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You might think that artists have a cushy job. No stress, no deadlines, no office politics or gossip to navigate. Just grab your paintbrush and start flinging paint. And even better, your work doesn't always have to actually resemble what you're painting – as long as you're a fast talker. Most people are not going to say "wow that's terrible!" even when it truly is. At least not to your face.

So it's understandable that the public might have the wrong impression about us. I'm here to set the record straight.

Painters – especially outdoor (or plein air) painters, are pretty bad ass. 

Take today, for instance. I'm participating in a 30-day challenge by Strada Easel to do a painting from life every day through September. Let's not talk about the daily mounting pressure to come up with a new idea…scraping together the cash to buy more art supplies…the daily drives to nowhere looking for that next great spot…it's exhausting, I tell ya. But the real pain comes from actually being out there, minding your own business, hoping to just get your gear set up quickly enough to catch the light before it's gone.

So today, I found my spot by the roadside in a local park. A pretty little scene, and I congratulated myself for finding a shady place to stand for once. (I'm not always bright enough to think of this until after the back of my neck is already sizzling.) My dog was with me, and she's a nervous sort, so I had my tailgate open and was working nearby to keep an eye on her. 5 or 10 minutes in, I've got my pencil lines marked on my panel and am just starting to paint. Ahhh! I was very comfortable. Then "Ouch!" Something bites me hard on my leg. I don't think it was a bear, or a rattlesnake…truthfully it was probably some little bug, but still. So I got over that, settle back into my art groove. I was getting lost in what I'm doing when the wind picks up and blows my plastic trash bag square in the face of my dog in the car.  She freaks out and tries to launch herself through my driver's side window into the road. In my haste to catch her I whack my knee on the corner of my car hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. Dang it!! I unwrap the trash bag and dog, calm her down and go back to work. I no more had made one stroke with my brush when another big gust blew over my wooden wet panel box, again spilling onto my already wide-eyed dog. Again she tries to make like a rocket and leave that evil den of horrors. A few minutes and milkbones later, I was able to take up my brush again. I'm making decent progress, people are passing by in cars and bikes and giving me friendly smiles. I'm happy and thinking to myself "this really is a cushy job!" And just then the cops pulled up and rousted me from my spot, guns drawn and surrounding me!

Ok, well maybe I exaggerated the gun part. But I think the park police carry guns, don't they? So they could have pulled them on me. And, well, ok it was really just one guy and he didn't even get out of his truck. But he looked like a big dude so I made sure to comply. He snarled...ok he asked me to move my car even further off the road. He said he'd give me an hour or so to finish up before he'd be back and make me leave. He asked to see my painting and said it was "incredibly brilliant!" Or maybe he said "huh, nice", I don't remember for sure.

So he leaves, and I returned to Nervous Dog and moved my car a ways up the road. I start to walk back to my easel to resume painting and Nervous Dog once again starts planting feet on the window as her escape hatch. I'm 20 feet away from her now and realize I'm not going to be able to grab her in time if she really tried to jump again. So I shlepp my easel back up to my car so I'm close enough for her to see me and hopefully settle down. Which she does.

Now, after re-aiming my easel and re-leveling it, I find I'm standing, literally, inside a prickly bush. My heels are sinking down into something squishy I'd rather not look too closely at. Plus of course my scene has drastically changed now with the different viewpoint. I stand there, brush in hand, and give myself a little pep talk about how I'm good enough to wing it. Keep going Pat! Don't bail now, it's just trees and nobody will know they didn't really look like that.

So in the end I listened to myself and did my best. 

The wind continued to rage. It blew bugs and leaves onto my wet paint, blew off my hat twice, nearly knocked over my setup 3 times and I finally had to hold the panel with one hand while I painted. I was lashed in the face twice by a slender tree branch The prickly bush continuously reminded me it was there. I tell ya, it took a lot of fortitude to stand up to those elements! But I persevered and was glad I did.

Eventually the Park Police drove past on their way out and waved at me. 

So clearly you can see now that being an outdoor painter is a job filled with great risk and danger. Nothing cushy about it. I'm glad that I was able to survive long enough today to be able to tell you my story, and to speak out for brave artists like me everywhere who put up with all this and more. Hopefully you've gained a new appreciation and respect for what true daredevils we actually are. 

Nothing worthwhile comes without risk!!

;-)

Here's my work:

Comments are welcome here anytime! 

In the near future I'll share all the work I did this month during this challenge, if you're interested.