What Is Plein Air?

Plein Air is a term derived from the French phrase 'en plein air,' which literally means 'in the open air.' It's a familiar concept today, but in the late 1800s, thanks to the Industrial Revolution, artists were able to carry small metal paint tubes out of their studios for the first time in all of history. This allowed them to paint on site and record the colors they saw from observation instead of from a drawing or a sketchbook with notes. For the first time they were able to observe, investigate and capture the true colors and effects of sunlight during different times of the day on a particular landscape or subject, and it was revolutionary.  ​

Paint Outs

A group that paints together stays together!

Please join us for one of our sessions, we would love to have you with us! We schedule en plein air group sessions 2 times a month during the during Southern Arizona's cooler months (September through May). 

We meet, paint on location, regroup afterwards for a small critique & share the events of the day. 

Special Events

During the art season, we will schedule special events for an educational or just fun event for our memebers.  
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October's Special Event
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Friday, October 18, 2019

U of A Center of Creative Photography


 10:00 AM


1030 North Olive Road, Tucson, AZ 85721
 

A PORTRAIT OF POETRY: PHOTOGRAPHS AND VIDEO BY B. A. VAN SISE

The Center for Creative Photography and the Poetry Center at the University of Arizona are delighted to
collaborate to exhibit a captivating project by B.A. Van Sise in a celebration of the bicentennial of Walt
Whitman’s birth. Van Sise is a New York–based photographer with a lifelong love of poetry and a family
lineage that traces back to seminal American poet Walt Whitman. Van Sise has undertaken an expansive and inventive poetry portraiture project. Beginning in 2015, he embarked on a quest to make portraits of American poets that reflect the diversity and vitality of today’s poetry scene. Each portrait is a creative endeavor in which the poet becomes more an actor than a model, performing a concept Van Sise has created based upon one of the author’s poems. These narratives sometimes relate closely to the text (which is presented alongside the photograph), while at other times the connection is more abstract. The resulting “portraits” are at once a likeness of the poet, an evocation of the poem, and a presentation of a visual narrative fashioned by the photographer. 

The exhibition will feature one video portrait (of acclaimed poet Sharon Olds) and about 80 photographs
showcasing the breadth of American poetry today, including a who’s who of Pulitzer Prize winners, Poet
Laureates, and Chancellors of the Academy of American Poetry. In the Center’s Heritage Gallery, adjacent to A Portrait of Poetry, related materials from the Center’s collection will be shown to complement Van Sise’s ambitious project.

We will meet at the TPS Art Center at 9:45.  If you plan to attend you must email Becky Neideffer at

bneidefferart@gmail.com.  If attendance is going to be low, the event will be canceled.  The cancelation 

​will be listed on this page.

Great paint out photos!!!!!