I did plein air in Pam's Refuge
pastel painting pastel for over twenty years with a religious devotion to being on site. Then I was given a digital camera and I have strayed for five years now. Lately I have had an itch to do plein air again and got myself a nice portable easel setup. I am enjoying it. It seems to me like plein air paintings are a bit like short poems. These poems are not deep and heavy but more light and breezy. A good poet might write a bunch of them and throw away more than a few. A plein air painting is rough and reveals a good deal more about the artist than a studio job. I usually spend an hour and a half on a painting and the time whizzes by. When I quit it is as if I am awakened from an intense daydream. Where did the time go? The effort is very tiring but not unpleasantly so. If I can get away with it, a nice nap tops off the experience.

Today's letter is so timely. Donna's Point
11 x 14 inches
oil painting We are off plein air "fishing" in 20 minutes. Our fishing spot today is at the confluence of two small rivers near Orangeville, Ontario. The black flies are out in full force, but somehow the task at hand renders them to the background. We are on the property of a new owner who wants to join us to begin the painting journey. For us there are no laptops and no satellite phones. We can anticipate a quiet calm at the end of the day, a satisfied tiredness that will distort the review of the day's catch. There will be laughter and the eye will be trained unknowingly to see just a little better so the next outing will benefit yet again. I can't send you a picture that has not yet been caught. Hope you enjoyed your pickerel.

I can't say enough Seascape
20 x 16 inches
oil painting great things about the experiences from Plein-air painting. It has been my stance, when asked what is the focal point of my paintings, that the entire painting is the focal point. When I'm on location searching the horizon for that motif that will grab my eye, hence the focal point of that location, hence my painting. Recently I've found that when I'm immersed into a painting I forget about how the climate is getting. A storm has rolled up on me several times and the heat climbs into the 90's and I'm out in the middle of it without shade for hours. Not even realizing how hot it is as I feel unaffected. Just as we forget to eat and sleep when we are wrapped up in the moment. A fellow artist walked up on me the other day to see what I was painting, and picked up a $5 bill that was laying 3 feet behind me that I had never seen. I'm afraid I wouldn't survive in bear country.

Immersion is exactly the beauty of plein air. The world drops away. There is nothing else but the decisions of value, hue, line and all the rest of it. In Florida, in the summer, you try to paint near the shore. You try to paint with someone so at least one of you is conscious a little bit as it is better to be aware of what might be harmful in our environment. The other day a huge snake crossed our paths as we went scouting a view of a little church too packed in the near tropical flora to get a good view. The snake reminded us that maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to stand back in the brush to paint. No, it surely would not be a good idea we said as we watched the snake slither up a tree. But there is the gulf, there are breezes and there is shade. And then it is fine to slip into immersion and paint away the summer day. And once again there is nothing but the decisions and the glory of being able to paint another time.

Strange isn't it, how at times we see such 'real life' metaphors surrounding us. We need to be sensitive to this and learn to be able to read and interpret them; and even more so, to interpret these moments in our art. I think that, as artists, we continuously find ourselves surrounded by people who cannot see the fullness of the forest, because of the emptiness of their personal creels. It is an illuminating moment when we see someone break through this experience. When a cop, for instance, looks in the window of our car, and says, "It's a beautiful day, and I am sure you weren't thinking of the implications of speed. Slow down, and be more aware of life."

The strokes we make across our landscapes are reflections of life's timeless beauty, of its connectivity and of its spiritual essence. Isn't this what separates us from those who spend their lives caught in the frozen moment of time, wondering if there will ever be enough fish to fill their void creels?

While I have North Carolina
watercolour painting no patience for angling, I can sit for hours sketching. Living in Winnipeg, I can reach countless lakes and other paint-able sites within an hour or two on paved highways. I enjoy the outcropping rocks clothed in lichens of infinite colours. Many of my paintings are of these close-up subjects usually on canvas of 8x10 inches.

I have recently discovered that thinking BIG while working on a small canvas produces results that I have never achieved before. By thinking BIG I mean imagining that I have a canvas of perhaps 20 x 24 while working on a 10 x 12 and using a larger brush loaded with as much paint as I would normally use for a large "swipe." I have found that the resulting painting has a more spontaneous look to it. Certainly a more impasto look. People have commented "That doesn't look like your work." I don't know whether they are complimenting me or not!

