I have never participated in any of the plein-air “paint outs” or group painting affairs. It is great that this sort of thing exists. Hopefully a plein-air movement is underway.

I have gone to YouTube, however, to see what these painters are doing and there is one feature of these events that puzzles me. Everyone paints small. The largest size canvas is probably around 12×16 inches and no doubt most are smaller. Why is this I wonder. I really don’t like painting on such small canvases. I feel cramped. I also don’t believe the space is conducive to developing a painting with layers or with a variety of subtle color and varied brushstrokes.

Not long ago I met with a former student who happened to pass through Bellagio. She has become quite successful in the plein-air circuit so I asked her, “Why does everyone paint so small?” She responded: “Well, there are two approaches. One is where you paint small and then work in the studio to develop larger pieces. And in the other camp are painters, like you, who paint large.”

Not a terribly satisfying answer. I should have asked, “So what percentage would you say are in my camp?” Among professionals, I really don’t think there are many at all. I know of no one. Although there has to be many, right?

Here’s what I think is going on. First, it is a bit of a pain to pack up all your stuff, drive out to a site, find parking if the site is in the city, unload everything, set up where passersby or tourists can annoy you, deal with the weather, pack up again and head home, only to repeat the effort two or three or more times, depending how long the painting takes and how much the weather cooperates. I get that. But what about skiing or golf or any number of outdoor activities that require as much preparation and weather cooperation, not to mention cost?

Second, and this is my fear, is that we live at a time when painting has become akin to manufacturing. So if efficiency and productivity work to the advantage of a professional painter – where a painter has to supply several galleries, then perhaps it makes more sense to do a little painting, bring it back to the studio, and make larger versions in the relaxed setting of the studio. Sorry, but that just doesn’t appeal to me. It feels – and of course I’ve done that sort of thing – like work, like a job. I’m just not inspired during the process.

With this in mind, let me tell you about my most recent outing. Here’s the scene:

This is the property of some friends who rent out their villa (Il Poggio di Bellagio) and they allow us to have access to it. Conchitina was with me so she was reading and taking photos as I painted.

Here’s the challenge that I was confronting. The weather forecast was predicting rain and my canvas was 36×36 inches. I knew the weather was likely to turn greyish and that I might not be able to go too far. Moreover, the forecast was predicting thunderstorms for the next 5 days so it would be great if I could do this in one sitting, which was unlikely. Normally, under the best of conditions, I would make two trips: the first to get a full underpainting completed within an hour and a half. Then return, refreshed, and concentrate on the painting stage itself for another hour and a half or so. But this time my plan was to paint quickly. Maybe I could do this in one sitting. Either would be fine.

Before I began, I tinted the canvas very lightly the same color as the lightest lights in the clouds. Using some of the grey gunk from my brush cleaning jar, a touch of cadmium orange and vermillion, I quickly spread everything around over the canvas with paint thinner, a brush and a rag. I then wiped nearly all of it off so that the residue created a warm tint. I placed the canvas on the easel. I was ready. Then, just for the hell of it, I asked Conchitina for the time. It was 11:00 am. Okay, then. Let’s do it.

Often when I look out at a lake scene like this, I think of organizing the painting into five or six pieces, like a big, super simple, jigsaw puzzle. I’m looking for movement and an initial composition that feels right. So with a piece of charcoal I quickly drew in the above sketch. It felt right to me.

I then put in a stronger line that would give me an armature of sorts so I used cobalt blue and white. If I weren’t painting something with tons of atmosphere I would have used a yellow ochre type color but most everything in this painting was far away so I know these lines would melt into the underpainting. You can see at this point I’m just beginning the underpainting, squinting, scumbling in the darkest of the darks but not going too dark yet. That would come in the painting stage later on. At this point I would say that I have used up about 5 minutes.

This is after another 15 to 20 minutes. I’m using a number 10 flat filbert, moving along pretty quickly. I want to scumble in everything except the lights. But I’m also noticing that the weather is changing. What was a rich blue sky is now getting pretty hazy. In fact, everything is getting a purplish- bluish haze. I strengthened a few lines because I knew I would be going in to painting in a minute and wanted a stronger structure or armature there to support stronger if not aggressive brushstrokes. I put a strong line where I felt the warm clouds separating from the bluish grey behind them. Immediately I sensed that that line was too strong. But don’t correct, I said to myself, just keep moving along deliberately.

I have just begun to paint into my lights. The sky continued to become more hazy and grey, but there was still enough rich blue to balance the feeling of grey with a touch of summer sky. You can see that I’m leaving parts of my tinted canvas open so that it will show through and lend a degree of harmony. The size of the canvas permits me to make vigorous long strokes and long sweepy strokes in the lake-mountain-sky area of the painting which I would find difficult to do with a small painting. Further, given the large amount of space available to me – as I begin painting into the lights, I could get more specific with a greater variety of brushstrokes, dropping down to a No. 6 flat filbert in some areas (in contrast to the No. 8 and a No. 10 that I was using throughout up until that point). I realized (at 30 minutes?) that I would be able to go as far as I wanted to in this sitting. So I began to slow down and look for subtleties.

A Gentle Madness, 36×36 in (91x91cm), 2020

In the last 15 minutes or so I began to layer in over the top of my painting, strokes of color that wasn’t very perceptible but which I thought added a magical feeling. Quinacridone and white over the top of some of the greenish colors in the foreground and also in the sky and clouds. I placed touches of cadmium light yellow and white over mostly emerald green and white in the light fields. I added lively touches of sevres blue and white over the mountain to the left and I purposefully left a lot of space for the other colors to come through. I added streaky small strokes with a No. 6 brush of dioxin purple and white in the lake and in the sky. I had been carried away and now I was feeling satiated. That’s enough; I don’t want to say any more.

I asked Conchitina for the time: “12:09.” My point with the time isn’t to suggest that one ought to paint slow or fast, just deliberately and that the notion that painting large takes a lot of time is really a myth.

One reason I don’t paint small, relatively speaking, is that they just take too long for what you end up with. More importantly, though, copying a small painting into a large painting in the studio just feels like manufacturing. If that is what it took to be an artist, every week I would be thinking “Thank God it’s Friday” instead of yearning to find another great place outside. And as Pissarro noted long ago, painting is the “opposite of manufacturing.” In the studio, the painter stops when the copy is finished. Out of doors, I stop when I’m finished – when I’m caught up and carried away and then brought back down. Aaah, that was nice.

Painting large en plein-air is where it’s at. It’s such a magical adventure. Or maybe it’s just me.