En Plein Air by John Eccleston: A Realm of Stucco book

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Front cover

Last page

The book contains a short story by John Eccleston, who is best known for Garlick (Troubador, 2025).

En plein air references my Indian paintings, and contains speculations on plein air painting and the future.

This is the third book published by Realm of Stucco to accompany my exhibitions. 

Please contact me on Tadeusz598@yahoo.co.uk to purchase a copy (£5 + post and packing).

Equipment and materials for plein air painting when travelling

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My Moroccan and Spanish kit

I`m aware that I can pick up what I need in Casablanca or Seville so I'm not too bothered if I forget anything. 

I usually check where any art shops are before I set out.

Easel

This is a cheap Chinese easel. It is light and fine for sizes up to about A3, unless you are painting on a very heavy board. 

The plastic fittings on these snap and eventually the rubber shoes will loosen, fall off and get lost. But none of this really matters. Costing about £15, you are less likely to worry about it gettting stolen and, being simple, it is easy to fix any issues with a bullog clip or bit of wire, or whatever you can find.

I would caution against travel painting with costly equipment, baggage or clothes. Fancy stuff will make you a little nervous and you are more likely to become a target. Nice clothes get smudged with paint and then you have to fuss around cleaning them.

 I`ve never been robbed when travel painting, which I attribute to luck, a certain caution about where to paint, and not having anything worth stealing anyway. The latter is really the key, as when you have little of marketable value you go around with a certain basic confidence.

Boards

A variety of boards allowing for a variety of approaches.

I set out on these trips with certain ideas of what sort of work I will do, but then changes my mind along the way. That's part of the fun, surely?

Carrier and clips

The clips prevent a wet picture from touching the lid of the carrier.

The clips have coloured tags so that when they fall on some patch of long grass (as they will, inevitably) you can find them.

Paintbox, paints

Paints stored in a B & Q storage box. There are lovely wooden boxes on the market. These look great but are heavy and will crack if you drop them. They are the sort of things which are bought as retirement presents, I suppose-  later to appear on Ebay in mint condition.

My basic set of colours

I'm not religious about these, and my set is more or less the same dozen odd that most plein air artists would recommend. I use Winsor and Newton Artists paints. They have a good consistency, with lovely flow and density. Moreover, I am used to them.

Cerulean blue

Cobalt blue

Prussian blue

Ultramarine blue

Cadmium yellow

Naples yellow

Yellow ochre

Windsor yellow deep

Cadmium red

Cadmium orange

Alzarin crimson

Cadmium green

Burnt umber

Burnt Sienna

Titanium white

Mars black

Liquin 

This is a dependable drying agent and speeds up the surface drying of paint to as little as 24 hours (depending on paint thickness and pigment an any other mediums mixed in, obviously).

Linseed oil

An oil used to increase the fuidity of paints.

Paper palettes, corrugated ard palette holder and linseed oil dipper

The dipper is at the bottom left of the picture and has a metal lid. This gets oily and becomes difficult to remove. Ah well!

The pieces of corrugated card are used to carry the palettes around. The card palettes are cut from old

cereal boxes.

Brushes

Many and cheap. You probably won't be able clean brushes as thoroughly as you`d like to, and frankly I have found little rewad in spending masses on brushes for oil painting. 

Cleaning off oil paint is done with basic household soap.

Cloth

Vital for brush cleaning and also wiping paint off the boards. One of those unglamorous pieces of equipment that is most essential. Can be replaced with kitchen roll.

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Praia Moçambique, looking inland, mid-afternoon

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Praia Moçambique, looking inland, mid-afternoon, oil on card, 27.5 x 30 cm - available

 

Photo

 

The camera- a Lumix DMX  - has certain baises, and dislikes certain colour contrasts especially where pinks meet greens. I messed about for ages in the editor and never hit the nailhead. Well, I think it is more or less right.

Painting 

 

I loved painting here. The sun was not too tyrannous, and I could perch myself on a little knoll above the sands.

I finished before the late afternoon light comes raking in sideways- quite glorious to see- and I shall return today to see if I can capture this. I usually avoid going the the same place on successive days (does that  make me sound rather like a serial killer?) as I benefit from  having a fresh impression but I shall, exceptionately, break this rule.

I have been working on a larger scale and this allows more spacious painting, with looser brushwork-  most enjoyable.

 

Black  

 

I have also re-introduced black to my palette. 

