PLEIN AND SIMPLE

It's a French term, en plein air, and it refers to the process of painting in the great outdoors. Arizona, with its dramatic light and spectacular topography, attracts plein-air artists from around the world - gifted men and women who are forced to work quickly and simply to capture the ever-changing conditions.

Artists aren't always outdoorsy types, but if they want to paint a landscape - and get it just right - they venture out to experience the scene. When the weather is not tranquil, painting directly from nature can test artists' fortitude - enduring knee-deep snow or summer's blazing sun to capture a landscape on canvas. Rapidly changing light forces them to paint quickly and simplify, as they race against time to record the fleeting light in paint.

Plein-air painting, French for "open-air" painting, became popular in the early 19th century when premixed pigments first became available, which allowed artists to take supplies into the field. A contemporary plein-air painter strikes out to a site with a foldable easel and a miniature box of paints. First, he or she records the scene in fast brushstrokes. Then, form and color are added, and the setting takes shape. Back in the art studio, the artist might add final touches or use the painting as a study for a larger canvas.

With its dramatic light and topography, Arizona holds special appeal for landscape painters who head into the wild, sometimes on horseback, to reach rugged terrain. If the journey is lengthy, camping gear, grub and art supplies are turned over to packers on mules and the expedition ensues. The Grand Canyon, pine forests of Flagstaff, redrock mountains of Sedona and harsh splendor of the Sonoran Desert are among the many destinations portrayed.

Nationally and internationally renowned plein-air painters have made Arizona their home. Here, we introduce you to five of the finest, who combine extraordinary technique - mastered over decades of trial and error out in the field - with a love of the land.

K nown worldwide, Curt Walters is among the most famous living painters of the Grand Canyon. “No matter how many times I see it, I’m just as excited as the first,” he says. “Art is really about sharing your feelings, and I want to share that excitement.” While his affinity for the natural world was honed as a young boy — jumping haystacks and building fences on a large family farm in New Mexico — Walters surmises that his kinship for nature and his desire to capture it on canvas was fated. “Artists are born. There’s a genetic code. It says, ‘paint.’ I never wanted to do anything else.” His family traveled throughout Arizona and the Southwest, visiting Canyon de Chelly and Monument Valley, but it was the Grand Canyon, first viewed when the artist was 19, that took his heart. “The grandest landscape in the world,” Walters says.

Walters is a self-described “weather watcher,” carefully plotting plein-air excursions to the Canyon from his Sedona home. “I jump in the car and I’m there in two hours. I’ve painted the Canyon in all seasons and all kinds of weather, but my favorite time is just after a big storm... everything’s been moved through and there’s a special clarity in the view. That’s when you get the best shadow patterns.” His spectacular paintings of panoramic vistas are held in the collections of prominent and celebrity collectors including Mikhail Baryshnikov and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and showcased in top museums, including the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Okalahoma City and the Autry National Center of the American West in Los Angeles. Continually recognized with awards and honors, Walters is also known as an “ambassador” for Grand Canyon preser-

“I painted that one standing in 3 feet of snow,” says William Scott Jennings. “It’s not enough for me to simply translate a scene onto canvas. I want the viewer to feel what I feel standing in the landscape — to translate the emotions of real life.” vation and has helped to raise more than $500,000 in donations and art-related activities to fight pollution in the Canyon.

The North Scottsdale home and art studio of Matt Smith sit near the edge of Tonto National Forest, the fifth largest in the United States, encompassing nearly 3 million acres. This “backyard” has become the renowned plein-air painter’s chief playground. Many mornings, with streamlined art supplies carefully placed in his backpack, which is tossed into the passenger seat of his open-air four-wheel-drive, Smith takes off down the many dirt roads. “The beauty of the Sonoran Desert is subtle, not obvious like the Grand Canyon or the red rocks in Sedona,” he says.

Smith grew up in Arizona, so the landscape he paints holds special memories and meaning. After majoring in art at Arizona State University, he studied with contemporary masters of the pleinair technique all over the country and with realism artists at Scottsdale Artists School. Today, almost three decades later, Smith's reputation as one of the country's top plein-air painters draws aspiring artists from all over the world to his sought-after workshops at his alma mater now an acclaimed educational center of traditional art. “My teachers were so generous, I wanted to give back,” says Smith, who has been featured on PBS television for his expertise. He also shares his mastery of the medium through instructional DVDs.

