Beautiful Documentary of Plein Air Painting - Outside the Lines
I've been a digital media creative for several years, but I've long had a heart for the analog – especially fine art painting. It's not so much nostalgia as it is a desire to experience the tactile nature of painting. Each painting is a one-of-a-kind creation and is a direct connection with the artist. It's not about whether digital or analog is better. It's about being a maker, working with my hands. To touch, to see, to smell, to experience the process, and to relish and share the results.
The publisher of Plein Air Magazine produced this wonderful documentary about the history of outdoor painting: Outside the Lines. It's a story of painting the vistas of the great outdoors that spans hundreds of years including: the Hudson River school artists Thomas Cole and Asher Durand; western painter Albert Bierstadt; the Impressionists Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Frédéric Bazille; to the modern day movement of thousands of hobbyists and professional artists who have embraced outdoor painting - especially in the last twenty years or so.
The documentary concludes with the encouragement that if you can cook a basic meal, you can learn how to paint outdoors. That's a challenge I'm taking up. What about you?
Excellent resources for learning about plein air painting include:
Plein Air Podcast (Hosted by Plein Air magazine publisher Eric Rhodes)
