How to Paint Watercolors En Plein Air

What is "En Plein Air"? It means painting outdoors -- and to paint outdoors means keeping your equipment lightweight and easy to handle and protect if there's bad weather.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• One or more small watercolor blocks
• A compact pan watercolor set OR
• A set of watercolor pencils
• Water bottle for painting
• Water cup
• Watercolor brush or brushes
• Pencil
• Kneaded eraser
• Folding chair or stool
• Insect repellent
• Paper towels
• Umbrella
• Broad brimmed hat
• Drinking water or juice
• Optional watercolor easel
• Optional pochade box or other fancy sketchbox setup
• Backpack, messenger bag or satchel for most of the supplies
• Digital, film or disposable camera
• Cell phone for emergencies.
• Sturdy, comfortable shoes for hiking

1. Where are you going to paint outdoors? If it's right in your yard, you don't have to worry about forgetting things on the list. Just run right back in and get them when you get mosquito bit, the sun's too hot or you want a drink of juice. But if you travel to a park or wander off to an interesting location on a hike, prepare everything well before you leave. You will find personal favorite things you always carry along when hiking, or you may find some of the stuff isn't as important for you as others -- not everyone uses an umbrella, and some artists like just tossing a picnic blanket on the ground instead of using a folding chair. But whatever you like bringing, make sure you have it all organized in one place before you leave and tuck in anything else you think you might need. If you're going out for the entire day, bringing snack bars or a lunch might be good too.

2. The reason to use small watercolor blocks instead of pads or prepared stretched sheets of watercolor paper is that watercolor blocks are bound on all four sides. They won't buckle even if you use a big wash to get the sky in. If you bring several, you can work on more than one painting instead of sitting there watching paint dry between layers. Work background to foreground. Mix the sky color first and paint all the skies at the same time. Then go back and start putting far horizon elements like hills or distant trees and houses.

3. You probably already have your favorite brushes. Take at least one wash brush for broad areas, and a pointed round for details and foliage. You may like using a fan brush or liner for different effects. Keep your brushes in a bamboo brush roll or an easel brush carrier.

4. Take digital or film photos of everything you paint. Don't try to make the paintings large, polished, finished or perfect. Get down the gist of the scene and try to get the colors accurate, because you can work from these watercolor sketches and your photos later in the studio to create a larger, more elaborate painting. Light changes constantly outdoors with the weather, so work fast with confidence. Accept mistakes as part of the process of painting, and try to find fun ways to use them later on. A bad wash can become a cool underpainting for colored pencil or pastel drawing later on.
   
   If some details are important to you, like the structure of a single flower or the shape of a specific tree, turn each of those details into another painting by itself. Try to keep the subjects of your different plein air paintings simple -- a broad view of the landscape, a close view of one specific element, a texture sketch of a pond or tree bark. You can always combine all of these details later, but trying to put them all into a single painting on the spot may leave you frustrated and half finished by the time it's dark.
   
   It's better to paint fast and sloppy than slow and careful for plein air. They don't even have to be complete scenes -- do the clouds as a painting by themselves, and then the landscape, and then a tree or flower.
   
   Remember that with all watercolors except Yarka Professional pan watercolors, they will dry much lighter than they looked when they were wet. So be bold and use plenty of color. You can do it again lighter later on if you think it's too garish afterward.

5. Using pan watercolors, I try to keep my colors pure and not do too much mixing on the palette. It's faster that way. For 25 years, I used a Cotman Artist's Field Box watercolor set on all my travels -- it's very tiny, about the size of a pack of cigarettes, but it contains its own small round pocket brush and a flat water bottle, plus the cap comes off and fits back on the end to become a water cup. I recently upgraded the set to the Artist's Field Box, and am now getting used to the different colors in the artist grade set. Either version of this watercolor set is extremely practical for painting outdoors.
   
   So is the Sakura Pocket Field Box, which also has twelve pans of bright artist grade watercolor -- and a special brush with water in the handle. I use my Sakura pocket box when I want to create Asian style art similar to sumi-e ink painting, because I can swipe across a pan with that water handle brush and do very expressive strokes without bothering to mix washes. The different sets encourage different styles. It is very easy with a water handle brush to tip the brush -- get much more color on the tip than the body -- and then do strokes that are shaded within one stroke dark at one side, light at the other. Water flowing in makes it lighten as you paint.
   
   Finally, a 12 or 24 color set of watercolor pencils is another compact, convenient way to paint watercolor outdoors. Simply draw loosely with it and then wash across the drawing with a wet brush, being careful not to mix color areas. This can result in beautiful paintings, "Goldenrod Autumn" was done with watersoluble colored pencils. The technique is different though, and you can wait to wet it and turn the drawing into a painting till you get home -- which eliminates the need to carry water other than for drinking. Water-handle brushes work well with watercolor pencils too. Watercolor pencils are the best option for artists who are more comfortable with drawing than painting.

6. When you're done, clean off your palette with wet paper towels. Wait till your watercolors are dry before putting the watercolor blocks back in your messenger bag, if any are still wet it's good to carry them flat until they dry. Pack up, go home and enjoy the tangible memories of a day spent painting en plein air!

Tips & Warnings

• Paint darker than you think it is, because watercolor dries lighter than it looks when it's wet.
• Paint fast and don't hesitate. It's better to finish two different flawed small paintings than look at one unfinished big one weeks later and scratch your head trying to remember what was in front of that perfect hilltop.
• Use brushes, paint and equipment you're familiar with before hiking out to special locations. Test your outdoor setup in the yard till you have it just the way you want it, then keep it organized so that it's easy to pack up and go.
• Watch out for poison ivy and other hazards. If you don't know what poison ivy looks like, find a good picture online or at the library and make sure to copy it and take it with you. This one was a very painful mistake I made years ago.
• Wearing floral scents in perfume or body products can attract bees and other stinging insects. Avoid wearing scents.
• Drink enough water or juice. Dehydration can be dangerous, and it's too easy to get wrapped up in the painting and not notice dehydration or heat sickness.

Resources

• Winsor & Newton official website, tutorials, product information
• DeviantART to show off your work
• Dick Blick for supplies

[robertsloan2]

on 10/5/2007 It takes a bit of practice, but after a while you get used to which mixtures you know will work. Experiments are the only reliable knowledge when it comes to color mixing, because each brand of each color mixes just a bit differently and you have to find out what your paint does.

[FoxtailsLaundry]

on 10/4/2007 Great article! One of the things that often works for me is to work dark to light, laying in the deepest darks first. However, for watercolor, I think that requires quite a bit of knowledge of color mixing so you can get the sub-layers right.