Plein Air Bootcamp

In the studio, you choose your subject. Whether it’s a photo, a screen shot, a still life with flowers and buds, or a portrait sitter, they all have one thing in common. The subject holds still for you. You can adjust the light, you can crop the image, you can change your point of view. You can take a snack break. You can come back in a week and keep working on it.

In the wild, your location, time of day, weather conditions, critters and scenery choices are all in play. This class will teach you how to choose a composition with confidence from the vastness of it all. From the time you set up your gear and pick your scene, you have about two hours to place your shapes, identify your shadows and get your main colors in before the sun moves and the light changes away from your original thoughts. All this, because “chasing the light” is the kiss of death to your first two hours of work.

This 3 day painting workshop is focused on:
-Getting your gear organized for outdoor painting
-the guidelines of outdoor composition
-seeing shadow shapes, seeing the contrasts in color
-conveying your scene idea efficiently
-seeing shapes, not things
-the power of horizontal, vertical and diagonal features in your scene
-painting quickly, confidently and efficiently
-90% done is actually a very fine painting.

Day One: We begin in the classroom, practice with composition tools and gain confidence with scene finding tools for the outdoors. We practice editing your scene down to a manageable painting, identify the main shapes and ask a few questions that will qualify your scene as ‘worthy of your time and effort’. You then know if your choice is qualified, and also which canvas is the best ratio for your chosen scene.

The afternoon plein air session will be a gear overview of “what’s in Gail's truck”, followed by a painting demo that begins with setting up the easel, qualifying the scene, selecting the canvas, applying the underpainting, drawing in the big shapes and starting the painting.

Day two: We paint outdoors, and apply our composition skills and choices, consider canvas sizes, and decide what to paint, and why. We’ll be out all day, so bring lunch and a chair! All the outdoor stuff. Gail will also demo.

Day three: We paint outdoors again, as your confidence builds with using more paint, bigger brushes, and composition choices that enhance your artistic voice. I’ll be painting a demo alongside you.

End of session, we will gather for sharing our work. And notice how much more efficient your process has become.