I started weekly plein air painting in March. I’m actually impressed with the progress I have made. I have enough paintings to have a presence this weekend in the Plein Air Tent at ArtsQuest, the regional juried art festival held annually near my home.
But I have begun to discover how challenging plein air painting can be. At first I thought I would merely be challenged by the chore of re-learning how to mix colors and remembering how to use brushes. I also expected that the weather might occasionally be a challenge. I never anticipated my canvas being covered with water or having to blot up rainwater from my palette tray. Such was my adventure last Saturday in Port St. Joe, Florida, where I had traveled to watch the “Quickdraw” event at the Forgotten Coast Plein Air Invitational. My best friend accompanied me, and I tied the stand-up paddleboards, onto the top of my truck, expecting that we’d have time for a little paddling after I had checked out the various artists’ methods and madnesses. She convinced me that I should bring my paints, but I confess I did so more to humor her than out of any expectation that I would use them.
I changed my mind when we drove past the scenic Cape San Blas lighthouse and down the beautiful peninsula highway to T.H. Stone State Park. The grassy water’s edge and wading birds were mirrored in the gray water reflecting storm clouds. There was a 40% chance of rain, but the volunteer who took my $10 entry fee and stamped my blank canvas for the event said the present rain shower wouldn’t be around for long, that it was just a narrow band. A horn blew, and the painting began, and the rain got worse. I painted from under the shelter of my truck’s hatch, and my friend stood on the windward side trying to shelter my work. The rain bouncing off the top of the truck became mist and was caught by the wind, swirling down onto my canvas and palette. My friend got soaked and chilled for her good Samaritan efforts.
I had never painted on water-soaked canvas before. I had no clue whether my oil paint would even stick to the wet canvas panel. I kept blotting my canvas with a paper towel to remove some of the mist droplets. Puddles formed in my palette box. My waste-bucket that I commandeered from my cab quickly filled with rainwater pouring through the hinged seam of the hatch.
I dug in and finished my painting in the allotted time. The 54 participating artists brought their finished pieces to the entry pavilion to be judged. Many brought frames even. Probably half of the artists were some who had been invited to the weeklong Plein Air Invitational, so I was privileged to see some amazing work. Afterwards, we stopped at the first cafe outside the state park, to have a bit to eat, and we were pleasantly surprised to have the winner sit at the table next to ours. Her name is Morgan Samuel Price. What a treat to talk with her!!
Today the Emerald Coast Plein Air Painters met in the historic town of Grayton Beach, Florida. I was overwhelmed by the many places I would like to have set up my easel. It was overchoice! I opted for a couple of adjoining brightly-colored buildings with reflective windows.
But wow, what a struggle! The straight up-and-down verticals had to be painted free-hand, as did all of the horizontals receding towards one vanishing point or another. With a general lack of knowledge of how buildings are put together, I was scrambling to make sense of the structure. Ordinarily, if I were using a building to make art, I would print photographs of it, and then take some time to figure out the structure before i ever started drawing it and then ultimately painting it. With plein air painting, I generally just sketch the scene on my canvas with a big brush, and then start trying to mix colors and paint shapes. So it can get confusing even when the shapes are simple. I honestly did not have much fun today. It seemed like too much of a challenge for my present skill level. I turned out a good painting though, with a fairly good likeness to the colors. Anyone familiar with Shorty’s Surfside Restaurant will notice that I have taken a few liberties with dimensions. (As an artist, I’m allowed to do that, ha!)
I enjoyed seeing the other artist’s work when we critiqued at the end of the session. Several painted the same buildings that I painted, but from different angles or from further away.
Most of my paintings and images are available for purchase. Contact me if you are interested. — Joan Vienot
I was privileged to paint plein air beside my artist friend 
I painted for 2½ hours before the chill crept up from my freezing wet feet into all of my bones. My painting was unfinished when I stopped, lacking the top of the tree line, the standards supporting the boats, and the catamaran’s mast wires. So I took a few shots with my iPhone to help me remember what the scene looked like, to finish it in my studio.
I am starting to see in color. That may sound strange, but the fact is that most of the time in my normal everyday activity, I hardly pay attention to color. When I was focusing on figure drawing, I occasionally used color, but for the most part I was focused on line, shape, and value, usually rendering the whole piece just using a black-white value scale. Now that I am painting again, I am noticing for example, when a white railing is picking up the blue of the sky, or how intense a green becomes when it is contrasted with red. I am finding that much of what I think I am seeing as different tones of a color are actually the same color which looks different depending on what color is next to it. I am particularly challenged by all the greens I see, when landscape painting. If I try to mix an exact shade of green, it often seems muddy compared to what I actually see. Who knew, that Einstein’s theory that everything is relative applies to painting as well as nuclear physics, that the better way to achieve a color is to find the color next to it which gives it the quality I want. Resisting the temptation to launch into that as a metaphor for life, I’ll instead move on to my adventures in plein air painting over the past week. Last week we painted at Nick’s Restaurant, and I bemoaned the fact that I know very little about boats. The next day I decided to take another run at the featured boat, using my photo references, and came up with the piece at top right. It was the little paprika-colored spots of rust washing out from the old nails in the hull, that gave the greens and turquoise the punch I wanted. So I wafted a little of that color into the foreground grasses too.
This week is the largest of the spring-break tourist weeks in the beach resort communities of Panama City Beach, Seagrove Beach, and Destin, FL. So when the announcement came that the plein air painters would be meeting at the docks again in Destin, I knew the drive would take all the fun out of the adventure, so I opted to paint from my dock in my back yard. I had thought I would be painting my view of the creek leading into Tucker Bayou, but when I looked upstream, the color of the bayou grasses intrigued me. My initial 6″ x 6″ study, left, did nothing for me by way of planning my painting, but rather served more like a singer doing la-la-La-LA-La-la-la scales to warm up her voice before performing.
