Keeping It Real

If truth be told, I have a love/hate relationship with plein-aire painting.  It's kinda like how I feel fixing a flat tire:  If I do it right, everything will be OK, but I'd rather not have to have a flat to begin with.  Don't get me wrong, every once in a while, I saddle up my old french easel and head out into the great outdoors and have a go at it.  And surprisingly, I usually enjoy myself.  Go figure...

But I have noticed something about plein-aire paintings that I have seen in galleries or group shows, and that is they all seem to say, "Look at me!  Look at me!  I'm a Plein-Aire Painting!  Can't you tell by my non-existent edges, and clumps of broken color?  Just like Monet!  And that crooked box thing?  It's my impression of a house!"  (Between you and me, even when I squint and look over my shoulder at an angle, my first "impression" of a house is that it has straight lines.  Just sayin').  In other words, there is a bit of sameness that one sees in paintings done out-of doors; an expectation of how plein-aire is supposed to look.  It's my own personal taste I admit, but I'd rather a painting say "What" instead of "How"  if you know what I mean.   Then again, I'd be lying if I said that I haven't fallen into that trap myself once or twice.  Like with this:

I am at heart a studio painter.  Even more:  I'm a studio Landscape painter.  Now, there are those who will tell you that being a studio landscape painter is like being a virtuoso on the air guitar.  Whatever.  I like the familiarity of my work space.  But that doesn't mean I don't like the authenticity that painting from direct observation brings.  I just approach it in a different way.


I have been known to grab a studio piece and go outside and paint a passage from life.  Skies mostly.  It doesn't matter what or where my subject is, I can paint a sky from life just by stepping out of my studio door.  Kinda like what I did with this:

Even though this is my own damn back yard, for goodness sakes, I painted it in the studio.  I didn't like what I had for a sky though-- which was a plain old boring blue.  So I set this up outside and painted these clouds and sky from life.


Studio pieces aren't the only ones to get this treatment.  Check out this painting from last fall:

 


This painting was actually done plein-aire, even though the location is miles away from where I live, the sky was done one morning from my driveway. 


But I'm also not against fixing a painting in the studio that I've started on location.

I did a plein-aire painting of a blueberry field last summer that I've never been completely in love with.  It always seemed half done to me.  As a plein-aire, maybe it worked, but I wanted a little more finish, so a few days ago I grabbed it and went over every bit of it in the studio.  I didn't really re-paint the scene, but I carried what was there a little farther.  Here's where it was after three days of painting on location last summer:

And here it is this week: 

Tune in next week to see how it will look then...



All I'm saying is that I want my paintings to have a similar style and "feel", and to me it matters not how I accomplish that-- whether I paint it all out doors plein-aire, or all inside the studio, or a combination of both. 

I'm just trying to keep 'em real. 

Looking.


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