Confessions of a Plein Air Artist

Oh, my dear drafting stool sits abandoned and waiting patiently for me, the artist, along with it's sturdy and lunky easel companion for another 5 months. Oh dear stool and easel, if only you had the grand opportunity to go out to paint outdoors with me, but you are big, very big and awkward to handle... and you are too heavy to be hauled to a place far away from the studio, so far away that you may feel a bit homesick at times.  Perhaps you may not like the bright sun, or the songbirds, or the occasional bug kissing your painting, or the quiet breeze and the occasional cow paddy accompanied by a potty stop in the shrubs. Oh, dear easel and stool, if you could just go out a few times and feel the joy it brings to so many artists, then you would understand my absence.
 

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The plein air season is finally here and will be marked by the opening statements of Plein Air Magazine Publisher, Eric Rhodes at the Plein Air Convention in Monterey, CA. this coming April 10th. I am looking forward to return again to learn, observe the masters, to make new connections and reconnections and to come home exhausted, yet full of fuel to blast me forward into the season. 

Goal writing + Plein Air Magazine Interview

"West Vineyard View" 11x14", Pastel  ©Brenda Boylan

For those of you who read my blog may or may not know that each year I make it a point to write my goals down in the beginning of each year.  I've been doing this since 2000 and I can honestly say that it is the best way to create your life and actually make it happen. Goal writing can be personal and very uncomfortable the very first time writing them down.  Sometimes my direction changes a bit along the way, but for the most part it is consistent with my ultimate goals as an artist.  This year started out pretty good because one of my goals (#2  Get published in a magazine) is about to happen!  Give me the chills or call it good karma, writing goals down on a piece of paper really works.  What happens is the act of writing them down and the subconscious work hand in had to move you towards that goal.  I never write lofty goals down, only the attainable ones make the list.  No more than five to six goals per year and each goal outlined with the small steps to make it happen.  Somehow, it happens more than not and by golly this one did!

So the good news is Plein Air Magazine has found my work worthy of notice (including this piece above) and I'm thrilled to be included in such a magazine.  Look for the April/May Issue on the newsstands this coming March about my pastel painting process and more.  Oh, and I must mention my friend Thomas J. Kitts, whom I paint with here in Portland, is taking the stage too with Plein Air Magazine.