Artist Lee Copen takes her studio outdoors
STORY AND PHOTOS by Jim McCarty
On a beautiful summer day, Lee Copen sets up her easel and watercolor paints next to the iconic Alley Spring Mill. She ignores the obvious red mill — one of the most photographed and painted structures in Missouri — and instead turns her attention to the back porch of the mill. Here water pours from Alley Spring, forming a spring branch that rushes to the Jacks Fork River.
Lee’s challenge is to capture the spirit of that moving water, along with the character of the weathered boards and concrete that attempt to constrain it like it has done since the mill was built in 1894. She notes the patterns of light and dark that caress the scene. She studies the ripples and eddies of the water.
Then she grabs a pencil and quickly creates a rough sketch — there’s no time to waste. Soon the shifting clouds and rising sun will forever erase the patterns of light and dark she wants to capture in watercolor.
The sketch is clipped to the side of her easel, close to the blank sheet of paper attached with blue painter’s tape. Lee trades her pencil for a wide brush and lays down blue paint representing the water: lighter blue where it rushes from the dam, darker where it pools at her feet. A thin brush outlines the mouth of the dam. It doesn’t look like much yet, but that will change.
Under her skilled hands, the scene starts to take shape. A splash of yellow-orange shows where sunlight hits the water. She adds just a touch of red to the sides of boards where the reflection from the red mill changed their color.
The final touch is the many plants that frame the scene. It’s taken just a few hours to turn the blank sheet into a moment the artist experienced and now has frozen in time.
An Outdoor Studio
Lee is one of a growing number of artists who take their studio outdoors through “en plein air” painting. The term is French for “in the open air” and was pioneered by impressionist masters such as Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Many small towns and cities in Missouri host plein air art competitions. Hundreds of artists and spectators descend on towns such as St. Charles, Augusta, Hermann, Jefferson City, Rocheport and Steelville during these events.
Their goal is to accurately capture a scene through experiencing it firsthand instead of working from a photo in an indoor studio.
“I love to be outside, and so to me it’s just a great thing to paint outside,” says Lee, a former teacher who has lived all over the world. “It’s an important exercise, because you see things you just don’t see in a photograph. But you also experience the world not just through your visual senses, but all your senses. All of that becomes part of the painting, and if I look back at a painting, I remember exactly what kind of day it was, how it felt, how things sounded.”
The day Lee painted at the mill was postcard perfect. That’s not always the case, particularly when she paints in plein air competitions.
This spring she painted under an umbrella at a rainy-day plein air event held in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. She had to seek shelter before finishing a painting at Augusta’s plein air event when the weather turned on her.
“When you’re painting in a plein air competition, you have to paint in every kind of weather,” says Lee, a member of Howell-Oregon Electric Cooperative who lives on a farm with her husband, Mark, near Mountain View.
“If there’s a lot of wind, everything’s blowing. You paint in the rain, you paint in the heat, you paint with the bugs. It takes some toughness, for sure. But if you’re doing it just for yourself as a learning experience, or just for fun, you can be a fair-weather plein air painter. You can only come out when it’s nice out. You can pick your day, and you can pick the time you’re there.”
Capturing the Mood
Plein air art is distinguished by the mood captured by the artist. Studio paintings may capture a scene, but plein air art captures the experience. In Lee’s millstream painting she moves her brush in the same way the water moves as it heads downstream. This shows up in the finished painting. You can almost hear the gurgle of the gushing water.
“I know that I’m not capturing sound, but at the same time I am experiencing it, and so all of my senses are engaged in a way that they just wouldn’t be if I was looking at a still photograph,” Lee says.
During competitions, time is also a factor. Depending on the rules, an artist may have just a few hours to complete a painting. This requires learning what is important and what can be left out of a scene.
Regardless of the rules, time is always an issue for the artist. Beautiful light can be fleeting. Clouds come and go. Rain can fall at any time. Curious spectators want to know what the artist is doing — or want to buy the painting straight from the easel.
“The challenge is the time, and that’s why I like to work in watercolor, because to me it is faster,” Lee says. “I do work in both oils and watercolor, plein air and in the studio. It depends sometimes on what I’m painting, how long I have to paint or just how I’m feeling. But definitely if I’m doing anything that’s architectural, I want my watercolors, because I feel like I’ve got a lot more control.”
In an event that can last a week, plein air artists will descend on a town and find the most intriguing details to capture with their brushes. Favorite scenes might be weathered barns, wineries, rivers, churches or rural landscapes. The event typically finishes with awards, including best of show, first through third place, special classes and sponsor’s awards.
An art show completes the festivities, allowing patrons to view the work of the artists and buy the finished art they’ve seen being created. It’s as much fun for the spectators as it is for the artists.
Lee’s won her share of the awards, including a special one from Hermann’s plein air event held in June. Her painting of the old press house at Adam Puchta Winery was honored with the sponsor’s award. Besides the honor, the painting will be used as the label on a future vintage from the winery.
Awards aside, Lee feels painting “en plein air” can add skills to any artist’s repertoire. “I think it will ultimately make you a better artist, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that every painting is a better painting, if that makes sense,” she says. “Your plein air painting may not work out at all, and you might take it back into the studio and paint a masterpiece. Sometimes they work out perfectly. But you are definitely going to be a better artist, because you learn more about what you really see compared to what a photograph tells us.”
You can see more of Lee’s work at www.leecopen.com.
Email Jim McCarty at jmccarty@ruralmissouri.coop.