Andrew Cranston

It's easy to think of it as a French affair belonging to a certain period in time: Monet, Van Gogh, the late-nineteenth century. Of course, it isn't. Plein air existed before then and still does today. Some examples: Edvard Munch painting on the beach; David Milne contemplating the Canadian forests; John Constable casually sketching clouds; Joan Eardley embattling canvases made on the stormy North-east coast of Scotland.

Apart from my tradition of creating holiday watercolours, painting en plein air is not an activity I do much these days, though I do take these moments very seriously. I am concentrated and relaxed, two seemingly opposite but actually important states to be in for an artist.

I find it trickier to use oil paint outside, as did Graham Sutherland, who complained of all the paraphernalia needed — an easel, a stool, palettes, turps, etc. Then there's the insects, or the wind, and the rain. It can also be hard to avoid leaving an environmental mess behind. In an essay on Matisse, Patrick Heron remembers a moment sitting in a small town in France and realising he was sitting at the exact spot where Matisse must have conceived and created a certain painting 20 years before. Intuitively, Heron lifted some of the moss on the rocks next to him and, sure enough, there were stains of red, yellow, green and blue on the stones on which Matisse had mixed his paint. I think about this story from time to time.

I painted outside and on the spot a lot as a younger artist, often forcing myself to paint in the most incongruous places, overcoming my initial squeamishness and embarrassment of performing in public. It didn't always work. I feared it could seem like I was posturing, and it was hard to create while knowing that people were watching—not wanting to show off or make a visible demonstration of skill, which is always to the detriment of art.

It was — it is — a bit easier when traveling. There is an inevitable language barrier in foreign countries, when inquisitive viewers can't be replied to with anything other than a shrug and a smile. It could also be an ice breaker. I recall once creating a watercolour painting of a horse in the Villa Borghese park in Rome, after a while being surrounded by watchful, curious children. They all left eventually, except for one young girl, who was transfixed. When I finished the painting (which wasn't terribly good), I gave it to the girl. She ran off with it, delighted. I started again. After about 15 minutes, I saw the same girl coming toward me from a distance, bringing with her an entourage of adults, presumably parents, uncles, aunties, etc. I braced myself in case they might think my giving a small girl a drawing was inappropriate in some way. Instead, I found myself embraced by these men and women, complimented on how beautiful the painting was, and invited to share in their family picnic.

I remember, on that same Italian trip, making a painting high above Assisi. It started raining torrentially, but I was determined to make something worthwhile. I think I did, with the assistance of the rain. I can still see the weather in that image.

It's important for me that my art incorporates weather of some sort, or more specifically, for my painting's surface to be weathered, to have a history, visible signs of its making, and the time spent on it. I suppose this is made through touch and transformation of the materials. This gives some quality to the painting, which activates the spaces in-between, the air within the painting. For a painter, it could be the strength or subtlety of touch and the thickness or thinness of paint. Pure canvas or paper, untouched, can stand in for air itself.

There's a Renaissance rule of thumb in painting that goes 'lights thick, darks thin". It seems most obviously illustrated in Titian's late paintings, where thick fleshy oil paints describe bodies, animals, while thin, washy paint is used for foliage or skies. It has a visual and perceptual logic. Of course, in modern hands and minds, it's a rule to be torn up and subverted.

I like my use of paint to suggest something of the quality of air, whether it is sharp or soft. I think of its particles, visible and not. I currently write this in a room where a shaft of winter light reveals a hanging curtain of glimmering dust in the air. (I prefer the Scottish word for dust — Stoor). It's like a moment from an Andrew Wyeth painting. Dust is apparently skin that has been shed.

I take a deep breath. I write this during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, a time to worry about particles, microbes, the invisible killer, and the air we share.