Last week seventy artists gathered in Elora to paint outdoors. Elora En Plein Air is an annual festival for those who love art and the outdoors. The first time I tried painting outdoors was at the plein air festival in 2022. I didn’t know a lot about painting outdoors at the time, but I thought it would be a great experience and I soon became enamoured with this challenging way to paint, so I was very happy to be able to go back to the festival this year.

Painting en plein air is different from painting indoors in that the weather has a great impact on how you paint. In general I find that acrylic paint dries much faster outdoors than it does indoors. I suspect it is similar with watercolour and oil paint, but I have not tried either. There are ways to slow down the drying time of acrylics if you want to add acrylic mediums, but I tend to like to just paint quicker and looser to offset the drying time.

A bright pink ground and blue composition.

And there are advantages to the faster dry time. For instance, I like to start an artwork by painting a bright pink or orange ground onto the canvas. There is something very satisfying about this process of brushing on a wash of bright colour while I look at the scenery before me and think about how I will build the composition. At this time I only have this single colour on my pallet and I will continue to work with one or two colours only at a time to avoid having paint dry out on my pallet. This technique, I believe, is unique to painting with acrylic and likely why many artists choose to use oil or watercolour, but there is something interesting about blocking in colour and looking for all the places you see this colour before moving onto the next.

My first painting of the 2025 Elora En Plein Air Festival.

Once I have built a layer of ground, I will squeeze out a dab of phthalo blue or turquoise to sketch out the composition. I like to use a dark blue for this purpose because it generally blends well with the next layers I add on top and works well to build in the shadows early on. I also like to work this way because it forces me to not get too caught up in details too early in a painting.

Painting two of 2025 Elora En Plein Air.

When I first started painting outdoors I actually sketched out the composition I painted in pencil. I would spend almost an hour sketching before I put any paint onto canvas. At that time, I was working more in watercolour at my home practice and I was trying to use similar techniques while painting with acrylic. The problem with this technique though was that I didn’t enjoy the results afterwards and the paintings I created from my first plein air festival felt too tight.

Painting three of 2025 Elora En Plein Air.

With experience, I gave up sketching in pencil, but was still caught up in trying to recreate too many details, so this year my focus has been on trying to keep things loose and painterly. To achieve this style, I tried to work quickly, focusing on creating shapes with the negative space and with quick touches of the paint brush.

My fourth painting of 2025 Elora En Plein Air.

My first painting of this year’s competition was still a little tighter than I had wanted it to be, but I took it as a warm up and moved on to the next. The second painting was perhaps a bit too loose and could have used more paint, but by the third painting I felt like I hit a stride and found a place where I was happy with the results.

My fifth painting of Elora En Plein Air.

When I painted my fourth painting at the festival, I had chosen to paint a tree in the campground at Elora Gorge where I was staying for the week. For this painting I had no choice, but to work quickly because the mosquitos were out in full force and very early in the process I wanted to get finished and get out of that location. I think I spent more time swatting away bugs than I did painting that painting, but I think that made me more economical with my brushstrokes and each one had to count. I do think I will go better prepared for the next festival because of this experience. Although I was wearing a long sweater, pants and a hat, the mosquitos were still managing to get me and I still feel itchy when I think about it.

The next two paintings I painted were much easier to paint as the winds were stronger on the Friday. I also started my fifth painting of the festival early in the morning with the hopes that I would find quiet which worked out marvellously. My afternoon painting and the sixth one of the festival was not as successful, but this was mostly due to impatience as I felt like I was cooking in the sunshine. I had managed to find nice spots in the shade for all of my other paintings, but this one was in full sunlight and I had not properly prepared for it. This is the thing about painting outdoors, that you really do need to be prepared for any weather and dress in layers to be ready for it.

The Quick Paint Competition was my last painting of the festival. A thunderstorm had rolled through just an hour before the competition started and the sky was still very grey and cloudy. I had already gotten use to painting quickly during the rest of the competition, so the 2 hours that were provided were more than enough time to complete my painting. I had come fully prepared this time with my wagon filled with my pochade box, a folding chair and a large umbrella with a stand. I was not going to have my painting ruined if the rain decided to come back during the competition. I also painted this painting with much more technicolour than the previous ones as I wanted to rebel from the grey of the day.

Overall, I had a fantastic time at the Plein Air. It was an excellent start to the plein air season and I am looking forward to more outdoor painting over the next couple of months. I will be at the Hamilton Plein Air Competition on June 5-8. There are details on my even page here if you would like to learn more about it.

Until next time, I hope you have an enjoyable week and carve out a bit of time to do something that you enjoy.

All the best,

Laura

Painting Outdoors

Finding Joy