Diane Leifheit

There are a couple of thousand pastels in my studio. I usually take around 300 with me when I paint plein air, outdoors. This smaller selection compels me to understand the color I am looking at and then incorporate with some color theories that have crept into my work. The end result is more intuitive than structured. I think, if it is a really green scene what will make it pop? How does light work? And then there is that point of, where is that color? 

There is a joy and peace I feel when working outside. The air is a constant shifting companion. Light moves inevitably to reveal new shadows. The commitment to the scene actually is about 3 to 4 hours and the result is about the entirety of that time, not the blink of the camera shutter, but the blinks of 4 hours of my own eye.

History happens over a period of time. Natures history is constantly evolving. The plein air painter is an historian, capturing a time - be it a barn, or the movement of light, or a coming storm, or flowers temporary presence. Eyes wide open, I work to get that short period onto the board so it can last just a bit longer.