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Zooming in and out of the Canadian North like a hummingbird on a flower, my mouse was beginning to heat up. An armchair explorer’s best friend, Google Earth was helping me understand the massive scale of the Arctic ( here's my video all about it ). Trying to figure out where to plan my plein...
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We travel frequently to paint en plein air in new locations and sometimes teach workshops in those new environments as well. One of our favorite locations is northern New Mexico--the Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch area. Each day while we are there, we plan our schedule to paint in the best light—about...
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Perhaps the toughest skill that the artist painting outside must learn is the ability to judge values accurately, and then mix them in paint. The reason that this skill requires so much practice to get right is because our eyes and brains are constantly adjusting to the light, kind of like a video camera...
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When walking through a landscape looking for that magical spot that compels you to stop to sketch or put up your plein air easel, don't forget to look behind you (and not for muggers, but the view!). Stop regularly, turn around and consider the view in a direction other than what's been straight...
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In plein air we attempt a form of direct translation. In the studio, we may recall our observations of nature, but are freer to be inventive with color. Night Passage by Mitchell Albala, 2006, oil painting on panel, 20 x 20. It's September and the plein air painting season is drawing to a close ...
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"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day." --Vincent Van Gogh Moonrise Road by John Hulsey, plein air painting. Plein air painting at night in bright moonlight is great fun and a wonderful learning experience for the outdoor painting artist. With nocturnes...
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We enjoyed the recent plein air blog of artist Marion Boddy-Evans and agree with her sentiments. We have been outdoor painting for over forty years each (before the "plein air" phrase became ubiquitous) and have always felt that the value in painting outside on location was the total immersion...
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Call it the blues, call it the doldrums, call it what you will--it seems that many of us plein-air painters go through a slump about this time of year. Even if the weather is good enough for painting outdoors, nature isn't always at her finest when we're waiting for spring to arrive. It can feel...
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Ernest Lawson (1873 - 1939) came to maturity at the dawn of the 20th century, so his work was modern and gritty and real. His are not the idyllic landscape paintings of Corot , nor are they the dazzling light shows in Monet's plein air paintings . They are tough, and yet there is an elegance and...
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Drawings of horses in the Chauvet caves. We recently watched the Werner Herzog film, Chauvet: Cave of Forgotten Dreams . Herzog made the film about the prehistoric, 30,000- to 32,000 year-old cave art discovered in 1994 in the Ardeche region of France by three speleologists, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette...
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All you landscape artists who live in the dry, deserty parts of the world, or you plein air painters in the wet, watery parts of the world, bear with me, but those of us who live in the lushly vegetated parts of the world face a big challenge: green! It's everywhere, especially at this time of year...
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I used to waste oodles of time blocking in my plein air paintings until I finally learned some great tips for doing them fast, such as skipping the drawing, establishing the value range first, and addressing each set of values in a logical order. Here's how I do them now, which takes only about 10...
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A photo of the plein air landscape site I chose to paint. I can still recall the first morning I saw this little bend in the river ike it was yesterday. The air was still cool and breezy, the sun was glinting off the water, the bees in their hive were humming—yes, it was everything a plein-air...
Posted to
Plein Air Blog
by
Jennifer King
on
23 Jun 2011
Filed under:
Filed under: Plein Air, painting, Landscape Painting, How to Paint, figure drawing, sketching, Landscape Drawing, Drawing Basics, How to Draw People, Art, Perspective Drawing
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Flower Garden by Clyde Aspevig, oil on canvas, 24 x 12. Content adapted from an article by Allison Malafronte. Clyde Aspevig is a landscape painter and seasoned plein air artist who prides himself on going out into his chosen environs with a feeling of belonging to nature rather than feeling apart from...
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The water in River Reflections is quite smooth, but the colors give a sense of the play of shadow and light. All works by Jennifer King. John and Ann’s recent post about painting water en plein air was so inspiring and right on target. I love painting water elements, too, because they always make...