Once a month, my art class goes out to paint en plein air, out in the fresh air. We have traveled locally...to the Ventura Harbor, the Camarillo environs, and as far away as Santa Barbara. I love painting outdoors, it presents a challenge to me.
I am a detailed realistic painter but in order to paint outdoors, you must forego details and focus on one or two areas of what you see, paint quickly, loosely, impressionistic, capturing the spirit of the subject. I fall in love with the landscape and it becomes overwhelming. I want to encompass it all. I don't want to lose the shadows or the way light hits on something particular.
I take my camera for photographic reference but a photograph, while helpful, leaves my vision of what it was, flat, one dimensional. We have time constraints as a group and the light changes. So one must work with value paintings, painting the shadows in first, deciding on the darker values, leaving patches of light and filling in the color later.
I love these outings because my group, varied in age and gender, provides me with social interaction with people who are creative, fun, and above all, willing to put themselves and their art "out there" for scrutiny. We leave the secure and safe confines of our classroom, our own studios and venture out to the open spaces where we are forced to paint with abandon. As in life, we must be willing to leave our own "comfort zones" and take risks.
Who knows? We might create a wonderful landscape of own making.
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