Yesterday morning we painted In the garden
16 x 20 inches
oil painting a model in a friend's backyard and it was remarkable. She has a secluded acre of trees, shrubs and flowers. What a mood elevator it is- it is hard to be grumpy after a morning like that. It's the meditative aspect I suppose. While sitting there quietly painting, you become aware of the noises in her neighborhood. The sound of a distant train rumbling to some unknown destination. The grackles twittering. A lawnmower in the distance is revved up. A screen door slams in the distance. A lone deer wanders into her yard. Cloudy, her cat is pawing at some unseen insect in the grass. She stalks it. The dappled light, which is always changing, suddenly illuminates the model's arm and it is thrilling. The air is fresh after the rain. Everything you might otherwise miss takes on a wonderful importance. It is good to be alive and in the moment. Afterwards I am drained but ebullient.

I will be doing Grinrod Cows II
18 x 24 inches
pastel painting a move into a new house this summer, and it looks like the relocation will figure me right out of a studio for over a month or two. Today I am packing up things, and I've been trying not to pack things I am going to need to get my hands on to do my art business over the summer. I am collapsing easels and storing supports.

In the end, I am left with my 12x16 inch painting box. We will be companions over the summer, as larger pieces will not endure the chaos that is construction. I am excited about spending most of the summer outdoors painting, even though I have gallery deadlines for the fall. I know larger pieces will spawn out of the small ones, and I will reenter the studio feeling very light on my artistic feet, and will start the next series of larger pieces with bravura, and with the greater efficiency, and sharper eyes, which invariably are the gift granted to those that regularly engage in plein air painting.

What a timely letter! Yesterday my husband returned from his yearly spring fishing trip. This year both of our adult children joined him and his nephew for fresh air, a break from routine and some quality "Dad" time. They were catching lake trout, not walleye, in an Ontario lake. I always like the smaller ones - tastier, sweeter, more tender - whether cooked over a fire in the bush or barbecued at home. However, it is the big one that gets photographed with a proud fisher holding it high and smiling broadly. While they camp and fish I stay home in Toronto and paint. Oddly enough it is the small ones I enjoy most - they are sweeter, fresher and more "me." The big ones get praise from others and I enjoy painting them but I still feel that in painting, as in fishing, bigger isn't always better.

I recently launched a
original painting small gallery below my studio. I had three sections: book illustration and portraits - my "day job," Quercy life-sketches I have done with my workshop students in the area of France where I live, and what I call my Boudoir Haiku - more personal and intimate life drawing sketches from models. Everyone agrees that the latter paintings are my strongest work, and people spent the most time in front of them, but they don't sell. People, whatever they said to me, bought landscapes and even illustrations. My theory is that people prefer to spend money on work they feel comfortable about hanging in "public" rooms in their homes, but some people say that nudes are just currently out of fashion. It's disappointing as drawing and painting the human form is the area that I want to pursue.

On another note, I currently have a young Russian painter from Prague in my barn/studio. I think he found me through your website. When it is not in use, I offer the barn to serious painters for 350 euros a week. It is self-sufficient with a simple kitchen, outdoor "loggia" or living area, bathroom, and large light and airy studio with beds and a wood burning stove upstairs.

I am writing to you from the depths of our Norfolk garden. I am surrounded by beauty. There are fantastic roses, fresh plums just poking out from between the leaves. Runner beans are good this year although it may well be end of July before we can enjoy bean pie. Our small pond with its clear bubbling water issuing from the little waterfall chatters away as it falls on a number of small frogs who are perched on the stony ledge. There are occasional plops as one or more leap into the water. The baby blue tits, having been fed by mum and dad for around nineteen days, perch precariously on the edge of their titbox door ready to launch out into the unknown world. Immersed in all of this, I start to write a picture. I do recall that when I started to receive your excellent and fascinating letters, you mentioned writing as an important art form. Oddly enough, your comments each week do often inspire short story ideas in me. So what about a few comments of support for us poor amateur and professional authors then? I think we are artists too who also look for inspiration.