The Unruly Paint

I had never heard the term "plein air" until recently. As one might derive from the term, it refers to the activity of painting outdoors. Impressionists often used plein air painting as a way to capture the moment rather than relying on sketches or memory. I'm sure artists before them had done it, but it seems impressionism coined the term. Or the French did.
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The term was then carried over the seas and across generations and in this day and age is used in the U.S. to describe this precious painting activity. In Denmark where I grew up we simply called it "friluftsmaleri", or: painting outside.

When I heard this fancy term for it I was intrigued. I have done it before, primarily with drawing. I vaguely remember a particularly awful watercolor painting I made of one of the houses in Christianshaven in Copenhagen during my art studies. I shudder when I think about it and become grateful most of my art from that time has since been lost to time.

My best friend Jaci and I decided to try this plein air thing for ourselves. We found a lovely spot by a creek and brought all our supplies. We had set a limit of 90 minutes, just so we had some sort of time restriction and set out to paint. We brought relatively small canvases. As with any new endeavor, I found that the lovely wooden easel my husband had bought me as a present (and which was indeed the one I wanted) didn't travel all that well, so I brought along a folding table and a small table easel. It was not ideal, but it worked.

There were so many takeaways from this endeavor.

I found taking a picture for boundary reference and proportions to be immensely helpful. We borrowed each other's paints and experimented with new colors. My painting started out dark, and with very predictable colors. Green for trees, brown for wood, gray for sand. At first, it was murky and flat-looking. I was also using a quite small brush - which is my go-to.

Not happy with the direction it was taking, I decided to have some fun with it. I grabbed a much bigger brush and decided to go in only one direction with the brush strokes. I then started looking for other colors in the landscape. I marked purples, blues, and, oranges, where at first glance there were only greens and browns. Some worked, some didn't. This big-brush-one-direction technique seemed to only work when I triple-dipped, paused, and then made a confident mark. If I didn't watch myself, all of a sudden I would find myself doing fast-moving brush strokes, a technique I know very well, and it would blur everything out.

This was hard, but fun. It felt like I was allowing the paint itself to have more of a say. I wasn't 100% in control of the outcome, I was sharing this control with the paint itself. Fun and wild stuff started appearing. Sometimes the outcome was too wild, like a garden hose with too much water pressure.

It reminded me of learning to drive a car, the first time I went on the freeway. After driving parking lots and back roads, that first time on the interstate getting up to 60 miles per hour can feel completely out of control. I had a white-knuckle death grip on the steering wheel and I was holding my breath. Glancing at the speedometer I wasn't even going 50 yet. Still in the slow lane, I accelerated to 60 miles per hour. I remember thinking: "How can anyone control a car at this speed!" Now, of course, I do it without thinking, it is second nature. But that first time felt entirely out of control. I remember feeling grateful my driving instructor only made me get on one entrance and get off at the next. I will never forget the respect I felt for the speed I was traveling. Side note: That was the moment I fully understood how dangerous a car can be, and I believe that reverence has kept me safe.
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Of course, the wild painting I am attempting to compare with driving on the freeway does not have the potential to be lethal, but it did feel as out of control and hard to steer as that first moment on the freeway. The paint was just going to do what the pain was going to do. And it dawned on me that with practice, this too can become second nature. Instead of trying to control it, I can get to know it. And learn what it does when I set it free on the canvas.

Around the 90-minute mark, we took a break and both decided we could go another hour. This is when things started falling apart for my painting. I worked on areas that I already loved, and didn't love them as much. Soon the sun came out and hit the canvas, it was hard to see. The light spots had moved, and the scene looked less and less like what I started with. It became frustrating because now I wasn't only wielding an unruly brush, I was fighting the sun and the changes in the light as well.

After the fact, we both decided that about 20-30 minutes of that last hour was all that was needed. And perhaps it would be helpful to start a little earlier in the day. In the future, we will most likely plan for two hours with a break somewhere in the middle. It's always hard to tell what is going to be an appropriate amount of time when you haven't tried it before.

I learned so much from this experience. I am starting to learn how, and how much, I want to use photos as references in my work. I'm learning which colors work and which don't when representing light and shadow.

I am excited to relinquish some of the control to the paint itself. I trust that as I get to know the paint and what it will do, it won't feel wild and out of control to make a mark on the canvas. It will become second nature.

I haven't decided if I think this painting is done yet. I looked at it the next day and felt like we were two adversaries on a time-out licking our wounds getting ready for the next round. I may decide to go for round two. But I might also let the paint win this round and move on to another opponent. Only time will tell.