PleinAir Magazine Feb/Mar 2018

One of the most iconic images representing plein air painting, this relatively small painting by Sanford R. Gifford promotes outdoor painting to artists and collectors. The artist put himself on a rock ledge on Mount Desert in Maine and highlighted his supplies, painting procedures, and finished painting. It was as though he was saying that artists should honor the actual appearance of their subjects and that collectors should buy what is true to the visual world. Gifford was a second-generation Hudson River School painter who built a reputation as a master of light and atmosphere. When he was an infant, Gifford moved with his family to Hudson, New York, where an older brother, Charles, became enamored of art at an early age and may have received some early instruction from Henry…

As life passes by, I’ve often said that I believe time travel is possible. It was just yesterday, it seems, that Steve Doherty and I met for the first time to go plein air painting in the Adirondacks of Upstate New York. Steve had driven up five or so hours from his home in the New York City area so we could paint together, so I took him to the best place I knew, a waterfall that had been a popular spot among the Hudson River School painters. We stood and painted in the exact same spot where many of the greats had executed their extraodinary paintings before us. Getting to that spot was comical. Back then, in the early days of Facebook, I captured Steve on video, gear on his…

This February/March issue of PleinAir will be my last as editor-in-chief. I made the decision a year ago that by the time I reached my 70th birthday, I would end my 39-year career with art magazines and devote more time to painting, teaching, and volunteering. During that year, Eric Rhoads conducted a broad search for someone to replace me, and I’m delighted he was able to hire Kelly Kane to take over with the April/May convention issue of the magazine. Kelly has considerable experience developing and managing the content of several art magazines, and she will do an outstanding job with PleinAir. I’ve spent the past seven years at PleinAir and have thoroughly enjoyed working with members of the artist community, the magazine’s staff and management, and manufacturers of supplies and…

Artistic excellence and the production of investment quality art continues to be the trademark of the 10-day festival. Now in its second decade, organizers continue to hone what makes the Forgotten Coast event exceptional. May of 2018 will focus on the man made environment, buildings, boats, bridges, anything made by man.These elements will be the inspiration for this season’s plein air paintings. The region’s rich culture and heritage will be celebrated with brush and canvas. The invitational features internationally acclaimed artists, as well as “Florida’s Finest en Plein Air” artists honored as Plein Air Ambassadors. Expanded exhibits, a Collectors’ Forum, lectures by distinguished guest speakers, demonstrations, workshops, classes and opportunities for artists of all skill levels are all in the making! Nationally known artist, Lori Putnam will be the invited judge for the…

Starting in the late 1880s, many natural history museums established a practice of showcasing animals in dioramas that would allow visitors to see the specimens in a specific location, rather than a generic scene. To achieve that level of naturalism and believability, plein air painters traveled to locations chosen by scientists, where they created plein air paintings that could used as guides for developing the large background paintings. From 1934 to 1972, Fred F. Scherer painted or collaborated in painting dozens of those dioramas for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. After he retired to Vermont, Scherer continued to paint landscape outdoors.…

One of the great benefits of being a plein air painter is the freedom to travel to inspiring locations around the U.S. or abroad. We just need to pack our portable easels, tripods, stools, brush quivers, surface, paints, brushes, and other supplies and take an unplanned adventure or participate in an organized event. Or we might decide to lighten and simplify our supplies, carry mediums to make the paints dry slower or faster, buy lighter-weight panels, or decide to create only field sketches and not finished works of art. As the artists featured in this portfolio can attest, the choices are many and varied, and the results can stimulate us to explore new options when painting during a trip. “I enjoy traveling to paint for the inspiration,” says Roger Dale Brown, who…