If you’ve seen my most recent posts, you’ll know that I recently signed up for a painting “Plein Air” event being hosted by the local art guild. And that prior to signing up for it a couple of weeks ago, I haven’t painted anything but walls in my house in the last few years. I’d figured that signing up for the event, which is where artists paint outside, “En Plein Air”, would be a good way to force myself back into the saddle, painting-wise.

The fact that I’ve never tried to paint outside or to paint the scene in front of me just seemed like an interesting challenge. I mean, I’ve painted from photographs and my imagination. How hard could it be?

Yesterday was the 3rd practice run for me and my poor friend Kathy, who I also dragged into this. She’s a good sport, even though she’d been in the same situation of not having really painted anything in a long while. She is doing an amazing job of getting back into painting.

Each week, our Plein Air efforts have been challenged by things we forgot to bring, weather, and of course lack of practice. Yesterday was no different. It was VERY windy, so much so that I decided right away that trying to keep things from flying away off my stand-up easel and paints from drying out on palette and brush would be nearly impossible. Luckily, I’d also brought my soft (chalk) pastels with me.

We decided to try a building this time. The rustic old barn we were thinking about painting is way too far in the open, and there was no substantial cover to protect us from the wind except the barn itself. So we set up near the barn on the far side of the wind and painted a little outbuilding near it instead. Here’s a photo of the scene:

This was my actual view of the scene, because I had to sit on the ground–I usually stand at my easel to paint with acrylic paints.

Luckily, I’d thought to drop a roll of blue painter’s tape into my painting supply bag, so I was able to tape down the paper to secure it. I’m starting to get more comfortable with soft pastels, but like last week and the week before, by the end of my day outside, my efforts were pitifully simplistic:

See? And because I used the big, flat plastic cover of my wet palette as my lap table, the pressure of the pastels caused the raised lettering on the lid to show through, at about the horizon line. I again despaired of ever being able to produce something Plein-Air worthy. What was I thinking?

This morning I got out the pastel drawing above, determined to make it better. When I pulled up my reference photo, I realized that the road and trees that are on the left in the scene were just out of the frame of my photo. I’d have to go from memory to work on them.

After a couple of hours of effort, here are the results of my tweaking:

It clearly could benefit from more work, but I’m glad I’ve had time to at least start reworking it–it’s given me the opportunity to practice things I remember like making colors lighter and cooler for far away objects.

I’m still mildly panicked about the Plein Air event which is now only SIX days away, but I’m so glad we’ve done these practice sessions. Each one has presented new challenges and new lessons.

Update: I’ve just finished another round of refining it, as can be seen below. It’s still not something I’d hang on my wall, but I’m getting more comfortable with soft pastels. They do offer some advantages for working “En Plein Air”–no wet paints and brushes to worry about!