“All pictures painted inside in the studio will never be as good as the things done outside.”  – Paul Cezanne

and then this

“If I were in the government I would have a brigade of policemen assigned to keeping an eye on people who paint landscapes outdoors.

Oh, I wouldn’t want anyone killed. I’d be satisfied with just a little buckshot to begin with.

– Edgar Degas

It’s a subject that artists get very opinionated about.  This leaves us all to wonder, who’s right?  Indoors vs. Outdoors.

First of all, Let me get at that term for anyone who isn’t familiar with it.

Plein Air – (from Wikipedia) En plein air is a French expression which means “in the open air” and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors, which is also called peinture sur le motif (“painting of the object(s) or what the eye actually sees”) in French.

I have been doing quite a bit of plein air recently.  I have relocated my primary studios to a location in the country to provide both more space and seclusion of study for my work.

I have found that I must agree with Paul Cezanne on this matter.  The work I do out of doors is explicitly more free of internal scrutiny and second guessing.  As a matter of fact, it is not until I bring the work into the studio that I have any gage on the quality of the work.  I am almost every single time very pleased with the outcome.  I would even go so far as to say this is true on many fronts, that a person (not just an artist) is more truly themselves out of doors.  There are less places to hide your true self in the sunshine.  This is something I love about working outdoors.

Now, having said all of that – I will tell you some of the true difficulties that you cannot ever discount when it comes to working in nature.

First, Wind.  I have a dear friend named Chad.  He once told me that he hates wind and I giggled endlessly over this.  I remember saying there had to be something wrong with a person who hates wind. How can you hate wind!    NOW, in this particular sense, I get it.  You see, Chad is a film maker who often works on location.  I thought, as a filmmaker he would get all these great shots of the wind in peoples hair and the trees and that this would create drama and movement and….well, how could you as an artist hate that?  Of course, wind will blow your paper work away.  Wind will blow your easel over or in Chad’s case, the camera.  Wind will blow dust into your wet paint.  Wind will blow your hair in your eyes when you are just about to reach an Aha moment with a painting.  Wind will destroy anything you are trying to do.

Secondly, Heat or Cold.  I find I do more Plein Air painting in the Summertime so it is mostly heat.  I did however, for at least 4 years create a tradition of painting something plein air on New Year’s day every year.  This became a constant battle with wind and cold and rain.  I abandoned the commitment to this being outdoors.  Now I just paint every New Year’s day, Something to guide me on my artists journey for the coming year – always in the studio warm and cozy and with coffee.  But even putting extreme personal comforts aside painting in the heat or cold will affect your painting in various ways.  The  most important is how it affects the image your painting and how it affects the very paint itself.

Above you will see the first plein air painting I created in Texas.   I had a little vacation time from work so I decided I wanted a painting road trip to West Texas.  I wanted to explore Marfa and to do some work on painting outdoors alone.  So, I rented a car and loaded up my painting supplies, my dog and a cooler for a 4 day road trip from Austin to Marfa and Big Bend.  I had forgotten just how big Texas is.  It was an 8 hour drive.  This took my 4 day painting trip down to just a couple of days without travel.  I drove all night and found myself surrounded by some of the most beautiful mountainous landscapes I had ever seen.    I fell in love with Alpine and Marfa Texas.   After allowing for time to explore and take walks with Blue, my 65 lb. pit bull, I finally settled on where I wanted to paint.  A lonely stretch of the “Presidio Highway” just alongside The  Shafter Cemetery.   There, I put the hatchback up and gave the dog a bowl of water and began a blank canvas.  Four hours later the 12 pack of iced down Modelo Especial was gone and both the dog and I were sunburned and exhausted and this canvas was born.  This needed more planning – meaning – an umbrella or even a tent and MORE water and less beer.  I do like the painting though.  That mountain did look just like a hat, However I think it was the heat and the sense of urgency that created such a wild hot landscape.  If I had recreated this in the studio I am sure the sky would have been grey blue.  With the heat in this case, so came the visual inferno.

Another, Third issue about painting outdoors involves painting with a festival or in crowds.  Over the first weekend in June 2015, I painted on the downtown square in Waxahachie Texas.  I am represented by a small gallery there T. Beresford and I set up an easel in front of the gallery to attempt to capture the landscape of the historic Courthouse and crowds.  If you are at all shy about your work you will “get over it” quickly when painting in a busy public square.  Also, I have experienced people rushing up to see what your working on 10 minutes after I have set up the easel.  Their disappointment is palpable.  The look on their faces when they are confronted with rough lines in odd colors that are your bare bones and the very beginnings of a painting.  They almost have an accusatory look on their faces like “I rushed all the way over here to look at THAT?!”

So, its a lesson in patience with people.  We live in a world of the immediate. With technology, most folks expect an artist to work like a camera – point and click.  So often I travel to art festivals with several finished works and a couple of paintings in progress.  This gives me a chance to work and gives the people something satisfactory to look at.  Sometimes people come back in an hour or two to see where the painting ended up.  That is always so much more fun.

At Home on Sweetwater Pond – Texas

For people to understand that the very “value” of a human artist over technology is that the moment is captured with a truer eye, a human eye.

 A painting painted outdoors may be abstract or impressionistic or realism but, it will be a representation of what a human being felt at that time and delivered it to canvas.  As of yet, a computer cannot deliver emotion.

When that happens, I may begin working in another medium.   Until then….I paint; both indoors and out.