Racing the Sun

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

First Steps of the Plein Air Oil, Summer Brome

Complete absorption in the moment is often called “being in the zone” and for some mysterious reason, doesn’t always happen every time we would like it to. However, practice does make a big difference, and over time we can train ourselves to slip into complete focus more often than not. Sometimes this un-awareness of our surroundings can be surprising, amusing or worse, when we finally pay attention to the rest of the world around us.

One time I was painting near a busy entrance to a Renaissance garden in Tuscany. I tuned out the activity around me to paint a pastel of the scene. After an hour, as I stepped back to sign the painting, I discovered an entire class of Italian school children gathered silently behind me with their teacher. As I turned to say “buon giorno”, they broke out in spontaneous applause! I was both pleased and a little embarrassed that I had not noticed them before.

The plein air study here, Sum…