Grande and the winding river through the cliffs of the Grand Canyon. His mural, measuring 16 feet, is a panoramic view of the Grand Canyon that decorates the walls of Phoenix's elegant Westin Kierland Resort & Spa. It's one of many of his paintings held in the collections of top corporations and in collectors' homes from coast to coast. “A painting is not the sum total of details, but rather a careful choosing and simplifying of the scene,” Hull explains. “The painter's job is creating the feeling of this complexity without painting every detail.” Another of Smith's favored Arizona locales is the Vermilion Cliffs in Northern Arizona where he erects his makeshift easel to record the landscape. He also travels the globe to paint, striking an exquisite balance between “nailing” the subject matter (enabling the viewer to feel smack dab in the elements portrayed), and celebrating the medium. “After all, it's paint,” Smith says. Then, he adds with a smile, “The subject can be an excuse for artists to simply play, just like we did in kindergarten.” painted that one standing in 3 feet of snow,” says William Scott Jennings, pointing to a landscape study in his Sedona home, nestled at the base of the red-rock mountains. Dozens of the artist's paintings, stacked against the walls of his sunlit studio, compile a visual celebration of Arizona, including views of the Grand Canyon and Canyon de Chelly his favorite destinations. “It's not enough for me to simply translate a scene onto canvas,” he explains. “I want the viewer to feel what I feel standing in the landscape to translate the emotions of real life.” Jennings has successfully played the heartstrings of collectors nationwide, with paintings in the collections of celebrities (Goldie Hawn, William Shatner, Kurt Russell), corporations (Ford Motor Co.) and lining the walls of government buildings, including the U.S. Capitol.

ou could easily call Gregory Hull a Renaissance man. With formal training in portraiture and still life, Hull shifted his focus from studio painting to the outdoors, and now masters all three genres. When he's not creating art, the nationally renowned plein-air painter plays sonatas on his grand piano in the room that adjoins his Sedona art studio. His adjacent home, perched among the red rocks, is filled with antiques many collected on his sojourns throughout the West including Native American textiles, beadwork and baskets.

With loose brushstrokes and paint applied directly from his palette knife, Jennings fills his canvas with glorious color, depicting the scene. Sometimes his spontaneous application of paint, while creating glistening skies and sunsets, leans toward the abstract.

His first foray into the visual arts was through academic study and employment in commercial art. After working in advertising, he began painting en plein air and was “hooked.” He took the leap from commercial to fine art and hasn't looked back. “I was single and 24 years old. Back then, it didn't seem like much of a financial risk to make $500 a month,” he says smiling.

Varied Arizona locales fill his colorful canvases the Superstition Mountains, towering aspens on the San Francisco Peaks, ruins in Casa

When You Go

GETTING THERE: If you'd like to watch plein-air artists from around the country do their thing, head to this year's weeklong Sedona Plein Air Festival, October 24 through November 1. Lectures, classes, special events and an artist exhibit also will be held at the Sedona Arts Center, 15 Art Barn Road in Uptown Sedona, and several nearby locations. INFORMATION: 888-954-4442 or visit www.sedonapleinairfestival.com.

I grew up loving nature and never quit," exclaims Joan MarronLaRue, who spent her childhood in western Oklahoma on the family ranch and farm, where she rode her own Shetland pony, played make-believe in a tree house, and hunted and fished. Today, she makes her home outside the city limits of Tucson, where javelinas and coyotes are spotted outside her front door. Her intimate paintings of Arizona reflect her rural roots - outdoor scenes of roosters and chickens, weather-beaten Ford tractors and pick-ups, as well as old schoolhouses. "I like to paint my own little corner of the world," she says. Like many artists, Marron-LaRue was reluctant to commit to painting as a career. "Too impractical," she says, "although my whole life I wanted to paint." After studying fashion merchandising and establishing a successful career in retail, her husband's profession took her to "a little oil-patch town, where there was nothing - zip.

So, I began my painting career by the seat of my pants," she says with a laugh. While she secured gallery representation and sold her paintings, she knew she needed more training and began years of study with the masters of plein-air painting, including Clyde Aspevig, Sergei Bongart, Scott Christensen and Richard Schmid. Her painting career soared and now, she claims membership alongside her mentors in the Plein-Air Painters of America - the country's most prestigious plein-air organization. Travel also informs Marron-LaRue's artwork, with extended excursions to remote corners of Nepal, Bolivia, Turkey, France, Italy, Alaska and more. The joy of her journeys is exuded in her paintings. "I hope you look at my paintings and feel that I love what I do. I'm having a wonderful time."