Lawrence plein

For any East Lawrence homeowner fed up with everyday problems such as chipping paint, missing roof shingles or a slumping front porch, hold the phone before calling in the bulldozers. After all, you wouldn’t shred the Mona Lisa, would you?

While you think you may have a chore list on your hands, Lawrence oil painter Jane Flanders believes you instead may have great art in the making.

As a “plein air” or outdoor painter, the 59-year-old artist is often stationed with her easel along the brick sidewalks or possibly making brushstrokes on a canvas while sitting within the sliding doorway of her Dodge Caravan.

Since about the beginning of August, Flanders, who has depicted many rural scenes in Jefferson County, has turned her attention to the East Lawrence bungalows and other small homes or “shacks,” as she refers to them, just before backpedaling ever so slightly to explain that she uses the term in a very noble sense.

Lawrence plein

“I have a lot of love for these houses,” says Flanders, who also lives in East Lawrence. “Some people when I say ‘shacks,’ they mean that to be not complimentary. I respect the history of the little shacks as working people’s residences. The history of how they survived and built their houses is intriguing.”

On a Thursday morning in early September, Flanders is set up on the 1100 block of Pennsylvania Street. A Bluetooth speaker plays a Pandora station mix of jazz and what she calls “yoga music” as she begins to tone her canvas with a vermilion base.

“They always have to throw in Neil Young or Joni Mitchell because of my age group,” says Flanders of the music streaming service, which creates a tranquil background as she lightly sketches the composition of the home’s structure.

When deciding to portray a particular home she operates with more of a “paint first, ask questions later” attitude and explains that she doesn’t notify the homeowners before doing so. Only occasionally will they come out to interact with her.

“Most times they’re friendly,” she says with a laugh, before telling a story about invoking the rage of a homeowner in Corrales, N.M., during a plein air painting trip. Others have been very gracious with her, she says, including a couple in Corrales who presented her and a painter friend with a platter of fresh grapes to eat while they continued their work. A homeowner in Manhattan, Kan., bought her painting right off her easel.

While she’s working on the painting of the Pennsylvania Street home, the owners don’t come out. Several dog walkers pass by, take a quick look and continue on. The neighbor immediately to the south exits his house, gives a nod and drives away in his car.

“When paintings first start off they look kind of childish,” Flanders says as she explains some of the initial brush strokes that exist before the form of the home begins to take shape. “It’s a process. A lot of times I find when I’m painting in public people will walk by and just kind of ignore you when it’s not looking so good. But then if you can get something going after about an hour and a half, then they start to look at it. The public starts to notice.”

Her portrait sessions typically last about two hours. Two hours is about all an artist can count on before the light shifts, dramatically altering the look of a scene, according to Flanders.

“In plein air painting we call it ‘chasing the light,'” she says while describing her efforts to finish a painting before the sun’s position changes.

In 2006, Flanders moved to Lawrence from Salina, specifically to paint. She teaches a couple of students on Sundays and stresses the importance of painting every day, even in the extreme months, to continually improve one’s craft. Often, she travels outside of Lawrence to display her work at art shows and galleries.

If chasing the light was ever an issue for a painter, chasing revenue can be equally as elusive for a midcareer artist, according to Flanders, who explains that her tireless efforts are not only about a love affair with nature or oil painting.

“This is what I do for a living,” she says. “This is my skill set. The midcareer people are reaching to get better. I’ve been pushing myself to paint every day. I might have to make 10 or 20 paintings before I get one that’s something that I can take to a gallery. The weather figures in, too. I painted last winter and when it got below 35 degrees, the quality of my paintings went down. So I discovered battery-powered, heated gloves. One time it was snowing. I kinda had to quit because the snow was accumulating on my palette and I was putting ice chips on the canvas.”

All of this, including the occasional problem of where to use the restroom in the great outdoors, Flanders shrugs off as just a part of the “plein air problem.”

Flanders’ oil paintings can be viewed online at janeflanders.com. She will also be a featured artist for this year’s Lawrence Art Walk on Oct. 24-25.