PleinAir Magazine Jun/Jul 2018

William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) was already a popular artist in Manhattan in 1891, when prominent art patron Janet Hoyt invited him to Shinnecock, Long Island, to start an open-air school of art. At the time, plein air painting was still relatively new to the United States, but growing rapidly in popularity. Each summer for the next 12 years, a hundred or so students flocked to the beach resort for Chase’s outdoor classes. Two days a week, he instilled in them the virtues of dispensing with sketches or preparatory drawings and painting directly on canvas in the presence of nature. The decade-plus that Chase spent with the school would mark a new chapter in his art and family life. While the artist was busy teaching or painting, his wife and children —…

One of the great things about the Plein Air Convention & Expo, for me, is that so many wonderful ideas come out of it. During our recent Santa Fe event, I had a chance to spend quality time with a lot of different people during my book signings, at various functions and cocktail parties, and after hours, sitting up late brainstorming with old and new friends. The spirit of the people attending is so encouraging because we’re all in painting for the same reasons — it changed our lives and opened our eyes to the perspective of an artist. There are so many wonderful ideas floating around for how we can make the world better through plein air painting. One of those ideas came up right before the convention, when Lansing, Michigan,…

“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” — Albert Einstein One trait common to all great artists is a sense of curiosity. Why else did Monet paint all those haystacks? Seemingly never tiring of exploring the same subject in a variety of light and weather conditions, the artist saw something new with every pass. “The more I continue, the more I see that a great deal of work is necessary in order to succeed in rendering what I seek,” he wrote. Of course, this practice says as much about Monet’s tenacity as it does his inquisitive nature. And aren’t those qualities really two sides of the same coin? At this year’s Plein Air Convention & Expo, David A Leffel received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to art.…

In front of a packed house gathered for the opening ceremony of the 7th Annual Plein Air Convention & Expo, California artist Jim Wodark took the stage to accept the $15,000 Grand Prize in the 2017-2018 PleinAir Salon. He had this to say about his award-winning painting, Prairie Sundown: “I made this scene up. I had Googled images of old barns and a small black-and-white photo of a prairie sod house popped up. I liked the feeling of the house, and sitting at a coffee shop one day, I started to think about how I could design a painting around it. “In initial sketches, I tried putting a horse in front of the house, and explored the idea of making a nocturne. Eventually, I painted a small 6 x 9-inch study to…

Primarily known as a painter of big game, Carl Rungius earned himself a revered position in the canon of plein air painting for his fidelity to working directly from life. He once said, “If you paint outdoor scenes in the studio, your color gets too hot. Only if you paint outdoors do you see the cool, silvery tones that are the true colors of nature.” Rungius developed his skills for depicting animals with anatomical accuracy at the zoo in Berlin, his birthplace. In 1894, he traveled to Cora, Wyoming, to hunt and sketch, and never went home. For the next decade, he spent his summers in Wyoming, painting and hunting moose, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep in the Rocky Mountains, then retreated to his studio in New York, where he dedicated the…

Symbols of freedom, innovation, and adventure, automobiles have long captured the imagination of American artists. For some, cars and trucks add interest or energy to the landscape; for others, they are the landscape. Here, we’ll look at how 13 contemporary painters have drawn inspiration from autos of all sorts. "I painted Food Coloring Memories as my Christmas gift to my husband, who grew up in this trailer that his dad pulled from one construction job to the next so that his family could stay together," says Kathie Odom. "After emptying Log Cabin syrup bottles, the kids would fill them with food dye and water and then place them in the window to catch the light. "Working from an old black-and-white photo, I had to move quickly as Buddy was only going to…