My Adventure Plein Air
This week I got to go to my first Plein Air Workshop and to my surprise it’s a FB artist that I followed, Lori Putnam. What an amazing artist she is. Full of life, willing to be a person on your level not one that is above you and so informative that I walk away with my heading spinning and my notebook full of notes.
Now most of you guys know this info but for the beginner plein air this will be a few nuggets and for the rest of us a fresh reminder …
Lori talk about how she wanted to brake into the art world. But it was and a portrait artist friend that told her to start by painting Plein Air painting for this would help her to see color that u don’t see in a photo and to push her self lay down color and shallows fast.
She also said something that hit me right between the eyes. Most artist never see there dream come true because we make excuses on way we can’t paint that day.
Have u ever said “I have my kids to take care of”(but if u want to go out shopping, a date night with it husband,boyfriend,out with a friend you will make the time),”I have to cook dinner” (then paint in the morning instead of watching TV or paint something in the back yard) . We can make all kinds excuses why we can’t but stop!
Lori also briefly talk about an Plein Air group of artist and one of them dose not have arms. She said that they where out painting when it started to lightly rain. The first thing everyone started to do was to complain. When she (Lori) look over to where the Artist with no arms was,she had some how pull a tarp over her self and kept on painting. There was no excuses for her. She was living here dream…
This is something that I am falling into lately. I am a Acrylics artist but taking my Acrylic outdoor is not easy. Most artist tell me to switch to oils but I like the drying time and for me there is no smell in Acrylics. I was getting frustrated so I started making excuses of why I can go out to paint today but know more excuses for me. I shall see my dreams come true.
She also talk about FEAR and how it can hold us back from your dreams. Oh someone has been reading my diary. But again no more, I am going to get out of my comfort zone and start telling my self that “I can do that” even when I don’t have a clue on how to do it.
She talk about her Plein Air gear, paints, & brushes.
Then she talk about something that I don’t do and I should. A thumb nail sketch for your Plein Air painting.
This I am finding out is very important when Plein Air. What is a Notan sketch? Will I look it up and you can read about it here-http://www.pleinairbc.com/the-notan/ . Also when doing a Notan sketch, make sure you make detail notes where your shadows, lights, colors-warm or cool are.
Now Lori had started her painting and while she painted she talking about color values. (Check out the Artist’s Road -http://www.theartistsroad.net/articles/colormixingsecrets) . And that we needed to get our shadows in our painting quickly.
Plus she would mix her colors next to each other to get a value check but then she would check that same color against a white paper towel before adding it to the canvas to make sure she did not get a color shade to dark or light.
She also said for us to ask our self these questions while painting?
- Is your colors-warm or cool,light or dark.
- Is you color closer to the color you just put down.
After the workshop was over I went up to look at her painting closer when a friend came up to me and said some like “I wish she would have talk a little bit about how to brake into the art world”. Will the next thing I knew we went up to her and ask and the answer was Social Media. Then she told us something that I was a little surprise to hear. Don’t put your work up at a discount or cut your prices to make a sale either. When you go to the doctor you don’t bargain with the cost, not do you bargain with the market, etc. You know it cost money and you paid for their work. The same going with your artwork. If they can’t afford the original work of art than sell them a copy of your work at a lower prices.
You are an artist not the 99 cent store/dollar tree store.
If you ever get a chances to take one of Lori Putnam work shop, do for you come out with nuggets that you did not have before
————————————————————————————————————
mycrazypleinairadventuresblog 