Tips for Success

Kara Hidalgo:

For beginning plein air painters, keep your motivation strong by doing everything you can to finish a painting in one sitting.  Having a pile of unfinished paintings is discouraging.  To help your mind simplify a scene, think of it like a quilt block.  How can you break down the scene into color blocks?  Imagine you have to cut out each color with scissors. 
You might be surprised how often you are satisfied with the abstracted color block piece.  Sometimes the details are not even needed to "finish" a piece of art.

Peggy Akovenko
I like to have different sizes of gesso panel board (8” by 8”, 8” by 10”, 11” by 12”, 9” by 16”). I prepare them with a thin wash wash of Gamsol and Alizarin Crimson.  I make sure these are dry before heading out.  I like to have my pallete ready to go so I can paint right away at the site. I set up titanium white, ivory black, raw umber, burnt umber, ultramarine blue, magnesium blue, alizarin crimson, cadmium red, lemon yellow, cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, and burnt sienna.  Depending on my subject, I will also pre-mix some forest greens and other greens as well as any other colors I think I might want.

My bag will also include my lunch, a water bottle, sunscreen, paper towels, baby wipes, gamsol, and small, medium and large brushes. I bring my easel, my wagon, umbrella, chair and a hat.

Bonnie Griffith:

For those of you who are die hard, seasoned plein air artists this might be redundant but if you are tentative about whether or not to get out and do some plein air in the winter, these tips might help you make that leap to paint outside in the cold.

1.  Plan ahead  - decide ahead of time where you want to paint, subject matter, medium to use and make these month or so long challenges a learning process or the honing in in a skill set you want to perfect.  Decide on location(s) that aren’t far from your home base. You don’t want to be driving a long distance every day - remember it’s a 31 day commitment!

Prep your boards, tape your paper, tone your paper at home.   Limit your palette and premix paint if you can.  Pack a small assortment of pastels that are relevant to where/what you are going to paint if that’s your medium. Gouache painters have your paint in an airtight deep well palette ready to go.  

This helps shorten set up time in the cold. 

2.  Plan to spend a short time out there painting. I limit myself to 30-45 minutes.  These are field studies not the Mona Lisa!  Paint on  small substrates.   Take reference photos cuz you might want to paint a larger studio piece sometime.  

Have your little sketch book and pencil or pens ready to do a composition study and quick value study before you start your painting.  Crunched for time - do your value study and block in on your canvas or paper with a wash of your medium, then paint over it.

3. Dress for the weather. (I have put those charcoal disposable hand warmers inside the palm of my latex gloves  and I can still hold a brush or pastel). Grab something to stand on if you are in the snow, like a carpet sample or something that helps keep your feet dry and out of the snow. Ear muffs, hat or cap and a scarf to keep you warm (if it’s 45 degrees dress accordingly!!) sunscreen??

4.  Super cold day? Time for Vehicular plein air?  Push your seat back, clear out your cup holders and use your steering wheel as an easel.  Done it many times in the rain or super cold. Lots of paper towels to keep paint contained!

Tracy Wilson
A PSA for Plein Air Potties

It’s a fact of life that often the best plein air scenery isn’t near a bathroom, vault toilet, or port-a-potty. And painting for hours on location might require a bathroom break. For PAPI events I know organizers do their best to plan painting locations where there are bathroom facilities of some sort, but that’s not always possible. We also post whether there are bathrooms available or not so folks have a heads-up. But when bathrooms aren’t available, I have two suggestions.

First, and most obvious, is to use nearby concealing bushes or trees. This is what hikers, mountain bikers, canoeists, cross-country skiers, etcetera do. If you’re painting with a pal, maybe ask them to give you a shout if people are approaching. Bring a small plastic baggie to tuck any toilet tissue into to dispose of later. You *don’t* want to be *that* person leaving toilet tissue behind. There are products that assist women in peeing standing up, like men do, but I don’t have experience with those and can’t recommend any specific ones. Google if you’re interested.

Second option is to bring your own car toilet. This may be optimal for areas where it might be hard to find a private spot in the woods. You can make your own car toilet easily out of a critter vault. These are also called pet food vaults, vittles vaults, dog food storage containers, etc. (Example in link below.) They are water-tight containers, small in size, various dimensions, that can fit easily behind a front car seat. You can find them at Amazon, PetSmart, D&B, etc. Mine cost $16, but prices might be higher now.

Put a small layer of kitty litter in the bottom of the vault. Seal the container and leave it behind a front seat. Bring your own TP. Easy to use behind the front seat (I won’t go into details, but you can figure it out). After a day’s use, dump the kitty litter in your trash and refresh it. After every few uses, deep clean the vault with something like Clorox.

It helps to have tinted windows or window shades for using the car potty, but unless someone is hovering next to your car they won’t be able to see what you’re up to.

I hope this is helpful. If you have other suggestions for Plein Air Peeing, please share them!