PleinAir Magazine April/May 2022

Although Édouard Manet was slower to take up painting in the open air than his friend Claude Monet, the artist happily embraced the process in the summer of 1874, when the pair painted together in Argenteuil, a small town just downriver from Paris. But while Monet focused on the landscape, more often than not, Manet turned his attention to painting people outdoors. Here, Manet found inspiration in the sight of Monet and his wife, Camille, on the boat the painter used as a floating studio. Described by Manet as “the Raphael of water,” Monet would row the boat up and down the Seine and stop whenever he spotted a promising subject. In this piece, we see evidence of Monet’s influence on the older artist. Demonstrating a newfound freedom in his approach, Manet…

If you are reading this live and in person at the Plein Air Convention & Expo, pause for a moment and look around. Look at all the smiling faces (or at least the twinkling eyes, if we’re in masks); take note of the famous artists teaching or in attendance, the vendors bustling around the Expo Hall, and the sheer number of painters who join you for the paint-outs. What if this were the last time we could come together? I don’t mean to be morbid, but if we’ve learned anything in the last couple of years, it’s that nothing lasts forever. Think about your own hometown. In my town, some of my favorite restaurants and shops closed their doors. Some of them had been around for decades, but they were either forced to…

Squeezing in a moment between presentations at this year’s PleinAir Live virtual event to write this piece, I started thinking about how much has changed since I wrote my first Editor’s Note for PleinAir Magazine. At the time, I was preparing for my first ever Plein Air Convention & Expo (PACE), to be held in Santa Fe, New Mexico — another first for me. I was stepping into a new position, a new world, and I was feeling the pressure. I could never have imagined that five years later I’d be on camera, co-hosting an event broadcast to 22 countries and all 50 states. This is not the life most introverted writers dream of. But just as I was making plans for what would have been my third in-person convention, this…

Artists want for many things in their careers — buyers, positive reviews, the right dealers, luck — but sometimes what they really need is money to pay the rent on a studio or to buy some art materials. Hoan Rahlan, a painter in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a newly minted Masters of Fine Art degree from the University of North Carolina Greensboro in 2021, had everything to look forward to but no money to get started. Added to that, a new baby limited her ability to work full time. “I wanted to continue to create art and improve my skills and techniques, and in order to do that I needed money to get more supplies and studio space,” she says. One of her professors recommended that she apply to the Arts…

Q. It seems that most artists’websites don’t list prices for the work, and instead require the potential buyer to inquire with the artist. Is this a good strategy? — David Cruz (via e-mail) A. Well, David, it’s a matter of philosophy. The benefit of having someone call you is that you’ll have a chance to talk to them, to sell them on you and the work, and to justify the price before you give it to them. There’s an old philosophy that goes: whenever the price is mentioned before value is established, you never get your price. You have to establish value first. An artist does this by talking about their awards, their exhibitions, and their collectability. On the other hand, this is an Internet world. And frankly, I know I’m not…

Painting outdoors with 360-degree views, artists have access to an infinite source of subject matter from which to draw inspiration. Every once in a while, however, the tables turn, and they find themselves providing inspiration for someone else. The 17 artists whose work is featured here show us what happens when the painter becomes the painted. Expanded Digital Edition Content…