Helpful Demos Attended ~ Potomac Artworks

These are demos I have attended and blogged.

Trisha Adams - oil still life
Kenn Backhaus - oil en plein air
Lee Boynton - oil en plein air
Armand Cabrera - oil landscape
Louis Escobedo - oil from landscape photo
Bruce Handford - watercolor en plein air
Carol Iglesias - pastel, alcohol underpainting en plein air
Mark Isaacs - oil & acrylic, landscapes
Richard McKinley - sketchbook, field sketch, pastel underpainting, watercolor underpainting [all en plein air]
Barbara Nuss - oil en plein air
Sara Linda Poly - oil en plein air
Stan Sperlak - pastel landscapes
Daniel Wise - pastel en plein air
Liz Haywood-Sullivan - pastel skyscape

Jean Hirons, Deborah Maklowski, Barbara Steinacker, Jack Pardue, and Lisa Mitchell - pastels in the round at MPS

The Charm of en Plein Air

Much of my work is done en plein air, French for "in the open air." People often associate it with the Impressionists, but the move to paint outside preceded them by a number of decades. The trend to appreciate landscapes as a genre at all was new for the time.

Several characteristics contribute to the distinctive beauty of en plein air painting. They are generally smaller in size in order to be able to capture a scene in a single sitting. Because of the time limit and environmental factors such as the sun and shadows moving, they often lack extensive details and might appear slightly fuzzy or unfinished. Lastly, they tend to have a freshness and spontaneity which makes them impossible to compare to traditional and methodological studio work. That said, my own studio work tends toward the same feel as en plein air, which then identifies my overall style: softness with an edge.

My aim when painting en plein air is for alla prima paintings, which roughly translates for me as "what happens outside, stays outside." It adds another level of difficulty to the work.

Pages

Helpful Demos Attended

Subscribe by Email

Beach Cottages at Sunset, Cape May

The Charm of en Plein Air

Blog Archive

Webpages

My Instructors

Influences

DC Area Plein Air Sites

Fellow Art Bloggers

Followers

Copyright

There's More!

stats