Postscript:
Sunday’s session was small but highly enjoyable! Maybe a few more will join us next time on October 7th. Details soon.
CAAS En Plein Air, Emily Gap 2012
We are running out of time during the current milder season to share some outdoor artistic and social time together with En Plein Air. Members and friends are welcome to join us this Sunday at Emily Gap. We will meet after 3PM in the carpark at Emily Gap for some art and a social. If you are running late look for us scattered about! Bring your art materials as you need. Emily Gap is outside the Restricted Areas so you are free to bring a vino to enjoy with your snacks that can be as simple or elaborate as you so wish. These we normally share after a time of drawing/painting .. whatever. Remember a hat, water and a stool. Contact a committee member if you wish to borrow an easel.
En plein air is a French expression which means “in the open air”, and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors, which is also called peinture sur le motif (“painting on the ground”) in French.
 Claude Monet – Painting by the Edge of a Wood (1885) |
 John Lavery – The Principal Street at Grez (1884) |
|
 Emil Orlik – Max Slevogt an der Staffelei im Garten (Neukastell) (1917) |
 Winslow Homer – Artists Sketching in the White Mountains (1868) |
Images from the Wikimedia Commons. Commons is a freely licensed media file repository.
Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism. The popularity of painting en plein air increased in the 1870s with the introduction of paints in tubes (resembling modern toothpaste tubes). Previously, each painter made their own paints by grinding and mixing dry pigment powders with linseed oil. The Newlyn School in England is considered another major proponent of the technique in the latter 19th century.
It was during this period that the “Box Easel”, typically known as the French Box Easel or field easel, was invented. It is uncertain who developed it first, but these highly portable easels, with telescopic legs and built-in paint box and palette, made treks into the forest and up the hillsides less onerous. Still made today, they remain a popular choice even for home use since they fold up to the size of a brief case and thus are easy to store.
(Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
