Plein Air Painting Links

You have spent many years learning how to paint, and you have a closet full of paintings waiting for the right person to come along and buy it. The problem is, not many people pass by your closet. Here are some tips on how to market and sell your paintings directly, as well as some tips for getting noticed by the galleries who could sell your work for you.

• The first thing to realise is that you are your own billboard. When you are out painting, everyone sees you and what you are doing, and there are lots of people out there who may be interested in buying the finished piece from you. Although you may no like to be disturbed while you are painting, there is a solution - promote yourself on the clothes you are wearing! There are several places where you can get t-shirts, jackets, buttons, caps and other apparel printed with your details, so that potential customers can take notes and contact you later. Our favorite supplier for plein air painting apparel is Plein Air Wear.
  
• Another way to get noticed is to enter local art competitions and plein air events. You may have to start small and work your way up, but the more people see your name and your artwork the better. Gallery owners often attend these events and are open to taking on new artists when they need to fill a gap.
• Enter competitions in magazines such as International Artist and Artist’s Magazine. If your painting wins a prize and is printed in the magazines, more gallery owners and potential customers will get to see it.
• Join a plein air painting organization, either local or national, and attend the meetings and paintouts. These groups often have sales events such as art exhibitions and outdoor markets where you can sell directly to customers. Sometimes you have to donate a percentage of the sale to the organization, but it is often worth it for the exposure.

Many plein air painters have more than one easel. They have probably tried all the different types of portable easels and pochade boxes on the market, and some have even made their own. Each artist has their own requirements for an easel, and most serious plein air painters use systems that will carry their paint, panels, and brushes all in one box. The main requirements are that the easel system is lightweight and sturdy.
Here are some of the best easels used by the top plein air artists in California, as well as a few design ideas for easels you can make for yourself if you are on a budget or need something more tailored to your needs. Some companies will even take your suggestions and make a box for you.

• Soltek easel
• Sun-Eden Easel
• Open Box M
• ProChade Easel
• Guerrilla Painter™ Boxes
• Art Box Plein Air System
• Take-It-Easel
• The Monarch Ultra-Portable Easel
• The Titanium Easel

Here are some wet panel carriers for if you want to take along some extra painting panels.

• Outside Shore Wet Panel Carrier
• Wet Panel Box
• Wet Painting Totes
• Handy Porter Canvas Carriers
• Marc Hanson’s Wet Panel Carrier design

When Monet exhibited his painting “Impression: Sunrise”, the art critic Louis Leroy used “Impressionism” as a derogatory term to describe the painting. Since then it has been used to describe any painting done by the group of artists in Paris in the late 19th century, such as Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Morrisot, and Sisley, who shared the same approach to their painting. They rejected the accepted school of painting in the academies, and wanted to capture the affects of the atmosphere on the landscape. Their idea was to paint the landscape as it really was, by painting it onsite or “plein air”. By painting outdoors they could capture the real colors of the light and shade, instead of painting the artificial colors that studio artists had previously used. They also wanted to emphasize a loose imagery rather than a detailed painting of the landscape or everyday life. They incorporated bold brushtrokes of contrasting colors, rather than mixing colors on the palette, to achieve vibrant color. A painting was usually finished in a few hours in order to capture the reality of the light, and if they worked on a larger painting they would return to the spot at the same time for several days.
Although they were first viewed as naive and trivial artists, they later gained recognition for their work. Their paintings greatly influenced the artists Gaugin, Seurat, and Van Gogh.
We now use the term French Impressionism, and French Impressionists, because there were also other groups of artists in different parts of the world who were influenced by the founding artists and who carried on the tradition. In Italy there were the Macchiaioli, or Italian Impressionists, who painted the Tuscan landscape and everyday life such as Fattori, Lega, and Abbatti. You can see many works of the Italian Impressionist in the Gallery of Modern Art in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy.
In the late 1800’s, many American artists where influenced by the French Impressionists, beginning with Childe Hassam and Mary Cassatt. John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase also used the French Impressionism style in their paintings. American Impressionism was a combination of academic training and impressionistic feeling, with spontaneous brushwork and a brighter palette than other painters of the time.
In the early 1900’s, impressionism had journeyed to the west coast of the United States, where artists were enjoying the landscapes of northern and southern California. Many of them had studied in France and brought the ideas to California where they interpreted the landscape in much the same way as the French Impressionists. Amongst the most famous of the California Impressionists are Maurice Braun, Alson Clark, Armin Hansen, Anna Hills, Hanson Puthuff, Joseph Raphael, Granville Redmond, Guy Rose, Elmer Wachtel, Marion Kavanagh Wachtel and William Wendt. The best place to see their work is at the Irvine Museum in Irvine, California.
After the end of the Russian Civil War in 1922, the government proclaimed that Socialist Realism would be the only officially approved style of painting promoted within the Soviet Union. They were taught by the masters of the day, who were very familiar with traditional and impressionistic techniques, and so the artists worked in isolation, improving and expanding on the genre. You can see some of the best of these pieces at the Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as well as the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

These are our recommendations for places to get the best plein air painting instruction.

• Virtual Art Academy online plein air painting course. This is a self-study course with a nine-step process for creating a plein air painting, written by one of the top plein air artists working in California. There are also many other courses on the principles and techniques of painting. The author also occasionally runs workshops in the US and Europe.
• California Art Club. This organization includes the top artists in the US, and some of them give plein air painting workshops in California.
• Plein Air Painters of America Workshops. This organization has the top plein air artists in the US, and they occassionally give workshops in California and Arizona.
• Laguna Plein Air Painters Association. This is a group of plein air artists that paint in and around Laguna, California, where they also hold workshops throughout the year.
• Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painters This is a group of plein air artists that paint in and around Annapolis, Maryland, where they also hold workshops throughout the year.
• Camille Przewodek teaches the principles and techniques of Henry Hensche, who studied with Charles Hawthorne.
• Randall Sexton teaches plein air workshops in various locations around the US and Europe.
• Libby Tolley teaches that compelling landscape paintings result when the artist knows how to capture both the sense of place and their feelings about the subject.
• The Taos Art School holds several plein air painting workshops in Taos, New Mexico.
• En Plein Air Masters. Some of the top plein air painters of the US teach seven day workshops in Banff, Canada.
• Scottsdale Art School is a non-profit organziation that holds workshop by top professional artists in their fields. Workshops are mostly held in Scottsdale, Arizona, but they also have offsite workshops around the US.
• ArtShow lists plein air painting workshops held worldwide.
• Toscana American Workshops holds plein air painting workshops in Tuscany, Santa Lucia, Ireland, England, France, Greece and Spain.

There are only a few courses and books on plein air and alla prima painting. Here are some of them.
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