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 adapting to. And...

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 herself is offering...