Plein Air Painting in a Time Machine

I have been hiking and painting Plein Air (open air) for about 2 years now and I absolutely love it. It is “me” time when I can just get out and enjoy the weather and the natural beauty we sometimes take for granted. Painting outdoors requires you to engage your perception and senses to gain a different perspective about looking at things.

Today I thought wouldn’t it be interesting to paint into my painting something that was not seen that maybe was there in the past...and in this case... way in the past. I like to term this type of painting as “Plein Air in a Time Machine.”

Our imagination is a powerful tool to connect us to things real and unseen. When we watch a movie we are connecting with that movie as reality. For me, painting this mastodon in its environment here in Florida thousands of years ago was bending my reality. As a Plein Air artist I am use to painting what I see, but when you crossover to “augmented”reality, for lack of better words, there is something magical about it.