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When it comes to plein air painting, you're at the mercy of Mother Nature and her whims. Plein air painters don't often have the luxury of getting comfortable conditions to paint in like a warm, sunny day with little wind. I was eager to do a winter painting with snow once on a frigid day and ended up with a mild case of frostbite. Sometimes rain for even a storm may come up out of nowhere, forcing me to quickly take down my easel set up and dashing to my car. Then there are times when it gets windy all of a sudden, blowing my panel full of paint onto the ground — paint side down, of course!

But I love plein air painting! I love encouraging others to try it if they haven't. It's a fun challenge. I often paint from photos I take, but there's always the concern that I'll worry too much about copying the photo rather than re-interpreting the scene. When I go outside and paint the outdoors from life, I can't help but interpret what I see and make it mine. Instead of worrying of duplicating what I see exactly, I have to work fast at the beginning to get my shadows in place before the sun moves and changes what I'm seeing.

Lately, we've been having a heatwave in metro Detroit and the temps have been in the 90s consistently. I'm sure artists in the South take these conditions for granted, but us Michigan artists aren't quite used to sweating profusely as we paint. That doesn't stop us, though; just like it doesn't stop joggers, fishermen, or anyone who enjoys doing a favorite outdoor activity. I've been trying to get some plein air painting in lately to prepare for my participation in the 13th Annual Paint Dexter Plein Air Festival. I was one of the artists painting in this festival in 2017 (where I won 1st prize Emerging Artist) and 2018. So this fine morning, I headed out to Normandy Oaks Park, a local park I've done plein air painting often. I decided to set up near their splash pad in hopes to get some figures into my scene. I painted the splash pad area before in acrylic (which you can see on the right) as practice for a wedding event live commission.

I decided to change up my usual setup. Instead of working on a rectangular panel, I brought a square canvas which necessitated my bulky Gloucester-style Take It Easel. I also brought a bunch of brushes, thinking the scene might be best rendered with the tighter marks I can get with them. To be safe, I also brought a bunch of different sized painting knives. And, like I mentioned before, my focus would be on figures instead of the usual landscape subjects like trees or flowers.

I definitely wanted to make it a colorful painting. The splash guard area had lots of objects spurting water that were colored in bright pinks, greens, and blues. The kids playing in the water and their parents wore brightly colored shorts, t-shirts, and swimsuits. The first thing I did after I setup was to tone my whole canvas by wiping it with an orange mix of paint thinned down with Liquid. Then I did a simple drawing in pure Cadmium Red using a brush. The background was made up of trees with some distant houses. I knew these sections would have to be grayed down. The cement base of the splash pad was made up of reddish brick which I also knew had to be grayed down. The main focus would, again, be the large bucket on top which would tip over to cascade water over anyone standing underneath. The water would be different applications of white mixed with either yellow of blue. These pale mixes and the gray mixes would help make the areas I want colorful to pop out. I studied the scene to picture what I wanted it to look like when it was finished. I knew this scene needed to be done in knives to emphasize the kinetic energy of the kids and the water.

I started with larger knives and did a basic block in to get a thin coat of wet paint all over the canvas. Then I got out my medium and smaller knives and applied thick paint made of hues that I tried to mix up completely so they had streaks of different colors. I worked all over. My palette got filled up quickly with different mixes of oranges, greens, blues, purples, browns, grays, etc. I went through 2 rags quickly as I wiped my knives clean in between the different colors. To get some of the shapes right, I found myself scraping some paint off with the blade, then applying a different color in that spot to emphasize the shape I wanted. The scene went back and forth between getting darker and lighter and warmer and cooler as I worked. An art professor I had at Wayne State told our class that painting was a dance between values, temperatures, and saturation and I keep that in mind. To help keep that thought, I find myself humming a tune as I paint.

The painting took a longer time to create. Usually, I get a plein air painting done in a couple hours or so. I think I spent almost 4 hours on this painting. It was a more complicated scene than my usual paintings, which involved figures that were constantly moving in and out of areas as I worked in them. Plus, I had lots of visitors of curious kids and parents eager to see what I was up to. I love people and I love talking about plein air painting, so I stopped my process for each group of kids and parents that talked to me. I even had most of the kids apply some paint in the lower areas they could reach. Although they all said they painted before, none of them have ever tried applying paint with a knife and they all got a big kick out of it. I loved the look in their eyes when I told them how perfect and beautiful the marks they made were. I tried my best to keep them as is while I worked on it to its finish.

When I did finally call it done, I got out my usual roofing nail and scratched my signature in the lower corner into the thick paint there. The painting turned out successful in my eyes, I like how I was able to suggest figures and objects rather than naming them detailed and more obvious. I like how more colorful it is as opposed to my last painting of the splash pad. I think it also has more energy.  

The take down itself took two trips to the car. I first took the painting itself and placed it into a cardboard lid that was waiting for it in the back of our car. Then I returned to clean the palette, wipe down the easel, put away the paints and tools, seal my trash. bag, and stick the materials in my back pack. Now I'd been painting the whole time in the shade since I don't like strong, direct sunlight on my canvas. As I walked to my car in the sunny areas, I realized I forgot how hot the day was. After I put everything away in the car, I looked back at the splash pad and wondered what it felt like to have the water in that large bucket dumped all over me.

I walked back and asked two women who were seated near the spot I had been painting if they'd be kind enough to watch my car key fob and my glasses while I stood under the bucket with the kids. They laughed and said they'd love to see that. I quickly went inside the splash pad area so I wouldn't miss the next dumping. It didn't take long. The bucket started tipping slowly at first and the quickly turned downward, releasing a huge cascade of cool water all over me and the kids next to me who screamed in delight. It felt amazing. I thought it would be very cold, but it was the perfect cool temperature for a hot muggy afternoon. I was instantly refreshed. I went back to the women and thanked them as I pickup my glasses and key fob. I had the windows to my car closed the entire time I was at the park and it was quite hot inside. I think I was already half dry by the time I got home only a few minutes later.

I already had a great weekend filled with a plein air painting in my back yard, watching fireworks with my wife and her best friend, and a day at the beach near Port Austin. Today's painting was the perfect capper. I had a lot of fun talking with kids and showing them how I paint, and I finally found out what it feels like getting doused by the large bucket. I wish you could have have joined me, but the best I can do is share the painting I did. If you do want to see some of my work in person, I will be in the South Oakland Art Association booth next weekend at the Royal Oak Art Fair. I plan on doing a painting live on Saturday. If you're in the area, stop on by and say hi. The event is free and will have lots of terrific artists and crafts people showing off and selling their beautiful work.

Until then, I tiled this Heatwave Relief. This is a 16" x 16" oil on canvas painted with painting knives.