Plein Air Painting: Summer’s End

As much as I adore my studio, there’s something about painting outside that elevates the entire experience. In the art world, we call this painting en plein air - (literally translated from French as painting outdoors).

Painting outside means painting life as it changes. It means capturing the light as its shadows shift and grow. It means painting the clouds as they glide across the sky. It means painting the trees and grass and water as it flows in the wind.

When working from a photograph in the studio, the lines and shadows and colors of a landscape are often predetermined. A painting based off a photograph captures a singular, ephemeral moment in time, one whose exact features may not be recreated again. There is a certain charm in seeing a place frozen in time, perfectly preserved as in your memory.

Even still, there is even greater wonder in painting a scene that is so alive with movement and energy. Painting en plein air is painting a landscape that is constantly shifting. (Here, The Sound of Music fanatic that I am wants to sing the lyric, “like trying to catch a moonbeam in your hand.”)

This style of painting allows you to break away from any self-imposed constraints of exactitude. It’s the difference between working off a script and improvisation. It enables a greater looseness of style and a greater appreciation of the energy of a place.

In this time lapse video, you can watch, not only as my canvas evolves with time, but as the landscape of Lake Norris, Tennessee shifts around me and breathes with life on one overcast day at summer’s end.