I'm proud to announce the release of my new book, Outdoor Study to Studio: Take Your Plein Air Paintings to the Next Level. If you're like me, you may sometimes feel your plein air work could be better. It may be a problem with composition. It may be a problem with color or mark-making. It may even be a problem you can't quite pin down. In many cases, we can blame the environment. Fast-changing light, gusty wind, mosquitoes, nosy tourists or just the tiring nature of painting outdoors will prevent you from doing your best work.
I've found that the studio is the perfect place to work out my plein air problems. Rather than try to create a "finished" painting in the field, I'll just gather reference material. These color studies, drawings and photographs don't require any commitment to a finished piece. This means I can take a more relaxed and thus enjoyable approach to the field work. Then, back in the studio, I have the freedom to enlarge my canvas, widen my scope and deepen my thinking. I can create a much more satisfying painting.
In the book, which I wrote as a supplement to Backpacker Painting: Outdoors with Oil & Pastel, I show several methods, illustrated with plenty of demonstrations and examples, that will help you improve your own work. None of this means, of course, that you have to give up plein air painting! In fact, the things you learn in the studio will also help you in the field. As they say, one practice informs the other.
The book is now available through Amazon.com in both print and Kindle versions.
114 full-color pages, with 146 images and 13 demonstrations in oil and pastel.
$24.95 Paperback – Outdoor Study to Studio: Take Your Plein Air Paintings to the Next Level
$19.95 Kindle – Outdoor Study to Studio: Take Your Plein Air Paintings to the Next Level
If anyone out there would like to have me travel and teach a workshop on this theme, I'd be happy to do so. Just contact me via e-mail: mcj.painter@gmail.com.
