Travelling with a paintbox is not for the faint of heart, nor is it an easy transition for a studio painter as I have been for almost 50 years. I like a clean and tidy studio. I like to keep dry. And I like my subject to stay still. Painting outdoors is not like this. The light is continually changing, and the shadows come and go. The wind might strike up at any moment and whip away the easel.
Plein air painting allows me to stop, to be in one spot, and observe.
I get to watch so very carefully the moments move from one to the other making their subtle and not so subtle changes. A shadow here and, in a glimpse, gone. A soft warm field of grass turns without notice, as a blue chill seeps slowly across the swaying surface, brushing my face. The chill runs down my sleeve and onto my brush.
Another moment, another colour and I get to choose from the infinite possibilities. With each colour and each stroke, transcribed in real time, within this 90-minute process, a painting is born.
I do not touch up or go over the painting in the studio. Each stroke is necessary and final.
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After a lifetime of painting in the studio, I realize the journey has been one of learning to see, to see the relationships.
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I now need to immerse myself, not be separated by drawings or photos or even a studio anymore. I want to transcribe my relationship with the earth – directly.
When creating a painting under these conditions, decisions must be made in the moment and adhered to for a convincing outcome. While the moments continually change, the decisions are being made just as instantaneously throughout the process to the conclusion of the painting. It’s like trying to hit a bullseye at a moving target, over and over again.
I marvel that I am here, at this moment in time, in the universe as I sit down to breathe and to express the beauty of just a few of the infinite relationships that make life.
I share my short time with trees, hills, grasses, sky, and all living things; with all that is around me and without which I would not exist. I sit and paint realizing my life is also just a moment, squeezed between the light years passed and the light years ahead I will never see. We are immersed in a web of all things within a moment of time, a glimpse. – Laurie De Camillis, 2025
