Painting plein air where the world will end on December 21 of this year

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Hieroglyphic Stairway at Copan

Watercolour and crayon

©2012 Charlene Brown

This is another made-up view of the hieroglyphic stairway, as (not quite) seen from near the top of one of the pyramids enclosing the two courts of the Acropolis. All I could actually see was the huge protective tarpaulin that was draped over the whole length of it. The painting I did lastAugust  showed the view from the other end of the ball court. And you couldn’t see the stairway from there either.

When I asked for stories from artist friends who are capable of talking and painting at the same time and actually replying intelligently to roving art critics, I got some good advice, but I was also reassured to learn that they too have avoidance techniques. Vivien Blackburn said that one of the many uses of a ‘half-igloo’ beach tent she takes when she goes painting plein air is to shelter herself from enquiring passers-by – I could see this providing the corner-to-back-into I’m always looking for! AlisonStaite  said she’d never been much bothered by Roving Art Critics, and thought this might be because of her glowering look!  I’d have to say that the glowering look I’m pretty sure I had at Copan had a rather surprising result…

RAC: I see you’ve left out the tarpaulin…

Artist: mm-hmm

RAC: Do you know why it’s there?

Artist: They’re getting ready for the end of the world.

RAC: Do you believe that?

Artist: Of course not.

This led to a fascinating discussion of why some people believe the Mayan calendar predicted the world would end on December 21, 2012.

Reflecting on this conversation has led me to wonder if a less defensive, more confident approach to The Drama of Painting Plein Air would be a good idea… Make that a pleasantly confident approach, and it could be a great idea.

A big advantage of painting over photography

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Columbine Garden on Salt Spring Island

Watercolour

©2012 Charlene Brown

It takes a lot longer to paint something than to photograph it, but painters do have some huge advantages over photographers. My favourite is that you can put whatever you want into your picture. Of course, this only applies to painters not too tightly bound to reality, or to rules like ‘one painting – one subject,’ which I’ve never liked much.

Photographers can get Mount Maxwell and the lovely little church (it’s St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church, should you be wondering) lined up in one shot if they’re quick and pick the right moment as the ferry swings around and heads for the dock at Fulford Harbour. But only a painter can work in this spectacular columbine garden, which is not in fact located in the middle of the harbour, but at an artist’s studio at the top of a precipitous drive up the hill on the right. 

Painting plein air where cameras are prohibited

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Roman ruins at Uthina

Watercolour and crayon

©2009 Charlene Brown

Most galleries and museums don’t allow photography, and artists or even whole classes of art students are often seen sketching famous paintings or sculpture.  Outdoor locations that prohibit photography, on the other hand, are kind of unusual, but I found one – an archaeological site at Uthina, in Tunisia.  A French research team had unearthed some great-looking stuff, and they didn’t want anyone getting pictures of the site into circulation prior to publication of their findings.

Soon after I set about sketching the ruins of the temple, the amphitheatre and, in the distance, surviving parts of the Zaghouan-Carthage aqueduct, I learned that drawing or painting the on-going dig was not encouraged either.  Here’s another little script in the Drama of Painting Plein Air…

Approaching archaeologist: Vous êtes canadienne? (they’d heard we were coming) Parlez francaise?

Moi: Un peu.

Archaeologist: No pictures! (glances at sketchbook and immediately becomes…)

Roving Art Critic: (trying not to laugh out loud) Well, maybe zat is okay.

It’s unusual for my imprecise renderings to draw such jolly comments from Roving Art Critics!

Virtual Paintout in Gdansk

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Brama Nizinna

Watercolour

©2012 Charlene Brown

The Virtual Paintout is in Poland this month and, unlike some of Bill Guffey’s selections where you have a whole country to work with, we could only choose locations in Gdansk.  I usually look for mountains to paint, and I know there are some spectacular ones along the Slovakian border in the south of Poland, but that grass covered hill on the right of my painting, part of an extensive fortification, is the closest I could find in Gdansk. Here is what it looks like in Google Streetview.  Perhaps next month there will be mountains. 

