Plein Air Painting 101

This 3-week course will offer both beginning and advanced students a comprehensive introduction to the practice of plein air painting. Instruction will focus on developing students’ foundational skills with each session building cumulatively on the previous. Starting from observation, the first session will teach students how to select a scene from the landscape; how to manage depth of field through foreground, middleground, and background; and how to translate space into a range of values mapped out through drawing. The second session will then introduce color mixing, paint handling, and brushwork using gouaches. Finally, with the experience and sketches developed over the first two weeks, the last session will ask students to tackle oil painting au plein air, learning how to tame the slipperiness of oil paint through the decisive use of thinners, mediums, and brushes; how to properly build up layers ‘fat over lean’ to ensure a stable, long-lasting paint surface; and—most importantly—how to leverage the technical constraints of the medium towards creative-expressive ends while still capturing the essential features of a directly observed landscape.

Week 1 | Landscape drawing — mapping space and describing form:

A series of quick, guided warm-up drawings in the first half of class will introduce building values and blocking out space using vine charcoal, a kneaded eraser and a chamois. For the second half, students set up for a long (~1.5hr) drawing session interspersed with brief demos and one-on-one meetings.

Outcome: (1) 16 x 20 in. sheet of warm-up drawings; (1) 16 x 20 in. final drawing

Week 2 | Drawing with painting — mixing pencil and gouache:

Composition mapping techniques learned in week 1 will be used to establish the foundation of gouache paintings, and students will learn how to translate light and shadow relationships into color, paying particular attention to how atmospheric perspective affects color temperature.

Outcome: (1) 8 x 10 in. warm-up gouache painting on paper; (1) 16 x 20 in. final gouache painting on paper

Week 3 | Slipping and sliding with oils across the landscape (while avoiding muddy messes):

Rendering depth of field by working in layers — thin to thick, broad to narrow, far to near — and moving between high stakes, expressive brushtrokes and more controlled linework to create a painting that captures the experience of observation, combining both a subjective and objective perspective.

Outcome: (1) 20 x 24 in. oil painting on wood panel

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Bette Davis Picnic Area, 1850 Riverside Drive, Glendale, United States