Plein Air vs Photos

[Donald Maier]

I was looking through some old photos today for some subjects to paint in my studio. As I was doing so, I was so turned off by the dead flat colors in the photos and was thinking about each image in the stack and trying to inspire myself as to how it would look as a painting, with lots of color put into it that I just did not see in the photo themselves. As I thought about it, I remembered how much better some of my paintings turned out that were done by redoing ones done on location. The plein air watercolors usually have much more information than the photos do. I am not talking about detail. The photo obviously has all the detail, except of course in the shadows where the shadows tend to turn black and loose all the subtle colors that the eye can see when your there. The subtle color changes are captured by the plein air painting and then later, in the studio, you can pay more attention to the composition and execution of the piece.

I am posting three paintings here. The first was painted just north of Key West in 2002, as a thunderstorm was passing over. I was driving south and the sunlight had just hit this little yellow bungalow, catching my eye, and made me turn my truck around so I could sit on the tailgate to paint. You can see the rain spots in the gray sky as the rain began again as I was just finishing up the painting. On the horizon was a pinkish light in the sky and to the left of that you could see a dark patch where the rain was coming down still. This image stuck in my mind and the painting was my record of it. I never took a photo of this spot, and usually don't. For some reason, I can't seem to remember to do so. Or maybe I would just rather get my information from the painting. I do shoot lots of photos with the intention to paint from them, but when I do a plein air painting, I don't confuse the issue with a photo.

Thunderstorm Over Key West 10"x14"

A few weeks later, I brought out the original watercolor and did a series of studio watercolors from it. I changed the composition and intensified some of the colors and stylized the clouds a bit. This is the one I liked the best from the studio watercolors.

Thunderstorm Over Key West 9"x12"

Finally, I decided to use these paintings as inspiration for a large abstracted oil. This is 36"x48". I really think if I had taken a photo of this scene, I would have refered to it and it would have changed the final outcome of the piece. I just sold the large oil this Sunday on an online website.

So obviously, most of the plein air work I do I consider a finished piece. Many people feel that their studio work and their location paintings should be segregated, the later being inferior to the former.

This practice goes way back for me. I used to go out sketching when I was 10 to 15 years old and draw houses, trees or boats by the river, then bring them back home and do oil painting from the sketches. Then in high school, I was introduced to watercolor and began adding color to the sketches. As I got better with the watercolor, they became the finished product as I was then doing "plein air painting", although I simply called it painting on location up until just recently. Around one out of every twenty watercolors would become an oil painting. These paintings are extra special to me.

Tomorrow, I will put away my photos and choose a plein air watercolor to use as a color sketch for a large oil painting.

[vivien blackburn]

I so agree. I much prefer to work from my sketches - like you, moving them on, not simply reproducing them. The colour drama and movement are all there.

This is a nice series

I have never really differentiated between works done plein air or in the studio in the way I exhibit them. I show them alongside each other, which is how work is shown here.

[Ginger Anderson]

I also take photos when I'm painting plein air and often when I get home and look at my photos, I see things that I hadn't noticed while painting! So it seems that when I paint plein air, I'm really focusing on my subject matter, my paints, the process.. and part of my brain is visually excluding the extraneous stuff. I'm afraid that I'm one of those people who hates to re-paint a picture, re-read a book, re-see a movie. So, though many of my plein airs have not turned out as good as I'd hoped, I"ve never considered them to be sketches to be improved upon in a studio attempt. Though I actually liked your original water color, done plein air, best because it seemed the truest, perhaps I should give it a try.. who knows what masterpiece is waiting to be produced?

[Larry Seiler]

One can develop that instant flash, or impression standing there before a scene...and see in their mind's eye what the finished painting is going to be. From that moment on, the scene is a reference of color...composition...but if light were to change that impression and intent is locked in. That is more and more how I am painting, and the danger for painters not to develop to that point is find themselves chasing the light.

Chasing the light hurts the painting in not coming to hold continuity...does not adhere to the earlier brushwork, and the mindful artist must tweak and fix. With watercolors of course you'd have mud to do so. With oils likewise possible, dirty brushwork and so forth. So, some...could argue that "locking in" to that initial impression is like having taken a mental photograph.

What separates plein air from photos though and for which I have frequently ranted on...is that a camera freezes a moment or "time" whereas if one thinks about it, "time" like the light...is the subject we paint. Light, the subject during our session are not static things, no more than a duck freezes in midair so the painter might paint. The duck's flight takes place from one point to another, and to paint flight frozen in one moment is not to paint flight at all. The duck doesn't merely exist in flight. Its not just about what the duck looks like were we to freeze it in time. The duck's reality is how its form, its feathers, its wings all work in cohort to exist in transition. A happening.

While the photographer snaps his picture and is upon his merry way, we are standing there about 1-1/2 to 3 hours time, and what we are seeing and witnessing in the scene is a "happening"...our subject exists in transition.

While painting we process the information of our subject's role, our subject's happening. Even if we have a fixed impression...that we are thereby striking out to achieve, our subject is talking to us. It influences us...and we have to filter that information. We also have to come to know ourselves and know our tendencies for which to take command.

For some...in the beginning, the tendency will be to paint everything we see...and then later realize that where everything is shouting, nothing gets heard. So we must learn to recognize what is essential contrary to that which needs to be ignored. All part of the processing that standing there in a session demands.

With camera in hand the artist already has the idea, "oh...that would make an ideal painting!" Snap...and drives off. No opportunity for an ongoing dialog, no intimate exchange.

Now some mighty fine works of art are produced from photographs of capable artists, but if the painting is a record of some kind, the studio produced work is not a record of an encounter, a happening. Not really. It is an idea...worked out.

To paint a live portrait...you have to have a sitter. Strangely, artists seem to understand the difference between painting a person live and from a photo. Though both are art, folks seem to understand the sitter might talk, move their head....blink their eyes, and know that a "happening" is happening. Some will refer to it being easier just to work then from a photo.

What is easier? That the form is fixed...the subject captured so as not to challenge the artist further. What is not taken into consideration as that the artist is removed from being able to peer into the shadows...to move about and understand the subject.

When the sitter moves...you may note the moisture of the jawline pick up on the color in the shirt or blouse. It caught your attention because such does not exist in a stagnant condition. You process the information to see if it might now suit your purposes to put that hint of the shirt color in as reflected light or color. Had the sitter not moved, not been a living breathing entity, the "idea" or noting of that incident may never have transpired. So we see then that while one thing is easier, what does not come easy is the challenge of further visual information that tests your ideas and provides further possibilities.

In essence...we paint encounters. We paint happenings.

Leaves don't sit stagnant, they move. Light moves. Reflected light flickers...

So...the main difference is that we do not just make pictures. We testify visually to a happening.

[Donald Maier]

As usual, you have given some great examples and have fleshed out some of the things I was trying to initially say.

[Larry Seiler]

You know what they say about great minds, Don..."think alike!"

good stuff...take care

Larry