Will Rogers, Art Critic

Will Rogers was a world traveler and movie star as well as a humorist.
Here is his opinion about painting, which could serve as encouragement to us all:
"When you ain't nothing else you're an artist--it's one thing you can claim to be and no one can prove you ain't."

Extreme Plein Air, Part 2: Salt Water Media

This is a page of videos showing renowned U.K. artist Kurt Jackson in action. The first film shows him sketching off the coast of Cornwall, first aboard the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza, keeping an eye on commercial bass fishermen who have been catching dolphins in their nets and killing them, next on an inflatable speedboat which approaches the trawlers to disrupt them, and finally on a more traditional line-fishing boat, which is dolphin-safe.

His paintings on solid ground are also unusual. Some are realistic, some quite abstract, and sometimes the tangled shrubs & branches are reminiscent of Jackson Pollock. He paints on a large (sometimes five feet or more) canvas spread out on the ground and held in place by rocks. He has followed rivers from their source to the sea, painting along the way (sometimes from a boulder in the middle of the stream). He makes notes on the canvas about the experience, noting the weather, wildlife, historical features, botanical species, etc. He uses various and mixed media, from watercolor, ink, oil and acrylic to collage, etching and sculpture. He has painted inside the tin mines of Cornwall and Spain.

He has donated paintings and prints to be auctioned off for the benefit of causes such as WaterAid, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam, Greenpeace, among others.

This painting is entitled Every hedge has an eye, every ditch has an ear:

Sketchcrawl # 29 - Saturday October 16th

This page from the official SketchCrawl website has information about how easy it is to participate. This regularly-sceduled global event began back in '04.

You can view the results of past events: sketches from all over the world of architecture, people, plants & animals, food & drink, landscapes and even the sketchers themselves.

There are no rules:
-Anyone can participate, be it to draw for 20 minutes or the full day .
-Any level of ability is welcome from veteran artists to first time sketchers.
-Any age! Try it with your kids!

Mark Daily - Notes for Outdoor Painting

This is a page by Mark Daily, an instructor at the Art Students League of Denver, that I happend across today. It discusses his outdoor painting class and has lots of helpful information.

Here are two samples: "... doing an oil painting is like writing a novel without an editor. It's really open-ended. By comparison, doing a woodblock print forces you to make an enormous reduction of facts. You must limit yourself to JUST ENOUGH. There is tremendous value in trying to do this. If you can't get a handle on the essentials of what you are attempting to portray, your results will be very poor, without character. Our best painters are not considered great because they render details better than everyone else. They've built details upon a solid design and fine drawing...Simplicity is an important addition to your fundamental artistic understandings."

"...your artistic development should advance as your skills advance. Artistic development is the more important part because it’s the process of taking responsibility for the what and why of your subject matter. It is a difficult process because there’s no way to know for sure if things are going in the right direction, there’s no one to reassure you. Those 'what' choices are near the heart of you- what has meaning for you. Notice thoughts which inspire you. Pay attention to what you enjoy and stop to record it. Find a way to keep these mental notes on yourself from evaporating, from being lost in the shuffle. A moment, a place, an emotion, a theory, an opinion, whatever; it provides a connection to what in the future might be a painting- the bits of inspiration come from many sources. They will keep coming and they are unique to you."

"En "Plein Air" in the Scotchman Peaks

en Plein Air (official trailer) from Wildman Pictures on Vimeo.

You could call this "Extreme Plein Air."

Just 60 miles south of the Canadian border, Scotchman Peaks roadless area spans the Idaho-Montana border. Educational film company Wildman Pictures went there with a small group of painters to make a documentary about a five-day plein air adventure.

It should be completed and released this fall.

Panorama

The Guerrilla Painter has been working on a plein air panorama for the past several weeks. He goes up to the highest point on the ranch and paints a slightly different view every evening. Eventually, twenty-some paintings will form a complete 360* panorama of the surrounding landscape. The full moon was rising a few nights ago, and he said, "This is the first time I've had a sunset and a moonrise in the same painting."

He's noticed the difference each evening in the location (about 10 degrees longitude in a month's time) of the sunset and moonrise. There's nothing like painting outdoors to make you notice things that you usually don't even see.

Thank You, Dr. Estes

The Guerrilla Painter and I watch the news, sometimes more than I'd prefer. Of course, it's good to know what's going on, but lately things just seem to keep going over the top. It was good to be reminded recently of these words of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes:

"One of the most important steps you can take to help calm the storm is to not allow yourself to be taken in a flurry of overwrought emotion or despair — thereby accidentally contributing to the swale and the swirl. Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times.

I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate."

This is from her essay Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times, which was written shortly after 9/11.