"Plein-Air" Painting in the North Shore's Plain Air

I have been doing this type of painting of landscapes for several years. It is a fancy way of saying that I paint on location, using artistic techniques to capture the light and sense of a place and especially to not overwork a piece.  Since I love to hike (but don't necessarily have the patience to come home with an empty fish line!), I will sit and paint in some beautiful places while the rest of the family fishes or explores.

In a trip to Yellowstone National Park, I dipped water out of the Yellowstone River to do water color paintings which dry almost immediately.  However, I prefer to do oil painting which takes a couple of days to dry, so it can be a challenge to hike with a wet painting fearing I may drop or smear it and thus ruining it for good!

Along the North Shore, a favorite place to park myself and paint is the Poplar River that is easily accessible just beyond the ski hills of Lutsen's Sawtooth Mountains.  To help you see how a location can be captured and interpreted through plein air painting, it helps to view a photograph and then see how the painting comes out. (Remember, I only do landscapes, so unfortunately my family is not part of my painting!)

This is my family on our first hike near Lutsen as they cross over the old logging bridge that crosses the tumbling Poplar River below.

This is my oil painting done on location at the Poplar River. While painting the sky and river, a breeze came up and flipped my palette so that blue oil paint got smeared on the huge rock I was sitting on just below the bridge. If you take a hike there, you can still see faint evidence of the blue paint on the rock to this day -- a risk of painting plein-air style!

Perhaps you won't want to drag oil paintings on a hike, but I encourage you to take a sketch  pad to do a quick sketch of an area.  It is a way to capture a memory in a unique way.  The North Shore inspires many artists who also capture the spirit and beauty of this region.  One of the best galleries to see a variety of North Shore artwork is the Sivertson Gallery in Grand Marais.  I highly recommend you to visit this gallery online or in person -- and its right across the street from Sven & Ole's Pizza -- enjoy both!