Inspired by Sarah Burns, I decided to try Plein Airpril this year! This is a month of daily plein air practice. I’ll be blogging a little differently this month, too! Normally I write posts ahead and schedule them to appear 3 times a week. In order to track my Plein Airpril progress, I’ve instead cleared the runway for April. Let’s see if I manage to do more realtime blogging of my progress. I expect that each entry will be shorter, but with more in-the-moment notes.
My “Rules” for Plein Airpril
What I hope to get out of Plein Airpril:
- Through consistency and sheer repetition, get more used to painting outside so it doesn’t seem like a big deal. Get used to carrying my paint kit everywhere and become more blasé about painting in fromt of people.
- Paint more from life to gain a deeper understanding of the way color, light, and perspective look (and feel) in real life, as opposed to photos.
- Spend more time outdoors.
With those goals in mind, here are my guiding principles for the month:
- Ease: This is the only way to make it sustainable: have the lowest possible bar for what counts as “plein air practice.” It will generally always be tiny, and it doesn’t need to be a complete scene. Swatching definitely counts! In this way, it’ll be an April version of Nature Spots, which I wanted to do in April anyway since the color landscape is so different than in January.
- Flexibility: While the ideal is to paint from life outside, it may not always work out like that. Any act that supports either of the goals is fine. For example, if I don’t feel like painting my surroundings, I can paint from my imagination; if it’s outdoors, this still supports goal #1. If the weather is bad, or I’m sick, or otherwise stuck indoors, I can paint something from life inside, or outside through the window; this supports goal #2.
- Ordinaryness: I don’t need to find something special to paint. The ordinary is special.
- Imperfection: There will likely be some days I do not get out to paint. This is okay. Instead of giving up due to a broken streak, I’ll just try to keep going the next day.
- Sunscreen: It’s just a good idea.
My Plein Air Equipment
If I’m going to take my painting gear with me every time I leave the house, it needs to be an ultralight minimal kit. Here’s my setup:
- Art Toolkit’s Pocket Toolkit case – about A5 size – containing:
- Art Toolkit Pocket Palette – I’m using the Drawn to High Places pink one for spring! (14 colors below)
- mini sketchbook – the smallest Moleskine Watercolor Album (3.5″x5.5″)
- waterbrushes – my usual Pentel Aquash, and a I’m also trying out a Kuretake which has a stopper so may be better for details. I had to get the compact size, as the normal Kuretake waterbursh doesn’t fit in the Pocket Toolkit. Waterbrushes don’t give me the same level of control that I have with regular brushes, but they’re so much more convenient – I can grab my kit, do a little doodle, and put it away without worrying about filling a water cup or disposing of the water.
- 1 micron pen – I often find it faster and more satisfying outside to do a sketch before I paint, since it can be hard to get detail in a single-layer waterbrush sketch. I sketch directly in pen to favor speed over accuracy and perfectionism.
- Rebecca Caridad’s CARI easel – this is my newest addition! It slots into the sketchbook and uses magnets to hold the pocket palette. Because it is custom built for the Art Toolkit, it fits perfectly inside the case. (As I use waterbrushes, I don’t use the water cup holder, it’s still worth it – without it I’m juggling my palette and sketchbook, with it they’re one unit!)
- reusable brush cloth – the seller I purchased this from doesn’t make them anymore but you can find similar ones on Etsy, or just use a bit of old towel or a shop cloth.
- binoculars – this has nothing to do with painting, I just like to go birdwatching a lot in spring, and I know that I will paint more if I can add it onto birding trips. If “getting out to paint” is in opposition to “getting out to bird,” birding will win, but if I can do them together, the habits will support each other.
Other than the binoculars, everything fits in the Pocket Toolkit case, so it’s pretty easy to take with me anywhere. (When it’s fully loaded, the Toolkit can have trouble closing, so sometimes I keep the sketchbook outside it.)
My Starting Palette
I always like to pick out a special palette for these challenges, though inevitably it evolves along the way. Here’s my starting palette for spring 2024. I find that my spring palettes are usually too bright across the board; this time, I tried to balance a row of brights with a row of more muted colors to be able to create contrast.
Top Row – Brights:
- HO Imidazolone Yellow (PY175) – a cooler, lemony yellow than my usual PY154. Last year I had PY3, but after doing a bunch of tests I found that I prefer the oranges/warm mixes made by PY175.
- DS Hansa Yellow Deep (PY65) – bold orange-yellow. Potentially could replace with PY110.
- DV Quinacridone Red (PR209) – bold coral
- HO Quinacridone Magenta (PR122) – violet-leaning magenta; purple mixer; mixes rose with PR209
- DV Ultramarine Blue (PB29) – bold warm blue, sky zeniths, granulator, misc mixer
- HO Phthalo Blue Red Shade (PB15:1) – bold middle blue, one-stroke skies
- DS Phthalo Green Yellow Shade (PG36) – spring exclusive: emerald green for bright new-shoot greens
Bottom Row – More muted or naturalistic:
- HO Yellow Ochre (PY42) – earth yellow
- DS Transparent Red Oxide (PR101) – earth orange, granulator
- DV Indian Red (PR101) – earth red, granulator
- DS Indanthrone Blue (PB60) – violet-toned dark blue for shadows or muted dark-green mixes.
- WN Indigo (PB15, PV19, PBk6) – dark green mixer
- DV Cerulean Blue Genuine (PB35) – opaque light blue; cool pastel mixer
- DS Rich Green Gold (PY129) – green-mixing gold
Compared to last year’s spring palette, I dropped Titanium White, Permanent Red, Opus, and Smalt; and added Cerulean Blue, Indian Red, Indanthrone Blue, and Indigo. For the most part, the colors I added are more muted, which gives me more options for end-of-winter mud season scenes and chromatic contrast that makes the brights look brighter. One of the decisions I’m least sure about is dropping white, since I insisted last year that I wanted it for spring pastels, but I feel like I’m not actually usually happy with most pastels made from white. The exception is cool, cloudy colors, where I want “grayish” pastels; I’m hoping to make these from cerulean mixes.
I feel like my seasonal palettes are becoming more and more samey, which means I’m zeroing in on the most versatile colors that I like to have all the time. Of these colors, only Lemon Yellow and Phthalo Green YS feel especially springy to me; the rest are good anytime colors.