January Plein Air Challenge

And get to see the details of your surroundings

Helen C Stark

Dec 12, 2024

Transcript

A few weeks ago when we got a little bit of snow and I went out to paint, I recorded here in a post what that was like. A lot of you were interested in a January challenge to help us get out and enjoy our surroundings.

Challenge

Whether you live in the Northern Hemisphere or Southern, this is a challenge to get out and enjoy your surroundings. Go outside to draw or paint for 6 days a week (with 1 to rest). This can be a park nearby or somewhere in your neighbourhood. It could be your garden. You can start the process outside and finish inside. You can start the process outside and take a photo then finish inside. You can start the process outside and only let it be a record of simple marks and only that, this is also fine!

Weather

I have written a post on plein air drawing in harsh conditions. If the weather conditions are extreme and being outside is dangerous, please don’t do this!! You can draw from your window. This is allowed!

Materials

Whatever you want. Whatever you want to work on or make progress with. You could work in a sketchbook entirely dedicated to this challenge or on larger pieces or on little postcards (this would make a really cool gallery at the end of the month). Your choice!

Sign Up

Wednesday 1st January 7pm GMT

To kick us off we will have a FREE Zoom call to get into the mood, Wednesday 1st January at 7pm GMT for a short meeting to gather our thoughts and finish our day 1 together. There will be a quick Q&A to tackle any issues if need be. To keep it cozy, this event will be limited to 50 guests so do sign up here. The Luma event will tell you what time this will be in your time zone. The recording will be sent out to The Time Foragers’ Club paid subscribers Thursday 2nd January.

Share your work

There is absolutely no pressure to share your work. However I’ve found that sharing means I have an extra little incentive to get it done and sometimes in the deep dark gloomy days, it would much more comfortable to just not bother!

With that in mind, let’s share our sketchbooks, images, drawings, paintings, whatever you choose to do! You can share here on Substack or over on the gram, just tag me and I will re-share and celebrate all our work together!! It’ll be so fun to see what everybody draws and paints throughout the month!