WATERCOLOR | OUTDOORS | COMMITMENT
Decision-Making En Plein Air
The Practice of deciding in art and in life
Roxanne and her students are gathered in a parking lot overlooking Castiglione del Lago, high above Lake Trasimeno in Umbria. It’s a beautiful scene, but there are some obstacles to overcome, like the big fence in front of the viewing area and the fact that the buildings below do not look very attractive.
This is part of the real challenge of painting outside. Do you paint what you’ve found or wander farther along to find something better?
From another perspective, though, this is a great location because it re-enforces the need for fast decisions… what to paint, what to ignore, and what compelling things to move into the scene. And when painting outdoors, en plein air, things change fast, so speed is essential. As a result, decisions and commitment matter.
Looking over the scene, Roxanne narrates the possibilities. Six overlapping ridges stretch across the horizon on the far side of the lake. Properly rendered, these can give the painting some depth and distance. The foreground foliage is more intensely green and warm, while the distant ridges each become successively bluer and cooler. She describes how the blue of the sky changes; ultramarine overhead and lighter, more yellowed, above the ridges.
She comments on how fast the light changes. Cast shadows will move more quickly than you think, including the shadows under the puffy clouds that hang above the mountains. If you see something you like, commit because it won’t be there for long!
Long horizontal vistas like this one might be a frustrating experience without a focal point. Roxanne thinks she will use a compelling cloud cluster as the focal point. To help her map this out, she uses a bit of scrap paper with the rule of thirds laid out as a grid. Some reasonable focal points could be at the four tic-tac-toe intersections of this grid. That’s where she will want to put the point with the sharpest edges and the greatest contrast in light and dark values.
Roxanne provides her students with these and dozens of other tips about outdoor painting. There’s a lot to consider and a lot of helpful tools, but most importantly, there’s a larger lesson here, too.
Life seems a lot like this. What are we going to do with what we have been given? Keep looking for something better, or go with what we have? What catches our eye? How can we simplify the complexities of our lives? What ugly part are we going to leave out, and what beautiful part are we going to bring in?
We can stew over these decisions all our lives and be left with nothing to show for it. Or… we can decide, in the moment, like these artists are deciding. Life is about change, and that change is swift. If we want to have a compelling life, maybe a focal point will help.
There are a million ways to make a “mistake” in watercolors and in life. “So what?” Roxanne asks. There’s always more paper and paint, and, over time, every “mistake” ceases to be seen as an error and, instead, gets experienced as a lesson that pays itself forward in the next painting. These lessons are cumulative, making the next set of decisions easier to make.
In my Navy experience, we had a quip about such things; “Good decisions come from experience… experience comes from bad decisions.” There are no shortcuts, so take some risks and make those bad decisions. After a while, there will be no such thing as “good” or “bad.”
Life is like that. There are no mistakes, just a lot of lessons that pay themselves forward in the next moment of our lives. That takes the pressure off decision-making. It’s ok to decide. The next time, you might decide differently, and that’s ok too.
We practice making decisions so that decision-making becomes a practice.
I love the color of the watercolor pencil in this work by Medium artist and author Delfino:
The Rev. Ron Steed is an Episcopal Deacon in Southeast Connecticut and a chaplain at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London, CT. He writes haiku and lyrical prose that he hopes will help others put the head and heart in right-relation.
Top writer in Art, Watercolor, Haiku, Sermons, Refresh the Soul Weekly, and Episcopal Church.
Roxanne Steed is an artist, instructor, and mentor in watercolor, specializing in oil and watercolor-journal paintings in New England and Europe. Her website is RoxanneSteed.com
