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Keith Bond ran an article on FASO’s blog wondering what
constitutes a plein air work. He said that there are several definitions,
mostly referring what percentage of the work had been done in the field, and
that each had some validity. He also said that many studio pieces when shown,
are sometimes categorized as plein air. Really?
Well……here goes a can of worms…
I think (read in personal opinion here) that the
minute you get more than fifty percent of the work executed in the studio, you
now definitely have a STUDIO piece. To me, the percentage needed of ‘in
field work’ to be a ‘plein air’ is much higher, more around 80% to 90%. Now
before you find fault with this, understand that some exhibitions demand that
the entire piece be completed on site for a piece to be a plein air. There are times
when the underlying paint makes telephone lines, boat moorings, staircase
railings and the like impossible to paint until the bottom layer has gone a bit
tacky. Tacky, meaning sticky, not a condition of the quality of the painting
itself. There are those pieces whose finishing flourishes need to be completed
after the fact because the rain, snow, wind, hail (add your personal preference
for natural disaster) has made finishing in the field an impossibility. This is
understandable. I have shelved more pieces than I care to think about because I
could not finish in the field. I am waiting for similarly lit days to complete
the paintings. Now THAT is plein air. Being there in the flesh. Whether you are
on a chair, under a canopy, sheltered by a car, transported by car, truck,
cart, bicycle, horse or mule is immaterial. It means being there, on site, in
the act of painting.
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Early Morning Crystal Cove
6x8 Oil on board - Available |
But if the percentage of the painting left incomplete is so
high that it requires an equal or near equal amount of time in the studio to
achieve completion, then rest assured it is NOT a plein air piece. Yes you may
have started it in plein air, and perhaps it still retains some glimmer of the
authenticity that plein air observation imparts, but it is not plein air. The
smell of the flowers, the taste of rain on the way, the rising tide, the blow
of the wind threatening to blow over your whole rig all lends a sense of
reality to the work that the control of a studio, however comfortable, cannot
furnish. Think of that Subaru commercial. That guy has it right regardless of
what you think of his work.
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Afternoon Crystal Cove
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And then there is the light. The crucial element. So you say
you have good photos. Good for you. They are not enough. Your own eyes are so
very much better at discerning the infinitesimal differences of value from
lights to darks in a scene, that no typical camera, digital or otherwise, can
compete. Unless you are bracketing a shot, you are diluting the darks into
black, or blowing out the lights to white. I mentioned this to a painter who
swears she is such an avid photographer, and she did not know what I was
talking about. To expect painters to do this is an awfully unreal expectation
from people who think their phones are too complex to operate. Yes you can
paint from a photo. Will you get the same results? No. Undeniably, NO. You lose color in the shadows. You lose
temperature shifts of color in the transitions. You lose the unique quality of
the light itself.
So to Keith Bond, I say yes there is a point at which a
piece can no longer be considered a plein air painting. It’s when it is not
painted out of doors. Literal translation from the French: en plein air = in
the open air, the outdoors. In other words, not within the confines, comfort
and limitations of the studio.
I recently drove 700 miles to take a Greg LaRock workshop in
Laguna CA. Yup. That far. And what did we do? We turned our backs on the water,
one day, to paint the beachside cottages at Crystal Cove. I could hear the
surf, taste salt, pour on the sunscreen, hear the gulls, and here I was,
painting the buildings. Wow. I learned a lot. Greg is an unbelievably good
painter and a wonderful teacher. He is well spoken, gets his point across and
teaches with a natural gift. He teaches plein air. In the field. With the sound
of the water crashing in your ears. Creating a feeling that is impossible to
replicate in a building.
Favorite quote of the day:
When painting and sketching plein-air I sink into the landscape, and am attuned witness to its mood and beauty. (Dianne Bersea)
