Next year will mark my 15th year of plein air painting. Through this decade and a half, I've probably made every mistake in the book and come up with a few news ones while I was at it. I've also been teaching workshops for ten years, which has forced me to analyze my process in order to convey my method and thoughts to my students. Over the years, I've found that just about all artists - beginners and professionals and myself included- make so many of the same mistakes. In our rush to grab the scene before the light changes, we often overlook some of the basic tenets of good painting. A few years ago, I consolidated these observations into a list to remind myself and my students of the traps we can all fall into while painting:
Plein Errors: The Top Ten Mistakes Artists Make While Painting On Location:
#10: Forgetting to squint to eliminate detail and see values more clearly
#9: Getting bogged down in detail instead of massing in the basic shapes
#8: Painting over an incorrect passage and making mud instead of scraping
down/wiping off that section to start over
#7: Painting too large a canvas for the amount of time available before the light changes
#6: Not mixing up enough paint and skimping on paint application
#5: Giving up too early
#4: Wiping off the entire painting in the field (your painting might just be better than you think it is...)
#3: Focusing on one area too long instead of seeing the entire design
#2: Using small brushes at the start
And the Number One reason why paintings fail………………
#1: Not having a clear plan before you start!
Even if the painting didn't work, a day outside at the easel can't be all that bad.
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