Plein air adventure – painting loose and fast

It’s been incredibly hot here in southern Spain this summer and so I’ve not had many opportunities to get out and about painting en plein air. But the other day there was a sort of misty haze and I decided to make the most of it and try to get a painting done.

So, I grabbed my bag which was ready to go and headed off to the valley below where the olive trees are. Eli the dog came with me, as she always does, and spent the time chasing rabbits (unsuccessfully, I might add. She’s getting older and slower but is ever hopeful and still gives it a go).

I made a short video of the trip which you can see below.

As I headed down the dusty track I saw that some of the olive trees had been watered and there was a large puddle around them that reflected the sky. I’ve painted this before as the water connects the land to the sky and brings some blue into the sandy brown of the landscape. “Aha!”, I thought, “that’s my subject.”

Challenges

But when I got up close I realised that the water was murky with a scum floating on the surface. It just didn’t inspire me, so I needed to find another subject. And quickly.

This is one of the many challenges of plein air painting. It is not always easy to find something to paint. We can spend far too long searching for the perfect subject (which usually doesn’t exist) and then when we finally come across it we find we do not have enough time to paint it!

So the challenge for me was to find something else that would inspire me, and as I wandered around the trees I came across this view:

Now this may not seem too exciting to you, but what caught my attention was the dark line of trees against the distant hills, and there was also a natural lead in to this with the olive trees that were in the foreground.

van Gogh said: “I devour nature ceaselessly. I exaggerate, sometimes I make changes to the subject; but I still don’t invent the whole picture. On the contrary, I find it already there. It’s a question of picking out what one wants from nature”. Vincent van Gogh

So that’s what I decided I would do – take what was there and exaggerate it a bit.

Take a look at the 5 minute video below to see how I got on.

Please give a thumbs up if you have enjoyed this post. It makes me happy :))

ps here are 3 other ways to find inspiration in the landscape. Enjoy!

#enpleinair #learningtopaint #oilpainting