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When you are new to plein air painting (painting outdoors), you may have a few questions: 1. What is a good plein air painting easel? My favourite easel is a French half easel. It fits most of my painting supplies and gives me a tray to place my palette on and a shelf for my painting supplies. However, it's always good to go and see what other plein air painters use. Talk to them and ask them why they have chosen…

Unlike the weather forecast predicted the morning turned out to be beautiful and we had a gorgeous time at the Waahi Taarako Reserve. Some of us enjoyed painting the Gibbs Bridge and others focused on the swimming hole. A lovely lady travelling through New Zealand joined our group unexpectedly. She had parked up in her camper van and wanted to do some yoga in the park when she spotted us artists. Back she went to her van, grabbed her sketchbook…

It was a beautiful day when we went to the Riwaka Inlet for Plein Air Painting. The weather was slightly overcast with no wind. This meant no sunny glare on your canvas or palette but still comfortably warm. The sun came out around lunchtime, but by then we were mostly finished with our paintings. This time I went larger than usual (11"x14") and wasn't so sure if I would manage a painting within my two hour time limit. Not only…

The day at George Quay couldn't have been better for plein air painting. No wind and mild temperatures made a perfect day for painting outside. Lately I have been playing with the Zorn palette. Anders Zorn's palette became very famous and consists of titanium white, yellow ochre, cadmium red and ivory black, which is a very limited selection. As you can imagine, the colours are not capable to represent the true colours of a landscape. The green mixed with ivory…

The weather is getting cooler now and it takes a bit more convincing to get out Plein Air painting. I almost didn't go because guess what, there is always something else to do which seems more important. But then I reminded myself how happy I am every time I do go Plein Air painting. I enjoy the fresh air (as long as it doesn't freeze my fingers off) and I feel productive with getting another painting done. This time I…

Silvan is always a lovely place to paint, especially in autumn. I'm still sticking to my little 6x8 oil paintings and love working with the palette knife. The big advantage is that I don't have to clean brushes, which means that I don't have to use solvents or wash my brushes at the end of day with soap and water. This little painting was finished in one go (alla prima) and wet-on-wet, since the oil paint doesn't dry until the…