Urban Sketching and Plein Air – a new revolution?

I was chatting with Donna yesterday about the various art movements through history. This came about because we have recently visited the National Gallery in London and the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, which give a wonderful insight into these things. Over the centuries we can see that there have been several art revolutions, some of which have become movements in their own right and some which, I suggest, were just stepping stones to the next big thing.

But in the course of our conversation something dawned on me:

I think there is a new revolution happening right now. A new and exciting art movement is underway.

In the past these art movements were restricted to a group of painters (the Pre-Raphaelites, the Impressionists, the Nabis for example) or to an individual ( Dali, Picasso etc..). It was they who were recognised, who pushed the boundaries, who did something new. But there were only a few of them. Today, there is a new movement that is happening and it is open to all. You and I can be a part of the new art revolution. And it is happening right now.

The new art movement

This new art movement is actually a combination of two things that have resurged in the past few years. They compliment each other, and therefore can be seen as one art movement, but they are also different to each other.

One is the growth of Plein Air Painting as a valid form of creating fully finished pictures, and the other is the popularity of Urban Sketching. Both involve going outdoors to record the world around us. Both involve taking compact kits and completing the painting in one go. Both have attracted large followings in recent years, with conventions, paint-outs, podcasts and even magazines aiding their growth.

But that is where the similarities end. Let’s see what they are and how they differ.

Urban sketching

The intro on the official Urban Sketcher’s website says:

In 2007, a global community of urban sketchers began to form when Seattle-based journalist and illustrator Gabriel Campanario created an online forum “for all sketchers out there who love to draw the cities where they live and visit, from the window of their homes, from a cafe, at a park, standing by a street corner… always on location, not from photos or memory.”

A year later, Campanario invited a group of sketchers to share their drawings and storytelling in a blog, Urban Sketchers, where readers could “See the World, One Drawing at a Time.” The blog helped the community gain visibility and inspired drawing enthusiasts from all over to sketch.

This movement has now grown to involve people from almost every nation on earth.

Urban sketching then is about capturing the world around you, usually in a sketchbook and often for your own personal use. Check out my post on two great Urban Sketching books which give hundreds of examples of this style of painting. Here are a few of my recent urban sketches:

As you can see they are often not the finished article, but a quick reminder of an event, a holiday, a trip out, or the effect of atmosphere or light.

Plein Air Painting

The Plein Air movement has also taken off in recent years, and is nowadays another worldwide phenomenon. While present in every country, it is largest in the USA, where the magazine Plein Air is produced. Plein air paintings are usually finished works of art that can be framed and sold, rather than sketches, but they are completed on site. Below are a couple of my small recent Plein Air paintings:

Join the revolution

The wonderful thing about this new art movement whether it be Urban Sketching or Plein Air Painting is that it is not restricted to one or two people, or even to a small group of artists. It is open to everyone, and that includes YOU. In my view, that’s what makes it the biggest art movement in history. It really is a revolution in art.

Why not join in?

As always, I am very grateful for every thumbs up, so please click below if you liked this article. I’d also love to read any comments on this theme, so let me know your thoughts below.

#enpleinair #oilpainting #sketching #watercolourpainting

Super-fast Sketches on the Seine

I’m in Paris and cruising down the river Seine on what equates to a bus, but on water. This bus, called the Batobus, sails along a circular route, stopping briefly to let passengers on and off at 9 different tourist hotspots. It’s a great way to see the sights and to get around, avoiding the snarled up city traffic.

I am in a post-luncheon state of relaxation and I’m enjoying just looking around as the city drifts by, when my wife Donna says, “Why don’t you do a little sketch of each of the landing sites where the boat stops? I think that would be a lovely momento of our holiday here. There’s only nine of them”.

The Challenge

Now I like a good challenge, and as challenges go, this is a good one! So I say yes, and set up my watercolour sketching kit.

