I JUST got back from the Door County Plein Air Festival. It was a great experience. The painters in attendance were amazing and the resulting show was by far the best plein air show I’ve seen. The event was extraordinarily well planned by the staff of The Peninsula School of Art and it was a pleasure to meet fellow artists. My personal performance was good although the overwhelming greens of Door County threw my desert dwelling sensibilities a curve. But after the first painting–which took a record five hours to paint–I successfully adjusted my palette.
By Friday evening everyone had four paintings in the gallery. I felt my work was competent and adequately exhibited my thick style–with perhaps less broken color which I attribute to excessive focus on getting the greens right.
I didn’t sell as many paintings as I did in 2010 which was surprising. But such challenges gives us opportunity to review our motivations and methods. I’m not advocating taking counsel from our fears or giving up but setbacks can induce the type of introspection that incites meaningful change.
I embrace the feedback from Door County only to the degree that it confirms my own intuition. Two ways lie before me–retreat to a thinner style with more accurate representation or distance my style even further from conventional plein air technique.
Brad Teare, August 2014
Above: Door County Canopy, 16″ x 20″, oil on linen, painted en plein air July 22, 2014
Photo courtesy of fellow painter Scott Gellatly
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Updated: 19th December 2024
