Places that Inspire

It Takes Two 20 x 16" oil on linen
© 2007 Katherine Kean

What makes a place inspiring?

I believe that the quality that makes a location an inspiration will vary it from person to person. For me it took a long time of honing before I understood what does it for me.

I spent many years painting en plein air, which is a specific form of painting meaning literally “in the open air”. It involves a certain amount of preparation and presents specific challenges, fitness and painting speed among them, I believe, as the light changes so quickly. Monet changed canvases every 20 - 40 minutes to accommodate the shifting light. Then there’s heat, cold, bugs, rain, to contend with. Oh, and let’s not forget poison oak and snakes and other critters. In spite of all this I loved it and still venture out to paint the wild places from time to time.

However, my process has gradually evolved. I had come to a point where I was continually searching for the landscape that naturally contained what I wanted to express, some kind of ephemeral attribute that mirrored the vision in my imagination. I could visit a place that would embody the characteristic I wanted, only to come back another day and find it gone. It’s still a bit of a mystery to me to define what combination of elements are necessary to make a location someplace I desire to paint. It seems to be part a quality of the light, maybe the angle at certain times of day, and part something I bring with me.

Although I continue to refer to the landscape, these days I rely a little less on the details of a location, preferring instead to go for what the character of a place expresses to me, or I reverse the process and create an image and then go out to look for landscape references to fill in the details and make the vision complete.