Why I paint in the elements instead of four walls, and what I keep on learning every time. Waikoko Color, oil on canvas, North Shore Kaua'i. If there is one requirement for Plein Air, it is to be able to keep your sense of humor while everything around you tries to blow away and crumble into a muddy-paint-sandcastle. I laugh more often than not, but I also take it seriously, and the painting grows into something unique because of the little absurd things I am constantly adap

When the sun has it's say with oil paints and a canvas. Haena Sunlight, Oil on Canvas. Plein air always asks the same thing of me: Be here. And I mean really here — with the demands of the bright sun, the salt wind moving everything before me, the shifting light begging for complete attention. There’s a kind of trust that builds when you paint outside. That despite the power of the waves crashing only a few yards from my easel, I'm also held in this space, as if the land he

Another day exploring the world of paint and plein air on the North Shore of Kaua'i. There’s something about showing up to the shoreline with an idea in my pocket with a sense of pure curiosity where the colors will take me. Everytime I paint, I have beginners eyes once again. This painting started exactly like that — a quiet experiment that turned into a surprise. Some washes of magenta, some play, some curiosity… and I was in deeper than expected, swimming in color under th