plein air

Plein air means painting outdoors, directly in front of the subject, rather than working from a photograph or memory back in a studio. It forces an artist to work quickly, since natural light changes fast, which often produces looser, more spontaneous brushwork than studio painting allows. This tag marks work made this way, out in the field with changing light and weather as real, active factors in the finished piece rather than something removed and controlled after the fact.

Joseph Zbukvic

Joseph Zbukvic is a Croatian born Australian watercolorist known for soft, poetic landscapes rich with atmosphere and quiet emotion. He fled political unrest in the 1970s, rebuilt his life in Australia, and has painted full time since 1978.
Peter Brown

“Pete the Street,” captures vibrant city life and landscapes en plein air, renowned for his Impressionistic paintings and lively artworks.
Mark Boyle

Mark Boyle is an American plein air painter based north of Seattle whose work grows out of long hikes and backpacking trips through the wilderness he loves. Working in oil, pastel, and watercolor, he paints forests, meadows, and mountain streams on location, chasing the true colors of the moment.
Kyle Ma

Kyle Ma is an American painter born in 2000 who grew up in Austin, Texas, and earned a geology degree from the University of Texas while pursuing plein air painting. He has already won a gold medal at the Oil Painters of America National Show and is a signature member of the organization.
Eric Michaels

Eric Michaels is an American painter born and raised in Illinois who earned his BFA before settling in Whitehall, Michigan. A signature member of the Oil Painters of America and the National Watercolor Society, he paints landscapes, market scenes, and figures gathered from his travels across four continents.
Christopher Leeper

Christopher Leeper is an American realist painter from Canfield, Ohio, who wrote Realism in Watermedia for North Light Books and illustrated four children’s books for the Smithsonian and the African Wildlife Foundation. He teaches as adjunct faculty at Youngstown State University and served as president of the Ohio Watercolor Society from 2008 to 2012.
Andy Evansen

Andy Evansen is an American watercolor artist and former medical illustrator who began painting watercolors in the mid-1990s as a change of pace from his day job. Inspired by British painters like Trevor Chamberlain, he won an international watercolor competition through American Artist magazine in 2005 and later served as president of the Plein Air…
Jacobus Baas

Jacobus Baas is a Dutch-born American painter born in 1945 who moved to the United States as a teenager and later worked for years as a goldsmith to support his art. A founding board member of the Laguna Plein Air Painting Association, he discovered painting on location during a 1994 trip to Santa Fe and…
Jay Brooks

Jay Brooks is an American landscape painter born in Pavilion, New York, who earned his BFA from Carnegie-Mellon and his MFA from Columbia University before returning to paint the countryside and small towns of the northeast. He has taught art at Monticello High School for twenty-five years while continuing to exhibit and compete in plein…
Iain Stewart

Iain Stewart is a Scottish-born watercolor artist trained as an architect, a background that shapes how he approaches composition and design in his paintings. A signature member of the American and National Watercolor Societies, he teaches watercolor and design drawing at Auburn University’s School of Architecture and also works internationally as an architectural illustrator.
Tom Hughes

Tom Hughes is an American painter born in Massachusetts in 1965, who worked as a staff artist for the Christian Science Monitor in Boston before dedicating himself to fine art for more than thirty years. He won the $15,000 Grand Prize at the Plein Air Convention in 2019 and now paints from his home along…
Mike Wise

Mike Wise is an American painter born in 1973, raised in the Pacific Northwest, where the region’s coastlines, mountains, and farmland have inspired his work ever since. He began his career as a stockbroker in Seattle before leaving finance to paint full time, drawing on lessons from his grandfather, an amateur painter of bold landscapes.…