painters who use their plein air work as studies for larger paintings to be completed in the studio.  Those plein air paintings are for color notes and compositional ideas, and many of them, too, could be hung on the wall.

I, on the other hand, tend to think of my painting outdoors as an exercise; it is a way to try to hit the hue and tone and temperature that I see, a coordination between my eye and the brush that needs training, endless, endless training.  Occasionally I will find that I like something I have done enough to let it hang around so I can look at it.  This one above I might hang up for a bit in the studio and ponder.  (Compositionally, though, I think having that band of rocks across the bottom makes it harder to enter the painting.)

Other times, it's simply a disaster: Nothing works, I jab and push and the paint won't dry quickly enough to go over it, the color is off, the drawing is crude.  Those times, I cut the session short and pack up my gear in disgust, trying hard not to be discouraged.  The painting below fell into that category.  It was too hot where I set up, the sun had gone too high (I find the sunlight at noon to be the least interestng of the day) and I was struggling with the matted grasses in the foreground.  So I quickly packed up the gear and literally muttered to myself "Well, that was a waste of paint."

But when I got home and cleaned up the palette and pulled the painting out, put it on the easel in better light, I realized that there was something there in spite of the troubles.  It isn't a good painting, and there are still many things to resolve, as we painters say (in layman's terms, it still looks like shit) - for example, that mess at the right-hand edge, the blotchy grasses, the values that still need to be distinguished from one another.  But still there was a truth to it somehow.  It spoke to me of what I saw, and there was an honesty in the color, the temperature of the day, the dryness of the fields and hillsides.  I find it fascinating that a painting can be a lousy painting and still have something to offer. This painting tells me to not give up, because somehow the practice of trying over and over again to mix color has led me closer to being able to do it in a successful way.

Champoeg Park 11x14 oil

Reworking the Past

The Road to Cunèges 11x14 oil

This above is actually a painting from three years ago, never finished, because I was discouraged when trying to recreate the dappled light.  But I let the painting float around in the studio, something about it that made me feel warm (partly due to the personal connection of walking on the road after having just arrived at our gîte in the south of France, and having a car zip by only to slam on the brakes - I heard a voice cry out "Meetch!", and it turned out it was André Bonhomme, a friend who was taking this little back road shortcut to his town of Cunèges).  So when I look at this painting, I feel the warm reassurance that the world feels better to me when it feels smaller.  I finally decided I wanted to give it another go, and I reworked the entire painting, but tried to retain the warm reds bleeding through the greens.  I think I could do a better job on the dappled light if I painted in a larger scale and was more deliberate, but the feeling I was after seems to come through in this small sketch, and so I may just leave it at that.

Ron Reads Yourcenar 11x14

Not an old painting, but an old reference, so it is even more a visit to the past.  This was at one of my old houses - I don't even remember which one, but I recognize the chair, the table, the lamp.  As I age, I am unwilling to forget about the past, and I revisit it often enough (though I have maintained a connection to the past for most of my life, so I don't mean to imply I'm feeling desperately old...). Life has been too rich and too full of important people and meaningful events to simply never look back.  The hour or two painting this allowed me the gift of imagining what we were up to then, what thoughts filled our heads, what hopes we had.  Ron is now retired and living his dream in the south of France, but thirty years ago, when he was reading this book, that would probably have seemed too fantastical to consider.  Isn't it wonderful that our realities can soar even beyond our dreams?

Revery aside, I look at the painting and wonder if I will ever learn to get rid of those hard edges when they don't belong, I question little bits about the drawing, and the likeness is never truly spot on.  But if I can just believe that I am making incremental progress, I am encouraged to pick up a brush again.

Field and Studio

Along the River 16x20 oil

With the warm weather I am making a serious attempt to spend some time outdoors with the easel, and though the work may not be making the headway I would like, the efforts are rewarding in their own way.  I've found, for example, that Greta, our German Shepard, makes a terrific painting companion; she is patient and calm and happy to be along and out of the house, and she never complains.

Crown Point, 8x10 oil

It may take an hour to drive to the Gorge, but every time I do, I regret not doing it more often.  It is such a magnificent natural wonder, filled with drama and scale and amazing light.  This quick sketch doesn't do justice to the scene, but it was dead-on noon, and the light was not the best, and I was in a hurry to get to Hood River to meet with friends.  I need to go back here with a larger canvas and more time.

And finally, a couple of portrait sketches from the sketchbook: