En Plein Air painting is painting from life in an open air setting. The artist, paint and canvas can be found on a camp stool in a dawn lit meadow, on a quiet stretch of beach, or capturing the beauty of a spring flower collection on a neighbor’s front porch.

Allen selects the natural transparency of watercolors to capture the ephemeral mood of the moment. Often she must return at the same time on subsequent days to complete a piece.

Plein air artists are challenged to concentrate every sensory nerve to process the information in front of them. They absorb, not only the sights and sounds, but also the temperature and atmosphere of the location, and then must channel that input from head to hand, re-creating the vision in color images on paper or canvas.