Penn's Sketchbook

En plein air  refers to the practice of painting outdoors on location and is French for "outdoors." This is the opposite of painting in a studio. Below is a plein air painting by John Sargent of Claude Monet painting outdoors. Claude Monet  Painting by the Edge of a Wood  (1885) by  John Singer Sargent . Oil on canvas. 54.0 × 64.8 cm.  Tate Gallery , London. [Image from Wikipedia .] See more works by Claude Monet from artsy.net . Since learning more about this practice of painting and drawing, I am slowly beginning to try it out. This weekend, I had an extra hour, so I went to a park and found the tree below, which I painted on location in watercolors. I used a water brush (inspired by James Gurney's post here ) and a portable watercolor palette that I added some paints to. I wanted to do a study of a tree and found this perfect young oak as a subject. The next day, I was at the playground with my wife and son, when suddenly, my sketchbook was bombed w

"Do you want to see how to draw a box? I'll show you." My dad picked up the pencil and drew a square on a piece of paper. I watched as he connected diagonal lines to mimick a 3D box. From that very early lesson, my mind was settled that drawing was what I wanted to do. My mom would often take my brothers, sister and me to a large public library located in Exton, PA, where I would pick out books about animals and attempt to draw from the photos and illustrations displayed inside. This and many outdoors experiences led to continued drawings of animals and birds, even during and after design school. Cactus Wren. Watercolor class project. 2003. Illustration class project. Watercolor and Color Pencil. 2003. In 2006 I began working in the wall coverings industry as a digital graphic artist. I later worked in textile design before switching to another role. During much of the last decade in the commercial art world, I no longer produced much regarding perso