An Artist's Guide to Plein Air Painting Oct. 2015 | Page 15

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Lights in landscapes are the sky and areas receiving direct or indirect
light. The sky is usually the lightest. For the sky you will need to bring
in some white but keep it broken with a touch of yellow ochre.
The landscape may be more a mid-tone so you could get away with
no white in the color mix for your mid-tone areas just yet.

Figure 6 Painting from the balcony is still plein air

What is the problem with adding white paint at this stage? White does
not keep warm colors warm and it makes shadows opaque. Your
colors will remain transparent for more richness. You will achieve
better results and richer paintings when using less white paint. So I
keep early layers as free as possible from white paint. Go ahead and
mix colors, but bring the white in only where necessary. This may
sound strange to beginners who are often told to use tons of white
paint. The result is often a painting of chalky color that struggles not
to look pastel.
With darks and lights in you can block in the mid-tones. These will
usually be foreground and middle ground areas that range from cools
in the distance to warms in the foreground. They are the areas
between brights and darks.

An Artist’s Guide to Plein Air Painting

Malcolm Dewey