Plein Air painting

Thanks. That was fun reading.

all good, cept the lion part. I like her style, makes you want to finish the entire article.

edit, as I thought you meant the whole article wasn't included.

And what about the lion part, would you treat the lion differently? I ask in ignorance, since I am not much of a hiker myself. Are they not to be feared as much as in the article? or?

edit (as the article shows up fine)

I'm in a rush getting ready for work - never mind, only a few more weeks in the salt mines and then i LEAVE! (new job, new career)


I'll read the article when i get home, I love painting plein air and the magazine could be interesting if it isn't too shallow.

For myself i find I love the atmosphere and light that you achieve simply by being there, cloud formations that are not the traditional cotton wool blobs, the movement of the wind in the trees or waves etc


Back in the studio the memories are so much stronger because of the intense looking and larger more abstract canvasses evolve from the distilled memories.


I'm curious about the lion? a hazard i don't have to worry about

home now and I've read the article - thanks for posting it Osso - I really enjoyed it. I love to go out like that with a group of friends - mountain lions and coyotes we don't have to deal with!

I wanted to be there

The descriptions of the different working methods and concerns and speeds of working was so well written. One friend of mine seems to churn out stunning little alla prima studies at an alarming speed, another is slow and agonises and constantly changes and reworks, we all have different concerns but the feedback and company is great - someone to laugh with, stop for a drink and a sandwich with, to criticise each others work and give support and feedback ... she got the mood and value of it all so well.

Your friend writes well.

Would you pm me a link to your gallery Osso? I would love to see it.


please do post more articles

There is no link to our gallery, we don't have a website!
(money, time). Plus even if we did, I wouldn't put it in a post or pm, that is against a2k's terms of service, though I could put the site in my profile, if we had a site.
I'll post the other art articles later when I get home from work; there are a bunch of them. It isn't an art magazine, but a local newspaper that has a once a month art column.

Thanks for this post, ossobucco. I appreciate the spirit of plein air (or Barbizon school in French!) I was always beset with the notion that there needn't be such a similarity in style, color and technique with plein air. On location just means that you're painting what you see in the real world instead of using sketches done in the field or photography. It kind of reminds me how the term in movies of "film noir" has recently cast off the prerequisite features of the old films and branching out into plots and characters that are still framed in the film noir mood.

Welcome, glight!

And, LW, film noir is nothing if it is not a mood.

It was formulized with the black-and-white detective plots in the 40's and 50's and was more often in the category of a B movie. "Detour" is an example. The prerequisite is a femme fetale, a detective and involved a seediness and intrique that the French paid homage to in "Rififi." "Mystic River" has the detective and one could qualify one of the female charcters but it's been difficult to pull off in color.

Plein air is actually influenced more by California impressionism of the 20's. Muted, sometimes downright murky, colors and forms which often lacked good composition.

In this age of Pluralism I kind of dissagree with any rigid adherance to a style. In other words, plein air paintings should not look like plein air paintings.

Incidentally, there are several galleries in my are which will remain nameless that I have done lighting for who are coming up with California plein air (impressionism) paintings and I really don't believe all of them are authentic to their time.

No, not that I know of, unless things have changed in the last number of hours, Vivien. People can exchange emails in pms though, if they want, and talk off site about websites. It all has to do with vast spamming attacks on the site and no time for moderators to make discerning decisions about who might get to put a website link on and why someone else wouldn't. The upshot is that a2k is pretty sales free, except of course for the ads which help sustain us. Not putting a website link is part of what we agree to as we sign up.

This is an international forum... picture the spammone if personal websites were allowed.....

Our local artists are a much wider group than that showing with us.... I'd love to post batches of work of local painters and myself too. Have ideas about that, a site of my own with an associated page(s) revolving work of local people whose work I admire. I am picky though, on my own terms, both about work and about sites - I don't want one of those freebie sites because of incessant ads and I have clear ideas about background color and graphics, ideas that aren't so routine.

And that is just speaking of my own site; we may yet get one going re the gallery.

The thing is, both myself and my business partner don't think people should buy work online, at least work that costs a fair amount of money, without seeing it. And having the worked shipped so someone can see it in person is expensive and risk filled, as in every time a painting moves....
There are websites that handle that for you, Art Exchange.com for one, but I don't want to get into that business, being some kind of holding facility.

In the meantime, there is a link to a lot of Humboldt County artists through the Humboldt Art Council and the Palette magazine. I have to be careful with this link since when I gave it before some porn site came up, er, showed up.

Me, I need more than one site, as I want to put my italy photos and lectures on a site... too little moolah, too little time.

So, I said that I would start the new topic on the art articles with links today. We'll see. When I do I'll post a link here.

"The lion part'' was about the confrontation , not the reporting.

En plein air reminds me of Pisarro , standing out in a snowy day to capture the moment, or Walter baum slogging in a pile of slush to more correctly depict the light and chronicle it at the time.
Im not gonna do anuthing but admire the result. landscapes from photos are like still lifes in acrylics, kinda missing some element that being there catches.

Bingo.

But me, I don't do that as I am not into landcatching on site .. personallyl I landcatch in my own way.

I don't mean to set up antagonism between points of view.
Glad to have everybody gathered...

LWizard, I just loved the film noir Spillaine and Marlow detective movies, especially with Robt. Mitchum. My most vivid memory, probably didn't happen. It was night and Marlow was in his seedy office, drinking wiskey from a bottle kept in his desk drawer, neon lights flashing outside, and he says, to his journal, "Then she walked in, legs up to her neck."

Thaats Guy Noir youre quoting JL