ShareThisThese friends start Tuesday morning by scouting out the lay of the land.
Under an autumn sky billowing with grays, they stroll a path in Swan Creek Metropark, near Toledo, Ohio, scanning for a slice of scenery with enough color, shape and inspiration to hold them for three or four hours.
Finding suitable spots at the edge of a dipping meadow, they unpack wheeled bags, pull out jugs of water and bags of brushes, and unfold chairs and easels.
Betty Jean Jacobson and three others establish portable studios along the trailhead. Two camp on a covered deck nearby, and a pair is across the meadow in a shelter within earshot of playground music.
They bustle a bit, and paint.
A Toledo watercolorist, Jacobson peers "into the heart of things," such as trees.
"How long have they been here? What strength do they give to people who are hurting? How have they survived? I feel that's the poetry of nature. And every year we can pretty much depend on them to come back, if our ecology stays intact."
Leaves are newly yellow, red and orange. The meadow is packed with tall goldenrod, brambles, a smattering of asters.
Some have prepared their canvases in advance by brushing them completely with cadmium orange or red, which will lend sparkle to unpainted portions, they say. Brush strokes are often quick and long.
Bundled up against the 50-something degrees, the seven women and one man brought materials that suit them -- thick paper, rice paper, canvas, or birch-board paneling. Watercolors, pastels, oils, acrylics.
Plein air painting is a pleasure for the hardy, nature-loving artist. Pronounced "plain air," it translates from the French to "in the open air," and implies an emphasis on ever-changing light and shadows. Paintings are often done in one session, with final touches added in the studio. They are not intended to be detailed, photo-like portrayals but exercises in light, color and form.
"It's good to get out and see how the light is. It's truer," says Ann Bridgman, with this Toledo Artists' Club group.
The genre appears to be gaining ground. The Ohio Plein Air Society, established in 2003, has 185 members and hosted 60 artists at its annual competition last month in Marblehead, Ohio, said Jeff Risner, society president.
Artists have long painted outside. In the late 1400s, Leonardo da Vinci sketched outdoor studies he used as references when painting huge canvases in the studio. In the 1800s, metal tubes were invented that held premixed paint, making it easier to transport materials, and a collapsible easel that folded into a box was improved.
In the late 1800s, the Impressionists elevated plein air, insisting that their outdoor land and seascapes deserved inclusion in galleries. Among the proponents: Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir in France, followed by Americans William Merritt Chase, Winslow Homer and Childe Hassam.
Inga Reynolds has brought a minimum of baggage to Swan Creek -- a box of pastels and several bold lithograph prints on rice paper she previously made. After viewing the scenery, she selected a lithograph and imposed her vision on it.
By 12:30, several break for a picnic; others continue working or head for home. Jacobson was interrupted several times by conversations with friends, leaving her a fair amount to complete. Never mind.
"The love of painting. It's just the greatest gift I've received in my life, when I paint or draw," she said. "And the love of the companionship of others that have this passion."
(E-mail Tahree Lane at tlane(at)theblade.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com)
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