Thanks, in part to the Impressionists many painters plein air painters avoid black as the Impressionists  had argued that black doesn't exist in "nature" and they held fidelity to nature as a high value (as if painting itself exists in "nature"). 

But, I'd avoided putting out blacks for a long time not because of reverence to the Impressionists but becauses they so readily pollute other colours on the palette, and all the mixtures can become greyed out.

 I am trying to use it discreetly. 

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Praia Moçambique, forest, January 5, 3pm; 2022

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Praia Moçambique, forest, January 5, 3pm

 oil on card, 29.8 x 27.7 cm

 

 

 

 

Praia Moçambique, forest, January 5, 3pm - detail

It`s very hot, unpleasantly humid - even in the woods, which is the only tolerable outside space here in the summer.

 The sun blasts down right from above and it's hard to find shade anywhere else.

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2022

 

This year I intend to loosen the brushwork further and to use purer, brighter colours.

 Working a bit bigger will help with the first. The second depends on organising my palette better, so one paint doesn't muddy another- that's sometimes difficult working plein air, but it's something once can become more conscious of.

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New easel

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 New Easel

 

 

 

With pícture (front)

 

 

 

With picture (back)

 

 

 

 

Without picture (front)

 

 

 

This new easel has just arrived, ordered over a month ago from China. 

It's a little heavier than I'd imagined and had rather cheapo fittings. It didn't cost much. But it's designed with an intelligent simplicity with little that can break. And should anything break, it will be easy to fix.

 It might be better than my current setup, in which I prop my picture up against my paintbox. It might allow me to work standing up, something I miss.

Picture: Vargem Pequena, view, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm

A road and bushes near the university, Florianopolis

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A road and bushes near the university, Florianopolis- available

 oil on card, 26 x 28 cm

Does the plein air painter go out and respond to the world with paints?

Or is it like this: the artist goes out and finds a motif. This motif is like a key which opens a door in their mind.

Behind the door is a pre-existing image which the artist then reproduces, albeit usually adaptng it so it corresponds wih the scene that they are, ostensible, depicting.

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View across the dunes, May 2020; blue

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View across the dunes, May 17, 2020, oil on card, 23.5 x 21 cm

I am revisiting this extraordinary area, which at first sight appears barren, but at second can be seen to be rich.

I don`t  know how long I will spend this time round working here. It feels right to be here now. That`s probably because I spent of the last couple of years driving up to the forest where the landscape is, obviously, quite opposite in almost every sense, and I needed a change.

 Anyway, the dunes are  fascinating, and necessitate a completely different approach. The browns, greens and yellows are marvellously subtle and teasing.  I`ve now been back about six or seven times, so perhaps I`ll do much of my painting this winter here. I have bought seven new brushes expressly. 

 

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Blue

I`ve been using a paint called Pthalmo Blue. It`s so strong that it tends to dominate all the other colours. So I use it with considerable care, much like Prussian blue. But even so it can easily stain all the other colours on the palette. Prussian and Cerulean blue are similarly difficult, I find, readily dominating the palette. But their sheer force is such that it is very tempting to use it for creating accents and both mix in interesing ways if used sparingly.

The Cobalt and Ultramarine blues are considerably easier to mix being more delicate.

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Guarda do Embaú, with distant hills behind; working outside -palette

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Guarda do Embaú, with hills in the distance, oil on card, 18 x 22 cm Sold

This painting is available on Saacchi Art

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Palettes

Working outside forces one to use easily portable equipment, and that includes palettes. This forces one to be very clear about what colour range one intends to use. 

I mix the basic colours in advance then adapt them where necessary as I work on the painting. It`s delightful to see how the colours open out when mixed with white. It`s similar to the way in which, when cooking, spices reveal their scents when you put them into hot oil.

Of course,  at times one mixes a set of colours and then during the working of the painting realises that another colouristic approach would be better. Live and learn!

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My portable palette

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Like the pochade carriers, the palettes close so they can be transported without making a mess.

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Three from Sicily; tourism, photography and plein air painting

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I took the ferry from Malta to Sicily, staying for a couple of days in spledidly sited former Greek Empire city of Syracuse, where Archimedes lived and which features ruins of some importance.

Much of the city has recently been restored, though the place still has some rough edges.

