Plein air painting
This term means painting a landscape outdoors, looking at the view to be painted. The artist sets her/his easel up and tries to capture the essential of that aspect of the view that initially captivated her/him. Ideally, the strict minimum equipment is used, with smaller canvasses, and everything easily transported.
As the sun moves across the sky, light effects and shadows change throughout the day, so a scene will change over the course of a few hours. Practically, about 1 ½ to 2 hrs at most is the time within which such a painting can be completed. Beyond that, the view and light differ too much from the initial one.
The artist must therefore work quickly and decide as he is painting which aspects of the view are important or essential to his vision, and which ones can be ignored. Painting done in this way usually has a spontaneous quality not normally found in studio-based work. It is this quality that appeals to the artist in this rough spontaneous manner. It often evokes a truthfulness that could be lost by being “tidied up” later in the studio.
Paul Saindon 