2026 marked my second year participating in the annual Harvey Dunn Plein Air event in De Smet, South Dakota.
In 2025, I had tried my hand at watercolor. Had no idea what I was doing. Pretty much used the pigment like crayons, just wetting it and putting it on paper. Thus, colors were a bit crazy.
Depth, perspective, proportion….though my brain knew about these things, something went quite haywire between the brain and the brush.
Still, I’d had a wonderful time.
I also set a goal. Spend the coming year learning and come back to create something more like what I was seeing in the landscape.
After watching many online videos about techniques and projects, I found a teacher I felt was most aligned with what I was looking for, and signed up for her online workshops and website.
It was worth every penny and I recently renewed, too.
She took us down to the very basics of watercolor…pigment, water, paper, and brushes. The ratio of pigment to water is the big mystery, as is the quality of paper. How to use the various brushes puts the finishing touches onto BEGINNING to get that brain-to-brush action going in the right direction instead off the rails.
I’d become QUITE adept at the off-the-rails part.
The months rolled by and I did many lessons, some multiple times, trying to understand certain techniques. I began to get comfortable with mixing colors to create my own, get a better handle on that alchemy of pigment-to-water scale, etc.
So, as the 2026 event approached, I was feeling ready to go out into the field to put my learning into practice.
Here is where, in the filmed version, the score would switch to minor-key music and a hint of doom to alert the audience that things were not going to go so well.
First off, it was raining and a bit windy.
But…no worries! I’ve painted from inside my car on the side of the road before, and only one car drove by in the three hours I sat at one location to paint.
It isn’t entirely convenient to have all the supplies spread out all over the sloping front seats, and the ever-present-fear that I’d bump one or both of the water containers and drench the interior of the car with pigment-stained liquid.
Fortunately, nothing bad happened. Whew!
With the rain, I was able to practice painting that kind of gloomy, moody sky that requires more texture than the cloudless blue.
I like the way the skies turned out, but when I was done and looked at the work, then out the window to the scene, then back at my painting, I realized that I had “zoomed in” on the scene, which in reality was much smaller in the view-finder. (see the view out the side window in the first photo!)
Perspective and proportion is still a big ol’ problem for me…the mid-ground fence posts are nearly the same size as the foreground fence posts, when they should be smaller. Despite those issues, I love painting fence posts for some reason.
And holy cow…the tail vane would have toppled over the entire mechanism had it been that size on the windmill, which should have been taller than it is.
Still, I was relatively happy with the result considering the conditions, and noted that I had to pay better attention to what I’m seeing and not run off into the rhubarb with my imagination (though that is ok in art, too, right? Even at Plein Air events?)
For my second and third paintings, I returned to the spot where I did my very first painting last year. It was so windy that numerous times, my supplies ended up in the tall grasses and needed rescuing. I also tried a couple of different techniques and scenes.
We shall not speak of nor look at the results of this stop đ
The third location required a front-seat studio again, but it allowed me to spend time on one of those wonderful “abandoned route / minimum maintenance” roads that are rapidly returning into field land.
I was happier with the results of this one than the first.
Still, I had spent considerable time pondering and realized this:
While I’m following a talented teacher and doing her lessons, I do just fine (most of the time).
But send me out feral into the prairie with a blank page and a bunch of supplies?
Well…my output was better than first year, but not where my evidently unrealistic (delusional?) goal had expected me to be.
In the weeks since getting home, I’ve been more intentional about painting, re-doing some lessons to refresh certain techniques, and doing more “from photo” paintings to try and put those lessons into practice.
Some things go well, some things go not so well…but I learn with each one.
2027 Goal:
Last year I posted my novice-level paintings to establish accountability, and I will do the same here.
Last year, I did not participate in the Wet Sale that ends the event (where artists are allowed to show their work from the Plein Air event, and offer any for sale, along with up to six pieces they’d done away from Plein Air).
I had initially planned to have a table to show my work this year, again as an accountability thing. But…I just couldn’t. All I could see where the things that had gone awry. I know, that’s a personal problem of mine. I’m all sorts of encouraging to others, but critically awful to myself. But here we are.
And no one had to hurt their eyes or practice their ability to be diplomatic when looking at my refrigerator art.
Most of the others are professional-level artists who have been at this for years and years. They are very, very good.
My goal for 2027 is to show at least three pieces created at the Plein Air event, as well as six pieces I’ll create between now and then. That will keep me painting, keep me progressing, and get me out of my protective shell.
Maybe.
We’ll see what the 2027 blog post will have to say đ
Below are some of the paintings I’ve done since returning home, practicing techniques from photos taken during Plein Air.
