I haven’t painted anything but the walls of our house over the last couple of years, but recently decided to get back to the kind of painting that involves tubes instead of gallons of paint.

A couple of weeks ago I joined the local artist’s guild as an associate, which means I didn’t have to be juried in, the thought of which I’ve always found scary. I fear that I’d be juried out, and I don’t know that I’m up to hearing well-meant critiques about just how bad my previous painting efforts have been. I think that could lead to a painter’s block that would prevent me from ever picking up a small, non-housepainting paintbrush ever again.

This art guild has an upcoming Plein Air painting event. “En Plein Air” means outdoors in French. I’ve always wanted to try it–I picture walking through a sunny meadow of wildflowers, my art supplies slung over my shoulder, setting up in a bucolic spot and then magically recreating the beautiful scene before me. You know, that the inspiration of the scene will somehow elevate my painting skills.

I can’t even pronounce Plein Air correctly. I keep saying “plain”, even though I know it’s really pronounced “plehn”, rhyming with when. I’ve heard artists on YouTube pronouncing it this way seemingly effortlessly. Somehow it won’t come out of my mouth that way. It comes out plun, playin, plin…forget it. For me, it’s plain air painting.

Even so, I decided to jump off the deep end and signed up for the Plein Air event. Considering that it’s next month and I haven’t painted in years, this was a bold, reckless move. I didn’t even know what kind of art supplies are needed for this sort of thing. I’ve collected a ragtag bunch of art supplies over the years, so I figured I’d bag up some of it and do a test run of Plein Air painting. I’ve also nagged my best friend to sign up as well, another off and on painter who hasn’t painted in years, and she agreed that a test run was a good idea. Kathy knew of just the local place where we could basically hide outdoors and paint. I mean, no need to stand on a street corner for all the world to see if you’re pretty sure your efforts are going to be rough.

I went on YouTube to figure out what I’d need for our plain air day. I stuffed a bunch of art supplies in a draggable duffle bag and a bin, met Kathy, and we drove to our painting spot. It was perfect–a bluff over a large creek.

After lugging two rounds of supplies up the hill to our spot, breaking the first rule of Plein Air painting–that it all be carry-able in one trip–we set up for our painting day.

You figure you know painting outside will be different than indoors. You know you’ll have to deal with things like bright sun, wind, and bugs. This is all true, and very different experiencing it from reading about it. I had to keep picking little gnats out of my paint and catching my easel when it was in danger of being toppled by the occasional big gust of wind.

I also figured out the hard way that I should’ve tested my old acrylic paints before standing there on the bluff. My burnt umber was a runny puddle, and my white came out like very thick toothpaste–I had to squeeze the tube really hard to get any out at all.

Then there were my scruffy old brushes. I’d brought a handful of them, of different sizes and shapes. For two of them, the bristles in their metal ferrule (the band that holds them onto the wooden handle) kept falling off.

Another issue was the little canvas I’d brought to use–an inexpensive little stretched canvas I’d bought at a discount store years ago. When I brushed paint onto it, it felt rough as sandpaper, and it was nearly impossible to get paint down into the fabric of the canvas–I had little white dots where the canvas peeped through.

As I muttered under my breath and cursed to myself, I realized that I sounded like Brennan in the movie “Step Brothers”, when he’s saying why he thinks his singing was bad–“my throat is sore…the acoustics are bad…” My version of Brennan was “my paints are bad…this canvas is ridiculous…” This made me laugh, and I was suddenly able to stop worrying about the wind, the bugs, my pitiful supplies and how under-developed my painting muscle had become.

Meanwhile, Kathy had quietly set up her watercolors, sat down and began painting. She was having issues as well, but she was working away, creating a nice watercolor of the scene.

By the end of our afternoon, I had colors down, but wasn’t satisfied with the results. I had come to realize that I’d created further problems for myself by just bringing what leftover paint colors I had at home. I’d made the mistake of thinking I could blend whatever color I wanted from what colors I had. Apparently it doesn’t work that way.

I’d decided early on not to worry about all the growth on the bank right in front of me–this was just a practice painting, so I thought it was best to keep it simple.

I took my little canvas home, determined to fix it. A few days later I went to Michaels for better art supplies, and using the photo above as my reference, worked on my painting some more.

I still struggled with the colors–the tall grasses should be more yellow–but I reached the point where I knew further tweaking could just make it worse, so I set it aside and figure that for a first painting in a long time it’s good enough.

I’ve often painted from photos, and there is one I’ve had for a while that I’ve wanted to try. After I set aside the painting above, I pulled out a new canvas board that I’d bought at Michaels (I’d seen on YouTube that a canvas board might be better than a stretched canvas for Plein Air) and sketched out the scene. Then I got out my new paints and new brushes and got to work. Below is the first round of this painting where I’ve basically got down the base colors, but I’m pretty pleased with how it’s going so far.

It’s got a ways to go, but my plan is to finish this one and try to get in another plain air day before the big Plein Air event, which is now only 2 1/2 weeks away. It’s time to rebuild my painting muscle.