PleinAirpril 2026
Three months later, I finally find time to write about my experience of PleinAirpril this year! In this blogpost, I’m going to break down how I approached PleinAirpril this year, show you all that I have created and conclude with a bit the state of my creative practice at the moment.
The context and preparation
This year has been a bit of a rollercoaster so far. As I mentioned in my previous blogpost, I have struggled with creativity (and life in general) in the past few months. This did not help for preparing plein-air season… PleinAirpril is quite an intense month where you commit to plainting outside every day. I knew that this would be quite a lot for me so I this is what I did to help:
work on the mindset: I had not painted (much) indoor or outdoor in the past months so I did not need the pressure of painting outside every day. I decided that the intention will be to paint at least for 20 days out of the 30, from observation (which could be indoor or outdoor). I also had an idea to prepare some celebreations if I reached some milestones (I didn’t end up doing it - the preparation of the celebreation was already too much, and my partners couldn’t really help). This rule left me enough wiggle room not to feel stressed out by the pressure of the challenge, but still gave me incentive to get back into creating.
get inspired: In March I started watching more videos or people preparing for PleinAirpril, or videos from previous PleinAirpril. I also looked back at some of my plein-air sketchbooks, my posts about PleinAirpril last year.All of this made me want to pick up my gear and go paint outside! It also made me realize that I was more than capable of doing this (which, when you have health issues, can become less obvious), and that a “failed” sketch was not a big deal. Funnily, diving back into my art made me realize how great it was to have this blog as a backlog of my art evolution and how inspiring it was (for myself, and who knows, maybe for others) to read my rambling around.
decide on a focus: Last year I didn’t have a clear focus on what I wanted to paint. I had just prepared 30 circles to fill during April. I was a bit sad that I couldn’t capture the evolution of nature (it’s quite fascinating how much nature changes in April!). I decided that the following year I would focus specifically on that. I started diving into nature journaling and thought it was a perfect way of approaching this PleinAirpril! But when preparing for this year, I realized that I had a lot of travelling in cities in April, which would make it hard to capture nature’s evolution… I ended up separating my April in two: the first half to explore nature journaling and the second one for cityscapes. This may sound as a limitation to creativity, but it somehow made it easier to know what to look for and where to paint - while providing plenty of space for experimenting and playing.
make your life easy: One thing that always makes it easier for me is to prepare as much as possible beforehand. In March I created a small accordeon sketchbook (a leporello if you want to sound fancy) with some toned paper (a mix of colors - blue, beige, green, black and a few different qualities of white). I did not calculate but ended up having exactly 30 pages inside (which also created a pressure to finish the sketchbook during April…). I also curated a small go-bag for April with some mixed media: a limited gouache palette, a pocket fountain pen, a couple of colored pencils, a few Necolor II and some acrylic pens. I puposefully chose some opaque media that could work on toned paper. Everything (including the sketchbook, a waterbrush, some towels and some spare papers to test my colors) fit into a small pouch that I carried with me at all time during April (see below). It was great to take out some of the decision fatigue and to be playful!
find a balance betwee comfort & novelty: I know me better, and I know that I need both to thrive. Without novelty and challenge I get bored. But sometimes challenges become overwhelming, especially if you have to tackle one everyday… The small selection of media made was a great mix of things I knew well, but that I did not often use in combination. The toned paper was a bit of a wild card, but I felt mostly comfortable with the subjects. Overall everyday was fun without being too much!
What I created during April 2026
From Day 01 to Day 16 - nature journaling
The first few days of April I spent in Paris, which was not really the best place to spark my creativity of painting nature… However I still got 2 small sketches of “nature in city” ;)
2 days in Paris
The next days in Paris I did not create, but after that I had a short stop at my parents. They have a very nice garden so I did a few sketches outside in the garden. It was a nice way to start experimenting more with toned paper and with my acrylic markers.
I then spent a few days at home. If I was outside I would take the opportunity to paint from outside, but I also painted most of our indoor plants. The possibility to paint from home was really great to keep me motivated on lower energy days (you can see the orchid I’ve painted from home on the blue toned paper after the next paragraph).
One of the highlights of April was a few days I spent at my godfather’s place. He has a wonderful garde, which was full or flowers at that time of the year. After so many days spent painting on toned paper, it actually felt quite awkward to go back to white paper! Throughout the days I also experimented a lot with the layout and the journaling part of “nature journaling”. I started taking more color notes, making small sketches to understand the structure of the plant. It was great to see the evolution of my paintings, to discover what captured my attention, to follow my curiosity and build my understanding of the flowers and plants. Slowing down to really watch nature felt very therapeutic!
The last few days of this first half were also spent at home, doing both indoor and outdoor paintings. For the black paper, I decided to play it safe and do it from the couch looking at the plants on my table! Cretaing the green colors with dry gouache on black paper was a fun challenge and kept me occupied for quite some time. But it also sparked a lot of inspiration to try some more paintings on black paper!
Overall this first half felt like a success: I did not paint during day 3 & 4 (in Paris), but apart from that I did complete a lot of plants & flowers painting from life (both indoor and outdoor). I really felt in love with nature journaling and was motivated for the second half (even though I jnew it would be a bit harder to keep the practice with all the traveling).
From Day 16 to Day 30 - cityspaces
The second half of April was a bit more chaotic: my cousin was visiting and then I had a long train journey (Zürich, Hamburg, Göteborg, Kobenhavn). I decided to paint some buildings (even the same one twice, but with different media) and means of transportation. I also used some double pages to make sure I would fill the full sketchbook in April ;) In Hamburg, while I was painting some seagulls, I got a few interactions with people (which very rarely occured) and someone even took a pictures of me and gave it to me.
Here are a few recap pictures of my PleinAirpril sketchbook (and the pic of me painting as a bonus)!
What about my plein-air practice now?
Unfortunately after April I hardy ever managed to go outside and paint again. I did a few sketches here and there in May and June, but even though I had some inspiring time in nature, I struggled to get into the right headspace to create. Still, I try not to feel guilty about it. I still have a lot to deal with these days, I continue to create at my pace, mostly from home. My art practice is still evolving, I have spent quite some time exploring self-portraits in the last couple of weeks (more about that later ;)). Summer and plein-air season are not over yet, so I definitely want to find ways to create outside again. I have made some small kits but so far it did not help enough. I’m still very happy with the few things I’ve made outside, and they also made me super motivated to work on some series in the studio.
