Plein Air Painting-Why do we do it?

Why do we choose to sit in the cold, hot, rain, dust, sand, tourists, bugs, mosquitoes, and bird shit when we could take a photograph and sit in a nice air conditioned studio and paint from the photograph (which is infinitely easier)? Because every plein air painter knows that this is the only way an artist can put his entire soul and the soul of the environment into a painting-That's why.  When you sit with a canvas before a scene and smell the air, hear the sounds, feel the temperature, experience the dynamics of the moving shadows and the changing scene, you go into a trance and become one with the scene. As the painting develops you experience emotions that could never happen with a photograph, and you can put energy and spirit into a painting that doesn't exist in a studio. The emotions are not only higher but are measured against lower lows pushing them to an extreme. Failures are complete unrecoverable disasters and successes have an unexplainable energy, excitement, and usually an unforgettable story to go with them.

 For similar reasons athletes run their best (and worst) race during the Olympics, and pianists play their best (and worst) before an audience.  If you have a plein air painting on your wall, you have something very unique and special. It has spirit, energy, and substance that is not present in a studio-created copy of a photo.  Your painting sat with the artist for hours before the scene it represents. The artist most likely cussed it, cried over it, nurtured it, and ultimately loved it. And the painting most likely contains (in addition to paint) bits of the actual environment like sand, dust, bugs, rain drops, sweat, and maybe even some bird shit Perils of a Plein Air Painter-Italian Riviera . If you want the ultimate in art, hold out for an original, plein air painting.

 At the other end of the spectrum a signed and numbered print, no matter who the artist is, when compared with an original, plein air painting, has no spirit whatsoever.