A board of small paintings all made at once, from Everett (at 8800 feet) looking at Lone Peak in Big Sky, MT. Several of the 80 paintings I made in 4 days during the Paint Under The Big Sky 2025 event.
Monday, June 30, 2025
Seattle, WA
Evening
It is a hot day in Seattle. I am here for 24 hours or so, changing out supplies and getting logistics organized for the remainder of the summer. I am just back from Paint Under the Big Sky, a Plein Air Painting Event* in Big Sky Montana, the last event of a complete year of doing as many such events as possible.
*(where artists gather at a set place to paint for a week or so, make all new work, then show it to the public, and—-art-gods-willing—sell it!)
I had the idea to pursue as many plein air painting events as I conceivably could after winning a grand prize at my first event last July, Plein Air Easton, in Easton, MD, which, as part of the award, guaranteed my participation in the 2025 event. My second event on the heels of Easton, Plein Air Montana in Bozeman, MT, saw the first time my work was acquired by a museum. Hm, maybe there is something to this plein air world, I thought. I didn’t think much beyond that. Sometimes the universe gives you a clear sign that you should move in a given direction, and you don’t need analysis or reason; intuition is guide enough.
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I thrive under commitment, performance, pressure, and logistical acrobatics. I signed up and applied for as many plein air events as possible, as an experiment - what will change, in my career, in my art, if I go all-in, at least for a year? Much has changed indeed, and I have been having a tremendous amount of fun along the way. Most importantly, perhaps, is what this experiment has done for my work, and my world. I had barely scratched the surface of seeing these United States. If you haven’t done big drives across the county, I would recommend finding an excuse to do so as soon as you can. Utah alone is a world. I could go on about the places and things I’ve seen over putting 51,000 miles on a car that was new with zero miles in August of 2024, but that’s for a whole other project.**
**(Portraits of America is the working title, feel free to ask me about it or how to get involved).
I’m just back from the final event of the year of commitment, about to give myself permission to alter the strategy of “as many as possible, all the time”, if that strategy needs modifying. We live in such a cheap, inattentive, uncommitted culture, that to thrive within the perils of the age we need to observe what is not working for us and pursue the opposite, no matter how challenging, no matter how uncomfortable or foreign. Personally, I love being challenged. One of the illuminations to come from this year has been the discovery (or re-discovery) of my capacity to embrace and produce a large volume of work, and to find nourishment and energy within it. The more I make, the better and stronger I feel, and so the more I want to explore what is possible that I have not done before.
After discovering a passion for Egrets and a process for rending them in their multitudes in New Iberia, Louisiana, I have been expanding on the practice of making many small paintings (5 x 7”, more or less) at once, or in rapid sequence.
11 small Egret paintings and one Gator, made from the viewing platform overlooking the Egret rookery in Avery Island, during Teche Plein Air in New Iberia, Louisiana. Out of frame to the left are 10,000 Great Egrets nesting and coming to and fro. Their numbers made it possible to render their images while landing, in flight, in otherwise impossible-to-paint-from-life poses. I made 24 or so such paintings over several days.
In Big Sky, for the last event of this committed year, why not go for more? In four days I made 8 medium-scale 13 x 19” paintings, and 72 small works, for a total of 80 works. I think the previous most I’d made in a single day was perhaps 12, and before this year of commitment, that number was 3. I can recall when making 4 paintings in a day at my first event in Easton last July felt like a lot, a mammoth undertaking, something that felt good to do. In Big Sky on the biggest day I made 24.
20 paintings in a day, all made En Plein Air in Big Sky, MT. The first 17 were from the top of Everett’s peak, the last three at the right were made from the base at the resort. I have a hard time recalling a location or a feeling of more profound inspiration, with apologies to the water and clouds of Seattle and the pelicans of San Diego.
Sometimes the limits we think we have are just that - limits we think we have. Do we know that we cannot do more, or are we just afraid of our own power? I am deeply curious about what is possible, curious enough to try and to fail to achieve what I’ve set out to do. Making many small works is not a stunt, it is a way to try things out in iteration, to have many “at-bats” to mix a given range of colors for a particular scene. Not all the results are equally successful, but they do certainly add up.
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Below, I share the work and a few words about the process of the last four plein air events of the year, in order — Paint Cedarburg in Cedarburg, Wisconsin; Mountain Maryland Plein Air in Cumberland, MD; Paint Grand Traverse in Traverse City, MI, and Paint Under The Big Sky in Big Sky, MT.
Till Next Time,
Enjoy,
David
The highlight of painting in Cedarburg was getting to know Minute (sniffing me) and Toby (in the background), the wonderful horses belonging to a Cedarburg farm owner kind enough to let me return to paint them for several days. I had never painted horses before - and now I understand, deeply, the appeal they held for my artistic heroes such as Degas or Leonardo. All the horse work from this event is sold / spoken for, but it was only the first time, and will not be the last. If you or someone you know is looking for the unique experience of having their horses painted from life, feel free to reach out via the contact page of my website, here.
