Plein air painting for beginners — sketchbooks, materials, and getting started
Plein air painting for beginners can feel a little daunting at first — you're outside, the light keeps changing, people walk past and look at your work. But painting from life, in real conditions, is one of the most effective ways to develop as a painter.
I've painted outdoors for years. It's where a lot of my ideas about colour, atmosphere, and simplification have come from. This post is for painters who are curious about plein air work but aren't sure where to start.
Why painting outside changes how you see
The most valuable thing about painting outdoors isn't the subject. It's the light. Natural light is complex, shifting, and impossible to fake. Trying to capture it forces you to make quick decisions — about colour relationships, about what to simplify, about what actually matters.
Painters who work outdoors regularly tend to bring more confidence to their studio work. They've trained themselves to observe quickly and commit. The mark-making becomes bolder because there isn't time for hesitation.
Even short sessions — twenty minutes in a garden or a local park — can change how you see. You don't need dramatic scenery. You need the light.
What you actually need (and what you don't)
One of the things that puts beginners off plein air is the idea that you need specialist equipment. You don't.
What you need:
- A small board or sketchbook (A5 to A4 is plenty to start with)
- A limited palette — I often work with four or five colours outside
- A way to carry your materials without fuss
- Somewhere to sit or stand comfortably
What you don't need:
- A French easel or any specialist outdoor easel
- Every colour you own
- Perfect weather
- A beautiful subject
Working small and simply removes the pressure. The aim isn't to produce a finished painting — it's to observe and respond.
Sketchbooks vs. working on board
Both work well outdoors, and the choice depends on what you're after.
Sketchbooks are low-pressure. Nothing in them has to be "good." They're places for notes, colour observations, quick compositional ideas. A sketchbook practice outdoors is one of the best things you can build — not to produce finished work, but to develop your eye.
Working on small boards gives you something closer to a finished piece. A piece of gessoed card or a small canvas board travels easily. The paint behaves the same way as in the studio, which makes it easier to carry learning back indoors.
I'd suggest starting with a sketchbook. Less precious, more useful.
Some things I've learned from painting outdoors
A few things that have changed how I work:
The first twenty minutes are the hardest. The light is unfamiliar, you don't know how to simplify the scene, everything feels too complicated. Push through that. The painting usually improves once you stop trying to record and start responding.
Work from the largest shapes first. Start with the basic light and dark divisions. Add detail — if you add it at all — last. Outdoors, details disappear in the light anyway.
The colours you mix outdoors are almost always more interesting than the ones you'd mix in the studio. Trust them. Don't second-guess them when you get home.
Simplicity is almost always better. If you're not sure what to leave out, leave out more than feels comfortable. Plein air work that tries to include everything usually fails. Work that commits to an edit — this colour, this shape, this quality of light — is the work that carries.
Where to take it next
Plein air painting connects naturally to abstract landscape work — both are about responding to a place rather than copying it. If you find that outdoor observation opens up questions about how to make expressive, simplified paintings, the Abstracted Landscape course takes that thinking further, working through how to develop paintings from direct experience of landscape.
There's also a range of course bundles for painters who want to explore these ideas in more depth — working with colour, mark-making, and the relationship between observation and expression.
LewisIf you want to understand more about abstract landscape painting as an approach — what it is, where it comes from, and what it asks of you as a painter — the beginner's guide to abstract landscape painting is a useful companion to this post.