What I did not realise was how difficult this was going to be, or how much I was going to learn about capturing the essence of a scene during the short time that followed. The boat stops for only a couple of minutes, sometimes less, just to let passengers on or off, and then it heads down the river for about 10 minutes to the next stop. That gave me less than two minutes to choose a scene and sketch it with a pencil, and then remember colours and other details to paint in as the boat sailed away to its next destination, where the process was repeated. Nine times.

Here’s what I learned

Starting at Notre Dame, I was able to sketch the front facade and a crane that is involved in the restoration after the fires the boat was coming in to stop. This drawing took me 15 seconds, so while it may not be totally accurate it does have a sense of place.

At the Jardín de Plantes I saw these two large pots with small trees in them at the landing stage, with steps behind leading to the mass of trees and plants behind. This seemed to me to represent the area well and was all I could manage in the time. I was certainly having to edit heavily the scene before me to capture the essence of what it was about.

I couldn’t see anything of interest at the Hotel de Ville stop, apart from a church tower tucked away on the other side of the river. Things were even worse at the Louvre because it was completely obscured by trees, so I had to make do with the sign board announcing the fact that we were indeed at the Louvre.

I was finding that the quick sketch was making me edit all the time to pick only what was salient and useful, but that my visual memory was improving all the time. I began to spend less time drawing and more time looking and remembering, so that I could then draw from memory at a slightly more leisurely pace as the boat sailed to the next stop.

At the Place de la Concorde I attempted a golden winged horse on a stone pillar which proved to be an almost impossible task in two minutes…

The Eiffel Tower was hard! So much intricate ironwork! I did my best, although half-way through I realised I had missed a leg out entirely. I added some people in to give scale and to show how busy it was.

Three stops left which went by in a blur as there were now very few passengers getting on or off, so my two minutes had become less than one! At St. German des Pres there was nothing to see at all apart from this rubbish bin and a tree trunk, so I went for that.

Was it worth it?

Short answer -Yes!

I learned that there is always something to sketch, even if it is only a wheelie bin.

I can strengthen my visual memory by doing tasks like this.

I can edit a scene down quickly to its bare bones and find what to include and what is irrelevant.

I can loosen up in my sketching and painting style by painting fast.

I hope you found this helpful. Thanks for reading it. 🙂

Why not set yourself some really short time slots in which to sketch and see what you can do and what you can learn.

#drawing #enpleinair #sketching

Cezanne, van Gogh, and broken colour

I’ve just been to the wonderful new exhibition at the National Gallery in London called “After Impressionism – Inventing Modern Art”.

The exhibition celebrates the achievements of three giants of the era: Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin during a period of great upheaval, between 1880 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, when artists broke with established tradition and laid the foundations for the art of the 20th and the 21st centuries.

I loved all of it, and just seeing so many well known paintings in the flesh was amazing. There is something very special and emotional in seeing up close the actual paintings, the brush marks, the thickness of the paint, the places where Vincent van Gogh dragged paint with his fingers. You don’t get that connection from the same paintings reproduced in a book.

One thing that struck me in some of the paintings was the way the artists used broken colour to enhance the excitement of their pictures. Let me show you what I mean.

Paul Cezanne

Paul Cezanne. Bathers

Take a look at the way Cezanne used broken colour in some of the areas that could have been quite flat and boring. Broken colour is the use of different colours of the same tonal value side by side. This brings a vibrancy to the patch of paint and a lot of visual interest.

Below is the bottom left hand corner of the painting above where you can see this effect in both the blue of the cloth and the ochre of the ground.

Vincent van Gogh

Possibly the master of broken colour, van Gogh seems to have used it in so many of his masterpieces. Here’s one from the exhibition.

Vincent van Gogh, Sunset at Montmajour

There’s certainly a lot of broken colour going on here! But take a look at the sky, which he could have painted in a flat colour.

I just love this! What an amazing collection of colours! What an inspiration to try something like this! It brings life and zing and vibrancy. I certainly need to be reminded to do this when I paint. How about you? Do you like this effect or not? I’d love to read your comments below…

#Brokencolour #Cezanne #VanGogh