From Cedarburg WI to Mountain Maryland - where I focused on the waterfalls and rapids of Swallow Falls State Park. I had never painted waterfalls or rapids before. I cannot say that my setup was always 100% “safe”. The highlight even more than the work itself was the wave of continuous “raaahhhhhh” sounds of the waters after heavy rains blasting over and through the falls for a whole week. Such sounds brainwash your mind clean.
The first thing that comes to mind revisiting this piece, made above Muddy Creek Falls, are the words of the woman who stopped with her family to ask how much this piece is. When I told her several thousand dollars, she exclaimed, “that’s all?? I thought you were going to say multiple tens of thousands of dollars, like $50,000!!!” I laughed and told her, that’s a first, usually the shock is in the other direction. This piece is available, watercolor on paper, 22 x 30”.
Revisiting one place and one subject over and over is the best way I know to make better work of that place and subject. This piece, the rapids above Swallow Falls, was the fifth piece relating to waterfalls or rapids of the week. In transparent watercolor, the white is the white of the paper. To answer some commonly asked questions - I work from life not photos, I don’t use masking fluid or drawing beforehand, and this was completed in a single sitting, from 5-6:25pm. Watercolor, 22 x 30”, Available.
From Mountain Maryland to Traverse City, Michigan - I wanted to paint the Great Lake, and I wanted to paint it from the lake itself, and to have shade in which to work. The shade isn’t for comfort, it is to optically render the color correctly in the work. Working in sunlight, the paint will be too darkly applied - shade yields better results. I’m not going to sugarcoat this - getting this tent and rock setup installed and broken down each day was time consuming, laborious, and inconvenient. I’ll do whatever it takes to get the various logistics in place to achieve the paintings I want to make.
“Baby Photos”, made from the water-tent setup. I had finished the painting when the couple appeared to alternately hold and take pictures with their infant, out on the exposes rocks of the shallow low-level Lake Michigan. Bless them for their appearance, as it adds a sense of scale and a human presence to an otherwise person-less scene. This painting is sold, watercolor, 18 x 24”.
The last painting made of the beach during Paint Grand Traverse. Again, the painting was finished when a human presence animated the water. This little girl in a bright cadmium red (or cadmium-free red) dress was splish-splashing in the water and narrating her journey aloud. I showed it to her and her mother after I was done. What initially attracted me to the scene was the silver reflective surface of the lake, how the rocks appeared floating in the clouds from above the beach. I was rained on, bitten badly by biting flies, and had to relocate while working. Watercolor, 18 x 24”, available.
Thanks to the organizers of Paint Grand Traverse I was invited to give a demonstration, and to go to the current expansive scale of my watercolor work to do so. This is me working on a 40 x 60” painting of the view out the basement window of the Crooked Tree Arts Center, as it was raining the day of the demo. I spent the afternoon exploring Flintfields Horse Park with my friend and fellow painter Justin Donaldson. We had so much fun we went back for a second full day.
With the finished demo piece on the wall. I didn’t have a frame, so re-taped it to the painting boards and did a very sketchy job with wire, hardware, and superglue on the back. Luckily, it held.
Watercolor, 40 x 60”, Available.
Painting Horses at Flintfields in Michigan
Horse at Flintfields, watercolor, 18 x 24”, Available. Having achieved what I was after in a horse standing still (on my second try of painting horses, the first being the days in Cedarburg), I moved onto painting horses jumping, in motion.
Horse Jumping at Flintfields, watercolor, 18 x 24”, available. Precluding this piece were several smaller works of horses jumping, so I knew it might be possible to pull off a medium-size piece.
5 x 7", Horses Jumping at Flintfields, watercolor
From jumping horses to cranes on mountaintops. This piece is Available at the Big Sky Artist’s Collective for this month, in Big Sky, MT. The 17th painting of this day, preceded by 16 smaller works, followed by three other 13 x 19” pieces. watercolor, 13 x 19”, available. This piece also won the Grand Prize Best in Show.
20 small paintings (of the 80 total works) made from high elevation in Big Sky, MT, from Everett’s Peak looking at Lone Peak, including the crane building the new tram to the summit. I didn’t know something like this would be possible, until I tried it. I set timers for 5 minutes for each of these, to move quickly from one to the next. Some of them I spent up to 20 minutes on, but no more.
Hiding out and painting under the porch of “Everett 8800” at the summit of Everett’s Peak to avoid the rain. I see the appeal of the mountain hermit lifestyle, at least for an afternoon.
Painting from the deck of Everett’s 8800 - my preference to under the deck. In front of us is the 8-seat chairlift I took to get from base to summit and back
The board from this day. Note on 19 and 20 (Roman numerals, XIX and XX, the middle two at the far right edge) that the rain has come.
Choosing which of the 8 13 x 19”s I made to display, we only were allowed three pieces for Paint Under The Big Sky. I went with the framed works, the top left three.
Lone Peak with a sun break through the overcast, watercolor, 13 x 19”, available this month through the Big Sky Artists’ Collective in Big Sky MT. I loved the humor inherent in a crane on top of a mountain.
The Plein Air Easton landing page - my work with the umbrella and chairs at left. Paint big enough and even in the background the piece will still be visible. Looking forward to going back for 2025, in just over a week.
