Despair With Plein Air

Last year was a great year.  

I won the Plein Air Festival at the Leighton Centre.   I was in the zone.  But then this year….

I am a big fan of plein air.  In fact, that is how I started painting when I was fourteen years old.  I was a kid with an overactive romantic imagination who liked to read.  I especially read about the impressionists and thought everyone went outside to paint. In Canada we also have that history as the Group of Seven as well as Emily Carr painting on location.    So I dragged my paints and wooden easel to the banks of the Old Man River near my childhood home.  I learnt how to paint in 90F, and in the wind.  I learnt to paint quickly as I was using Acrylics.  I still feel like I’m in the classroom when I am outside painting.  I am still learning.

Anything that promotes Plein Air Painting is good with me.  It is a glorious reason to be outside.   It makes you focus on what is important.  We don’t see the same way that a camera does.  So, the plein air experience is about collecting data and information.   The subtleties we see will influence our paintings.  

After last year’s success I thought I was ready.   I helped start the weekend off with an evening workshop at the Centre.   It was titled Painting the Golden Light, but the smoke made the light anything but golden.  In true Alberta style the weather shifted, and we also experienced wind.   Yet it was a good class and I enjoyed initiating new painters into what many are calling the sport of Plein Air.  However, after teaching I was exhausted and there was that drive home.

It was a late evening and then an early rise.    The fog had drifted in overnight.  Fog is not common where I live.   It meant for a shift in thinking and I wasn’t prepared.  

I thought I was.  I mean it was a season of painting in smoke.   In fact, my Smoke and Poppies painting was selected to be the poster child of the Plein Air event.  I had painted that at another plein Air Event at The Coutts Centre at Nanton. On the drive out to the event, I thought, “Ok, a good day for grey.”  

I registered, got my canvases stamped, and then wandered aimlessly around.   Usually, the first painting is a bit like the first pancake you make.  It never turns out.  I now see that as a burnt offering.  Best to get it over with and then onto the next painting.  I realized that I should have packed some other supplies.  I was missing that colour palette. I was missing a warm white.

At one moment, when I was quite alone in the fog bank, I imagined myself painting on the moors of Scotland.  It’s a place I’ve always wanted to visit.  Maybe this was how it would be.  At any moment I expected a magnificent buck or Scottish Lord to emerge from the fogbank.

I packed up that painting to take back to the truck.  It was humid so nothing was drying.  My acrylic was acting like oil paint.   For some that might be an advantage.  However, I like to layer and was ending up with mucky messes.   On the second trip back to collect my remaining gear I came across a delightful scene.   A young painter was dressed in a wonderful smock and was happily painting.   I should paint this, I thought!  But I was tired and lazy.  It meant going back to the truck and hauling back some of the gear I had packed. Who knew how long he would be there?   I gave into laziness.   I will paint this lovely picture back in my studio.  But I regret the decision; I should have pushed forward.  True plein air is not for the faint of heart.

After a day of ruining canvases, I made a final decision to repaint my first canvas when the light finally made an appearance.  It was forty minutes before the paintings were due.   That was my best painting, but afterwards I wondered if the one underneath perhaps made a better statement.  

I handed it in, knowing I had missed the mark on that day.

So what lessons were learned?

It shouldn’t be about winning.   The paintings selected were truly the best of the day.  I knew the conditions those artists worked in and so celebrated their win.  Honestly, there are some amazing painters in my neck of the woods.   But as one of my painting friends said, “The true winner is all of us, we get to be outside painting.”   It is about the experience we gain.  The time and study that plein air gives us.   My plein air work informs my bigger studio pieces.  I gathered a lot of information that day.

 I also learnt that I should trust my instincts.  I knew the scene I saw was gold.   But I pushed it aside for something safer and easier.    That meant for something boring.   I should have painted what made me excited.  I hope I remember that lesson.

  But the best advice for myself was to enjoy the day.    Breathe.  Spend some time making friends and reacquaint yourself with the old ones.   Celebrate that it was a day outside.  There are times when Plein Air is frustrating, but it what else do you want to spend your time doing?  At least when painting outside you are engaged and learning.