Plein Air Painting

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Painting outside on The Roseland

Summer has suddenly arrived in Cornwall, after what seems like the longest and darkest of Winters, and I have been enjoying packing up my painting bag and working outside. 

A square format photograph of an open pochade paintbox on a foldable chair, there is an old tan canvas bag next to it with a water bottle and artists materials, and an old tin can being used for turps. The painting in the box is of the sea and rocks being exposed by the tide. The chair is against rocks in part sunshine, the rocks have bright yellow lichen patches.

I have an old lightweight pochade box that I picked up second hand

Filled with a small selection of paints, pared down selection of brushes, and a couple of small 10” x 12” primed boards – I really enjoy the limitations of this smaller surface, it makes me paint in a completely different way to when I’m in the studio; along with the constraints of time, ever-changing light and weather.

A photograph of the Percuil View with artist Nina Packer sitting at a bench looking towards the river, the sky is filled with white clouds and the landscape is lush and green, the hedges are filled with Hawthorn blossom

The beautiful Percuil River

During May I made weekly journeys to Percuil, where the hedges were bursting with pink and white Hawthorn blossom, and the sky busy with swallows.  Cornwall is full of wonderful places to paint, but the view of the estuary here has to be one of the most beautiful, and to spend a day working in this lovely place an exquisite use of time

A landscape format photograph of a group of artists plein air painting on wooden easels against a rock wall, in the middle ground there you can see blue silver sea, in the background Nare headland and The Dodman, artists are Andrew Tozer, Eric Ward and Chris Insoll distance

Working with other artists

Over in Portscatho things get a little more sociable, and the opportunity to work alongside Chris Insoll, Eric Ward, Andrew Tozer and other artists from The New Gallery is very welcome, and I learn so much from watching the ways that other eyes and hands perceive and translate the places around them.