Painting on location or "en plein aire"

I have been living in Australia for a little more than 2 years and have been searching for other artist who enjoy painting outdoors or on location like I do. So far I have run into a brick wall as the people in my area just are not interested in this type of painting so I thought till last Saturday. I volunteer my time at the local art gallery for several hours a month and last Saturday I was there to do my volunteer time. Well, I finally met a fellow artist who is interested in painting outside! She has been trying to find someone to paint with her outside too for some time. She knows an artist that lives up north near Clare who goes out but not to our area very often. So we are planning to start to go out and paint in our area of our little town. There are numerous places to go to and lots of exciting places to check out and paint. She has been in this area for a lot longer than I have and knows all the good spots to go to but up until last Saturday couldn't find anyone to go paint with her till she met me. I have found that my paintings are much better when I do them on location than when I use a photograph. Seeing the real thing works better for me when I can paint outside.

Back on Australian Soil to Paint!

We got back last Tuesday, July 8th, and it has taken me nearly a week to get over the jet-lag. I am finally starting to feel my normal self. It was abit of a shock to come back to middle of winter after leaving summer in California. I was able to purchase a good camcorder and will start to create the video art lessons for the web site as soon as I can.
My next lesson I plan to teach to my class is going to be about "Brushstrokes" and what different types of brushes do. How to manipulate the brush to get the particular type of brush stroke you are striving for. Hopefully this lesson can be video taped for the website too.
I got really lucky while I was in California and got to meet two pretty famous artists who actually live in the same town my sister lives in. She knows one of them through her church friends and she didn't even know they were artists! She took me over to meet them and it was so exciting to get to meet Marilyn Simandle and Ted Goerschner! I actually have Ted's book and love his painting style. He paints in a very impressionistic "painterly" way. Here is a quote from Ted: "Most people overwork their paintings. Someone once said that detail is not a sign of industry but a sign of boredom. I feel that if you can create an effect with just one brushstroke, that takes genius. I like to give praise to painterly painters." Marilyn is also a fabulous artist and does some absolutely stunning work. I understand she started out painting in water-colour and now works with oil paint. Ted gave me some valuable advice and that was to paint as often as I can. That is what I tell my students also. He also gave me some tips on what art supplies to use such as canvas and paint brushes. It was such an honour to meet both of them.