Three from Sicily (Syracuse and Taormina)

 

 

 

 

Corso Umberto I, oil on card, 13 x 9.6 cm - discarded

Greek Amphitheatre, Syracuse, oil on card, 9.5 x 12.6

I met a charming French-Spanish couple while painting here, at this greek Apmhitheatre, which is quite enormous. Thanks to them for buying me lunch. I hope they find this site.

 

View of Taormino, oil on card 12.6 x 9.5 cm    available

 

 

 

 

Taormino is one of those places that is so touristified that it is quite unpleasant, the entire length of the main street taken up with shops selling souvenirs. The tourist industry has this amazing capacity to destroy the places and cultures that it supposedly celebrates: everything becomes commodified, including aspects of interpersonal relations.

The views  from the town, however, are quite breathtaking.

My picture owes something to Kokoschka, the itinerant Austrian, whose painting journeys might become a model for me, along with Edward Lear and the Scotsman David Roberts.

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Digital cameras have made photography easy, cheap and fast and I see tourists, including myself, wandering about snapping away, scarely seeing the world save through a lens. Given that images of most places tourists visit, quite probably of superior quality, can be found on the web, their reason for snapping must really more to do with the desire to say "I was here", than to record or understand a place.

In the face of this barrage of fast photo images there is obviously place for slower, more considered meditation on places. Plein air painting provides this.

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These paintings are for sale- for 100 Brazillian Reals or equivalent in another stable currency (at the time of writing this is roughly 58 US$ or 42 Euros or 36 GB pounds). Post, packing and handling are not included.

More details can be found under the label "buying art", below: please contact me with any enquiries.

 

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Footbridge near Iguatemi Shopping; paint box and carrying wet pictures

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This is a cigar box that I've been using over the last couple of days for carrying materials. I usually use a French Easel, which is an elegant folding easel. However it is rather heavy, and therefore restricts the places I can go to work at to locations within about a mile and a half.

This cigar box is good, but does not function as a little table, so I suffer the difficulty of having to find places with benches or convenient walls.


Above is a little folder I'm trying out use for transporting the pictures. I shall re make it with sturdier cardboard.

These experiments will inform my painting journey in Italy and Malta.

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A tree with golden flowers; "the artist is always the worst critic of his own work"

A tree with golden flowers, oil on card, 10.2 x 7.2 cm, 100 Brazilian Reals

I first began working on little plein air paintings almost exactly two years ago:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tadeuszderegowski/sets/72157613227009246/

Looking over the set, I do feel that I have become more able. There are some experimental pieces there using scratching of paint which are not convincing. I do believe that when I am working on a piece I become blind to it: I can only really see what it is like after some time has elapsed.

It is odd that one should be so blind while working closely on something when later it's flaws appear so obvious. I suppose that is why some people say, "the artist is always the worst critic of his own work".

Trees behind a fence

Trees behind a fence, 35 x 40 cm, oil on canvas

A small painting (35 x 40 cm), again impressionist in method. I painted it plein air, listening to Roxy Music from the car.

I am priming some board to use as a support for a series of small pictures, about A5 in size. These will be readily affordable to collectors and easy to post. As my pricing is geared to the Brazillian market the pictures are particularly good value to overseas buyers: they will cost 100 Brazillian Reals (about 55US$ , 40 Euros, or 34 UK pounds) not including post and packing. Anyone interested should simply email me for details.

I can arrange framing- it is cleap to get good framing here and worth considering. It would probably cost an addtional 50 Reals, but I would have to check.

I believe in making art affordable, and available to those who are interested.

There exists a great deal of price snobbery in the art world- even a low priced paiting is unaffordable for most people. I think this has the net effect of damaging sales, leading to lower sales overall because it dissuades potential new buyers from entering the market. It seems to me wrong and, more importantly, foolish that an educated person on an average income, such as scoolteacher or book editor, should be unable to afford to purchase original works because of the art worlds pricing structure, which exists to maintain the prices already established artists and sustain the idea of "exclusivity".

The average jobbing artist, who is not a star, then, fails to sell and their work remains in storage for years on end because the galleries, and art world in general have conspired to maintian prices and failed to nurture a low-medium price market.

Or so things appear to me. Perhaps readers have another take on it?

The Sea, Impressionist painting.

An impressionist painting, painted plein air in one session and using a palette without black or brown paints. The effect is shrill to my tastes. The pastel colours give a Walt Disney feel- I'm not sure I really like that.

If God is present, then it is in the details:



It's enjoyable painting the sea: how it reflects light and changes in the course of an hour. I'd reccomend for mental patients.