On Location: The Pleasure of Painting Outdoors

One of the pleasures of summer is heading into the parks – my preference are the provincial parks – though some municipal ones are also quite lovely. Here I take my pochage box and create 6x8 inch colour studies of the scene before me.

On a gorgeous summer day or even a fall day – less mosquitoes – I set up my paints and paint on location - en plein air. These small studies I use mostly for reference though sometimes I make them available for sale. The style I use in in the field differs from my studio work; the studio pieces are stylized translations of the scenes I first capture outdoors. In the field, I simply paint what I see without overthinking – just responding to the moment. Whether a study 'works' and becomes a masterpiece or not doesn't matter. What matters is the joy of painting on location while listening to birds sing. the wind whispering through the trees and the cool breeze coming off the lake.

What a lovely time.

Here are some on-location photos from this summer’s field trips, taken while I was creating colour studies en plein air.

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