In the meantime, I was very taken with an entry by Carolee Clark... Carolee always seems to find a great looking subject, and has added to her impressive collection of figure paintings this month.

Painting plein air in France, and ending up with no painting at all

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This is not Giverny

Watercolour postcard

©2000 Charlene Brown

Several years ago when I had the opportunity to visit Monet’s garden, Giverny, in France, I hoped to do a painting of the water lilies.  But the morning we arrived the place was simply overwhelming in its perfection... Plus, all the best spots were taken by painters who, judging from their output, had been there since dawn.  I didn’t even unpack my paints.

My friend Pat Reese has a rather different, and quite wonderful, story about painting in France, and ending up without a painting… She says, “A few years ago, I was painting in a park in Paris when a woman approached me to look at my painting.  Her husband went into a tirade, ranting about something (in another language) and we shared a very long look, first at him and then a moment looking into each other’s eyes, when we both knew what the other was thinking…  She purchased my painting; I separated it from my pad and handed it to her knowing she was probably just getting back at her husband for something.  She handed me too many francs and we separated as kindred spirits.”

To make up for the lack of illustration for the above stories, I’ve included this postcard I painted at an odd-looking location, Les Baux-de-Provence, in the South of France, complete with the obligatory Drama of Painting Plein Air…

Roving Art Critic: That’s some strange drawing you’re doing.

Artist: This is a strange place.

Critic: That’s what I mean… It looks just like the real thing!

Artist: Nobody’s ever said that about my stuff.

Painting Plein Air in Egypt

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Unfinished Obelisk, Aswan
Watercolour and crayon
©2008 Charlene Brown

This is a fairly realistic sketch I did during a University of Victoria travel study program a few years ago. I’ll let the comments of one of the bystanders (referred to as Roving Art Critic in the following Drama of Painting Plein Air) explain why I say it’s ‘fairly’ realistic.

RAC: How can you see the top of that thing from here?
Artist: I can’t – I climbed around it to where those people are standing up there to draw the broken point, which is the most interesting part.
RAC: That’s sure not the way I learned to draw.
Artist: I use a Cubist approach developed by Picasso – my sight of an object is the sum of many different views and my memory of it is not constructed from one angle.
Okay, I didn’t actually think of saying that until two weeks later back in Canada, when I had a chance to look up Cubism. What I said was more like:
Artist: I’m doing the best I can.

Painting Plein Air on the Westsong Walkway

Harbour Garden

Watercolour and crayon

©2009 Charlene Brown

I had thought of titling this Runway Garden, as the harbour is used by floatplane airlines with up to 60 flights a day when the Legislature is in session. I quite like the planes and had even planned to include a couple in the painting, until I decided that was just too busy (as is the harbour, according to some residents.) The Inner Harbour is a wonderful place to paint, with views east toward downtown Victoria, and south to the Olympic Mountains in Washington State. Not surprisingly, other people like it too – runners, people walking to work, tourists, people walking their dogs.  Speaking of which…

South African artist Cathy Gatland, like our mutual friend Vivien Blackburn and unlike me, is not in any danger of having roving art critics helping her with her sketching… but she’s the only person I know who has been subjected to the ultimate critique… A big friendly Ridgeback appeared fascinated with a painting she was doing at the Emmarentia Dam in Johannesburg. But, as he was leaving, casually lifted his leg at it... All part of the Drama of Painting Plein Air!

Abstracting travel paintings

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Winter evening at the hot pool

Watercolour and gouache

©2012 Charlene Brown

I like the idea of ‘abstracting’ travel paintings but, having taken the trouble to get to the locations I paint, I like them to remain recognizable. You might say they’re stylized rather than abstracted, in that they almost always are much less ‘abstract’ than I had originally intended. Winter Evening at the hot pool is a darkened, stylized version of one of the Banff postcards I sent to other participants in the Postcard From My Walk international postcard exchange. It was the last one, so is displayed first in this series of all the postcards I painted.   

The Postcard From My Walk series is now in its final month and I’m really going to miss receiving these tiny postcard masterpieces from artists all over the world.  But I’m happy to say we’re starting a new project in a couple of months…  I hope you'll all be watching for it!