Plein Air Art Podcast · PleinAir Magazine

Debra Huse on Creative Visualization and More

·1 hr 13 min·4 clips

Debra says many brushes have their own job, and brush choice changes the painting process.

1. Plein Air Art Podcast episode 246 centers on Debra Hughes and her path through plein air painting, gallery work, and creative visualization. 2. Eric Rhodes hosts as publisher and founder of Plein Air Magazine, and Debra Hughes appears as a contemporary American impressionist whose brushwork and marketing background matter to the conversation. 3. The episode asks how an artist builds a long career in plein air while also running a gallery, teaching, and staying visible. 4. Hughes says she grew up in Indianapolis, started painting at about age 6, and took lessons at age 10 from a professional artist on her block. 5. She credits her mother, who painted in pastel, watercolor, oil, acrylic, charcoal, and pen and ink, for keeping her close to art. 6. A sixth-grade award sent Hughes to John Herron School of Art in Indianapolis for summer college courses at age 12. 7. Those courses included life drawing, printmaking, and pottery, which made a strong impression on her early training. 8. After college at Indiana University, Hughes worked in Nashville, Indiana, with C.W. Mundy doing sports illustration for three years. 9. She also worked on Indiana University basketball and football covers and posters tied to Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. 10. Hughes says she later trained as both a fine artist and a graphic designer so she could get work and still move toward painting. 11. She recalls a life-drawing teacher telling a room of 30 students that only 10% would become professional artists, and she decided to be one of the few who did. 12. Her father blocked a planned switch from art to business school, which Hughes says kept her on the art track. 13. In California, she painted nightly from 7 to 10 after ad-agency work so she would not lose her painting practice. 14. In 1998 she opened Deborah Hughes Gallery after taking over a space from her friend Al Newman, and the gallery is now in its 25th year. 15. Hughes says she joined the plein air movement as it was gaining momentum in Southern California through artists like John Cosby and early events in La Quinta, Carmel, and Laguna. 16. She says the gallery let her show work, teach workshops, and invite artists such as Ken Backus, John Budeson, and Randy Sexton, which also taught her by proximity. 17. Hughes argues that plein air survives because people can watch artists work outdoors and because collectors bring the paintings home. 18. She says the Hughes Skelly Gallery on Balboa Island has about 400 paintings, mostly plein air or based on plein air studies, and sits in a harbor setting that supplies her regatta paintings. 19. The tone stays conversational and practical, with Eric asking follow-up questions and Hughes answering in a direct teaching style. 20. Listeners who like plein air painting, art marketing, and brushwork instruction will get the most from this episode; listeners wanting a short celebrity chat may skip it.

As heard by us

A practical plein air conversation that moves from painting outdoors to the work of keeping a gallery active.

Episode 246, featuring Debra Hughes on the Plein Air Podcast with Eric Rhodes, keeps its focus on plein air painting as a working practice. Rhodes talks through the simple discipline of getting outside to paint, making time whenever possible, and preparing for the plein air…

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Press play for a warm, practical look at plein air painting and the business behind it.

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