Preview the newest issue of PleinAir Magazine with the Editor’s Letter:
Pablo Picasso famously said, “Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.” For the plein air painter, the most obvious place to find — or be found by — inspiration is outdoors, responding directly to nature.
As our cover artist, Jill Carver, says of her home in Colorado: “I feel extremely fortunate to live in a place where Mother Nature is very real, very present. … As an artist, I can’t wait to get up each morning and see what’s outside. It’s always different, and it’s magical. … The motifs and narratives of this landscape, in terms of painting ideas, never end.”
But immersing yourself in the landscape to paint isn’t the only opportunity for you to be inspired. In fact, you don’t always even need to have a brush or pencil in hand. Working on your craft — learning new techniques, identifying new ideas you want to explore in the field — can come by way of a favorite art book, stimulating magazine article, step-by-step video workshop, or visit to a nearby art museum.
Nathanial Flanagan, one of this year’s Artists to Watch, regularly visits the work of Frank Duveneck at the Cincinnati Art Museum for inspiration. “Seeing his paintings in person as much as I have has been a major influence on my work,” he says. “Able to paint a scene or subject with such deliberate brushstrokes, he really showed me what you can do with paint. I’ve tried to translate his loose style into my own paintings.”
Of course, with so many opportunities to paint with others in the landscape at paint-outs, competitions, or with local art groups, inspiration from other artists can come from a more immediate and personal experience as well. For the five professional artists — Suzie Baker, Shanna Kunz, Stephanie Marzella, Lori McNee, and Elizabeth Robbins — featured in “Creating a Tribe, Reaping the Benefits,” a recent camping and painting trip to Idaho provided just such an experience.
“A trip like this is akin to giving yourself a weeklong workshop, but instead of having a teacher, you are learning from the easel next to you,” says Baker. “When you get together with other artists — peers — for the purpose of just painting alongside other excellent painters, you can’t help but grow. In a competition setting, it’s a master class, seeing the other work after you’ve turned in your painting. Here, it’s shoulder to shoulder.”
For this issue’s Plein Air Portfolio, we put a twist on this “shoulder to shoulder” interaction by celebrating paintings where artists themselves serve as the source of inspiration. As the 14 painters featured in this special section know, fellow artists in the field — with their stationary poses, shapely umbrellas, and telltale setups — make attractive subjects in their own right.
The takeaway? Sources for inspiration abound. But you have to do your part. Carver offers this advice: “Show up every day. Don’t just think you’re going to do it when your muse feels like coming around.”
I hope you find something in this issue that inspires you, that motivates you to get outside and paint, explore a new idea in the studio, or even just begin thinking about an element of your work in a fresh way. Being inspired is an active pursuit; it’s not something you can sit back and wait to have happen to you. What are you going to do today to put yourself in the path of inspiration?
“In order to create, we draw from our inner well. This inner well, an artistic reservoir, is ideally like a well-stocked fish pond. … If we don’t give some attention to upkeep, our well is apt to become depleted, stagnant, or blocked. … As artists, we must learn to be self-nourishing. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we draw on them — to restock the pond, so to speak.”
— Julia Cameron
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