11 Days of Plein Air Painting

For some reason I have it in my mind that I should always challenge myself, try new things, and this 11 day Plein Air Along the Fox River painting event seemed like a good one to explore especially since I only live a block from the river. I am familiar with the area and thought how hard can it be. But here is the thing – I am not a plein air painter! I don’t enjoy painting landmarks or buildings, but I do love seeing the color of a landscape on site rather than from a photograph in a studio.

I decided to work with encaustic medium outdoors. It required lots of planning, making sure I had a butane powered camping griddle as a palette for the wax paint, a lightweight folding table to safely put the griddle on and still have room for my painting panel, torch, brushes and oil sticks. I was not prepared for the extreme heat on the first day when I had trouble layering paint because it didn’t have a way to properly cool down between layers. The other issue on windy days, it was hard to keep the griddle hot enough to keep the paint liquified and that’s when the torch made it work, plus textural painting was my friend.

I also wanted to try soft pastel and watercolor sketches thinking maybe I could present a combination of mediums but at some point after the event started realized it was too confusing to present 3 different mediums. At first we were told we would have a specific amount of hanging space then as the event progressed we were told 4 paintings total and a quick paint piece… that’s when I had to pick my favorite medium which of course was encaustic.

After 11 days of painting along the river there was a final reception but it was split between two gallery locations. I don’t think that was the best choice and made it difficult to see the group show in its entirety. I also don’t think there was proper attention given to displaying the work in the location my work was at; using 1 hanging wire per artist didn’t allow for proper spacing between paintings and I am unclear why the choice not to use nails on the display boards was made (the other gallery location used nails to hang and it made a huge difference).

I created 9 paintings total … 4 encaustic, 1 “quick paint” encaustic (5 pieces seen below), 2 soft pastel, and 2 watercolor & ink … would I do it again? Absolutely not with wax!

There were 38 artists participating and I saw stunning and incredible paintings. It was a little intimidating to be surrounded by such talent but I am pretty sure some of the artists do plein air painting competitions on a regular basis with experience and preparedness.

I did have fun. I did enjoy the challenge.

I am sharing below the 2 sketches and 2 pastels that didn’t make my final display wall. If ever there was a time down the road that I would consider another plein air event at least I’ll know to focus on one painting medium.