Fieldtrip

Starting a fieldtrip today I remember how hard it used to be and how easy it has become. More than ten years ago I started with the desire to paint a wonderful scene of the Biltmore hotel in Coral Gables. The sun lit the front of it, and I was struck by the intense light and richness of the scene. I felt the urge to capture this beauty in a painting. The desire to express beauty itself, was the initial inspiration.

           I started with the most difficult approach and ruined the most expensive canvas I ever bought. I had purchased pure Belgium linen and stretchers sized 52 inches by 78. My old heavy foldable easel barely fitt in my car. I carried a heavy wooden box with acrylics. It all seems so silly now……. What was I thinking?     

              The size of the painting drew attention. Some idiot with a huge canvas was trying to make a painting, or was it an actress for a comic movie who was waiting for the camera man? I barely had time to concentrate on painting because everybody wanted to know what the heck I was doing. I wanted to be polite and talked patiently to passers-bye about their nephew who was in Art school or their sister in law who was an accomplished painter.

           As soon as I could focus, the evening breeze picked up and the wind got part of the game. The monstrous canvas flew in my face, wet paint and all. I couldn’t handle it. With ultramarine paint stuck in my hair I managed to hold the painting with one hand and dip my brushes into paint with the other when I realized the subject was wrong and the paint was drying too fast.

            The building was the most difficult subject I could dream up. The hotel was orange, lit up by an intense evening sun while I would stand in the shade surrounded by blue green foliage. Creating depth with colors seemed to be an impossible task since the blue tones should be in the background and the warm tones in front. It’s a simple rule I had read somewhere which was easy to remember but hard to achieve. In this case the color of my subject was the furthest away but orange. If I mixed blue and white with it, as I should for receding colors, it became a muddy grey.

            Then there was the enormous amount of detail, not even talking about the architectural challenge itself. The Biltmore Hotel has many small windows and a nick in the building itself so the perspective was difficult. Even now, as an experienced plain air painter I would not go back to the scene because it has more challenges than I am willing to deal with.

            The rather poor choice of it all was my ignorance of how to be a painter. Doing everything wrong is one way of learning. The danger is that one would give up, and never discover the satisfaction of expressing oneself through paint.

           I made a fool of myself and my ego got damaged. The disappointment hit me quite deeply. Many people had encouraged me to become a painter because I was so talented. I did not know that it meant I had to learn and suffer an awful lot. Talent might help a little bit but everybody has to put beginner’s effort into something to be rewarded. I thought I would wake up one morning and just automatically paint anything to satisfaction because that was what I was supposed to do. I felt silly.

             Finally, after many years of hard work I narrowed the art down of travelling light with an easel to the absolute necessities. I have been bitten by mosquitoes, burnt my neck by the blistering sun, threw my acrylics away, left all the big canvasses in the studio, got myself some wide brim hats and a small metal folding easel. Now I only have a tiny shoebox made from wood filled with oil paints, brushes and a palette, which fit in my backpack together with a small fishing stool, turpentine, a roll of paper towels, bug spray, suntan lotion and water. I can walk with this for miles if I have to. Lately I even manage to paint horses on the beach in Holland with a fierce wind in my face without any problem. For fieldtrips I like to work on prepared gatorboard which is light weight and strong. My field easel is easy to carry with the boards which are no bigger than 18×24 inches. I love the outdoors, feel the wind through my hair and see the sun hit my landscape. There is definitely something sacred in the act itself.

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