plein air competition fun! 🎨 (Patreon)

winning judge's choice, finding a new art community, and why you should do plein air painting 🌱💧☀️

hi guys! I am back from a weekend full of painting, sunscreen, and meeting local artists! I participated in a local plein air competition as a part of a larger arts festival and had so much fun walking around painting a beautiful historical home and the courtyard of a church. we were given 3 hours to paint 2 images and I am proud of myself for tackling more architecture (if you haven't noticed already, I tend to lean towards foliage since it's more freeform lol). I ended up receiving the Judge's Choice Award and getting invited to join in on local plein air groups around my county. everyone was so nice and supportive and it's made me excited to continue to paint outdoors <3

I also included some paintings from before the event! the blue house painting was from saturday, and the dusk foliage painting was from friday night. good practice before a full day of painting on sunday!

Why Plein Air Paint as a digital/comic/figure artist?

I have found so many benefits from painting en plein air more this year including improving my color/light sense, building confidence, and getting some fresh air! Observing color and light from life and applying it to my paint surface has built more of a natural color and lighting sense when I tackle a digital illustration. I think about temperature and lighting more, giving more of my color choices purpose and power in my narrative work. Because of the quick nature of plein air painting, I have to make decisions on the spot and work with the consequences, making me more creative and less likely to overthink. This also makes me faster and more effective with my painting and drawing. And lastly, getting outside has been so good for me! (besides the high pollen count making my throat itchy lol) It feels extremely grounding and almost meditative, giving me a much needed break from the screens and digital work of my day to day. ALL OF THIS TO SAY, you should start painting and drawing outside! (also, I have found that most of the plein air painting groups in my area are older folk, nothing wrong with that but I would love to see more younger folk like myself taking up this practice as well!!!)

alright, enough of me and my soapbox. i love plein air painting and i wish you fun if you start doing it as well! this has been such a fun hobby this year and I hope to continue to develop it more~

thank you for reading!!

love, shay <333