DRAWING PLEIN AIR

I love to see people sketching outdoors. When I see people drawing plein air, I almost want to run up and hug them. Of course, if I did that, I would end up in jail. And so instead of hugging them, I do the next best thing; I snap a photo.

A few weeks ago in Sydney, Australia, I took these photos of people out there in the fresh air applying, with their hand, at the end of their arm, lines and tones to a piece of paper. There were informal groups. There were school groups. There were singles. And they were all doing it 100% analogue.

Were they drawing representationally? Of course! Were they knowledging the forms they were looking at? Of course not! Were they arranging shapes on their papers, worried about figure / ground or contrast? Of course! And I’m quite sure that if I went up to them and said something like, hey, why are you drawing that way / why don’t you draw that transparently, I’m rather certain that I would have a charcoal stick shoved down my throat.

Like I said, it is all I can do to contain my enthusiasm. So I think I need to have a few cards made up so that when I am traveling and see folks sketching, I can simply drop a card and suggest that when they have a second with nothing better to to, they can check out Transparent Drawing. And that way, I can get away before any hugging and / or forced charcoal ingestion occurs.

Another instance in which we recorded plein air drawing can be found at the page What I’m Talking About.