About Plein Air

Plein-air painting, at its core, just means painting outside—traditionally landscapes—but it’s also about capturing that feeling of being out in the open air.

I started painting outdoors in 2010, and it’s been a really rewarding part of my practice ever since. In 2021, I built my own pochade box, which holds my supplies and doubles as a surface to work on. There’s something really freeing about making art with just the basics: a backpack, some watercolors, water, and a small tripod.

Ancient footpaths were worn into the soft tuff at Tsankawi. This site was habitated by ancestral pueblo people and has not been excavated. It has a distinctly different aesthetic to the Pueblo sites in Frijoles Canyon found in the main section of Bandelier National Monument.

The Cathedral Spires area is a National Natural Landmarks. It is an excellent example of joint-controlled weathering of granite, and is the only area of its kind in the upper Great Plains and northern Rocky Mountains. In addition, there is a disjunct relict stand of limber pine in the landmark. [2]

Wind Cave National Park [3] is in the southwestern corner of South Dakota. The park's prairie and pine forests are home to bison, elk and pronghorn antelopes.