Why Plein air?

28/03/2014 3,966 views

“If you like painting the nature, take your easel, a few tubes of paints and go outside” – it could be the advice of artists who were and still are so in love with creating paintings in the plein airs.

_DSC5252What is it and where does it come from? The term “plein air” goes back for centuries and means “open air”. The artists preferred to go out and paint directly that what they saw in front of them. Leaving the studio, going outside and feeling the wind blowing, the light changing..

Plein air became very popular among French impressionists and the most famous of them Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne and Manet managed to change the art world with their paintings and fresh views. They brought the plein air experience to the new level where emotions and personal perception complement the continuous changeable state of nature.

I like working in the plein airs and there are several reasons for that

–  we get the opportunity to paint what we see, to observe the nature and respond to it

–  we are like in a game where the quickly capture of the state of nature really matters

– we can prepare wonderful material for the future paintings while creating small sketches with the fixed colors of the particular moment and the emotions that we feel being the part of the painted scene.

– it´s the great source of inspiration, nature is always in harmony and the color mixing that we see in nature can never destroy our inner calmness but to build the conscious relation to nature and the world around

– we see the beauty, we are aware of it while looking at the scenes with the widely open eyes and trying to fix the things that will fascinate.

– it´s such a great chance to meet new people, new artists, to exchange thoughts and view and to learn something new

What I want to say is, that I work both in plein airs and in the studio, and both ways are important to me. Plein air teaches me to concentrate, to organize, to absorb both the fragrance and sound, shape and light, colors and atmosphere and put it together in the way the viewers feel the emotions I had while painting it. It´s a great training for studio works in which the speed of the brushstroke, its dynamics and movement have to be unconscious and light, vivid and fresh!

The summer is coming and it means that time to take the easel and train the eyes is on the way 🙂

1 511 1 250 1 239Botanical Garden in Kyiv, 2010

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