The painted fieldnote: A method for contending with teaching,research,and place

Abstract

This practitioner reflection examines how painting in plein-air—meaning outdoors from life—inspired multimodal fieldnotes that became the node between research, teaching, and place. This work was conducted during a 4-year, community-engaged art education study where the community art classroom was employed to develop participatory arts-based research methods by inviting participants to reflect on changes in Pointe-Saint-Charles, a post-industrial neighborhood in Montréal’s Sud Ouest. I began painting individually using an iPad, easel, and small mint-tins, which forced close looking while capturing deeper affectual, experiential, material, and spatial insights that transcended the written word. I share three ways painted fieldnotes provided insights into the neighborhood. The first is socio-spatial insights that revealed the deeper changes in infrastructure and their cultural meanings. The second is painting as theory generation through meditative, ongoing engagement throughout my research. The third is painting as a multimodal public discourse, where the act of painting stoked reflection and engagement from the public, students, and colleagues. I also share how these fieldnotes changed my approach to my own teaching and how I teach pre-service teachers by inviting closer engagement between personal practice and teaching. This paper argues that the painted fieldnote offers a valuable, multimodal method for thinking, noticing, and teaching through place.

Introduction

I found my way into academia through studio programs, earning a BFA and MFA focusing on landscape painting. How spaces and landscapes are produced and represented were a critical concern, and I contended with how painting gave aesthetic narrative to geography. I contended with this for many years, painting construction sites of a changing city (Figure 1) and the landscapes of stadiums, including a project on the narrative of landscape during the 2012 London Olympics (Figure 2). These questions returned during my place-based doctoral fieldwork in art education (LeRue, 2024a), where I developed classroom methodologies that integrated participant perspectives into making (LeRue, 2023). My research and teaching focused on a post-industrial neighborhood called Pointe-Saint-Charles (The Pointe), which de-industrialized since the 70s through periods of poverty, civic activism, and most recently, a turn to white collar work and gentrification (High et al., 2020). My research methods bridged participatory making with oral history to understand how locals perceived these changes. Though not officially planned, I felt compelled to paint the neighborhood to keep painting as part of my life. However, I found that the works I made helped to coalesce personal meanings and insights while providing moments to reflect. I came to see these paintings as multimodal fieldnotes that became nodes between The Pointe, my research project, and art teaching.

Figure 1.

An abstracted painting showing a construction site. To the left is a crane, and in the middle is a portable toilet ontop of a concrete platform. Scaffolding is visible throughout. Rising Stacks. Oil on Canvas. 48” x 60.” 2018.

Figure 2.

A painting of the 2012 London Olympics showing a smoky, chaotic scene in a stadium that includes glowing rings, smokestacks, and industrial infrastructures. Temporary Landscape. Oil on Canvas. 48” x 72.” 2013.

Painting as multimodal fieldnote

Fieldnotes are a critical part of ethnographic research, functioning as written observations that gather ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973/2017) about the researcher’s observed social context. Anthropologists Robert M. Emerson et al. (2011) said fieldnotes capture the researchers’ subjective accounts in the field which “incorporate[s] sensitivities, meanings, and understandings the field researcher has gleaned from having been close to and participated in the described events” (p. 12). Fieldnotes guide and support researchers as they write up their findings providing a way to remember events, context, conversations, and observations at later stages of the research (Wolcott, 2005). Fieldnote analysis may also inform subsequent research components, like social areas to focus on or specific interview questions to ask. This endeavour is by its nature interpretivist, working from the researcher’s subjective positionality (Causey, 2021).

Anthropologists have historically scrutinized visual images due to a fear that their aesthetic qualities might override the works intended social commentary, which anthropologists Schneider and Wright (2010) diagnosed as a widespread iconophobia—meaning fear of images—in fieldwork practices. Ethnographic research has since integrated all sorts of visual materials (Eg: Pink, 2012; Rose, 2022). This includes using drawing-as-fieldnotes precisely because they “surpass the realism of the fieldworker’s notebook” by allowing the researcher to draw new abstract insights (Taussig, 2011: 13) and develop layered material to continue thinking through (Hendrickson, 2008). Drawings capture perceptions that transcend words, conjuring thoughts within the researcher before, during, and after their encounter with the subject (Bonanno, 2023). Integrating creative practices such as drawing and painting are valuable because of their subjectivity, and their capacity to help the researcher think abstractly about their research context.

Painting approaches

My fieldnotes were concerned with how the built environment revealed insights about the people who lived there. For me, painting engaged with many of the subjective and meditative components described by Taussig (2011) and Bonanno (2023). But through its materiality, play with light and planes of colour, and history as a medium for rendering spaces, painting also added something new to the visual fieldnote, both by capturing new elements and demanding different kinds of perception from the researcher. I painted in three different portable and discrete ways: The first used medium-sized oil paintings smaller than 7” × 10” (Figure 3). The second used tiny 2” × 2.5” oil paintings in small mint tins, informed by artist Remington Robinson’s (2024) Instagram trend (@remingtonrobinson) (Figures 4 and 5). The third used digital paintings using an iPad software called Art Set (Figure 6). Painting in space provided ways to think about ongoing human and environmental stories before, during, and after my paintings were created that informed my research. In what follows, I deduce three specific insights generated by making and observing these painted fieldnotes.

Figure 3.

A painting held up by a hand attached to a clipboard depicting a garden area made of recycled materials. The contents of the painting are in the background, which includes a shed, picnic table, and debris. There is a brick wall in the background that is painted with graffiti. Sample of nine 2 x 2.5’ oil paintings. Oil on arches oil paper. 2023-2024.

Figure 4.

A collection of nine small landscape paintings showing various objects, scenes, and landscapes from a neighborhood. The imagery is abstracted, but representational. Painting of the Lachine Canal. 2” x 2.5.” Oil on Paper. 2023.

Figure 5.

A hand holds up a tin box with a small painting of the Lachine Canal. Visible in the background is the scene being depicted, with buildings lining the side of a body of water. Digital painting of the Lachine Canal. Made on iPad using Art Set.

Figure 6.

A digital painting with thick brushstrokes depicting the Lachine Canal, a body of water that is intersected in the foreground by support rails. Trees and buildings line the body of water. Depicts the same imagery as Figure 4. Painting of planters. Oil on Paper. 2023 or 2024.

Painting, ‘seeing,’ and socio-spatial insights

Painting from life provided a critical experience with close looking and perception. Photographs, which I often use in the studio and classroom, flatten perspective, mute light and colour, frame the image, and both over and underexpose light in ways our eyes do not. Painting from life meant I was making decisions based on my perceptions and a full ocular experience. Additionally, the fieldnotes jogged my memory about the smaller ‘stuff’ I observed, such as the weather, how I moved through the space, what else was happening that day—All things that would have been lost on me had I just ‘snapped’ a photograph.

Painting the Pointe also provided a way to see its socio-spatial workings, and in-part revealed how the landscape’s meanings and uses have changed over time. Spaces are human constructions that are made and re-made depending on economic and social demands (Lefebvre, 1991; Santos, 2021). Post-industrialism leads to infrastructures from previous epochs to be remade for new uses, leading to new social meanings. For example, the Lachine Canal once facilitated all shipping traffic through to the great lakes but now operates for leisure boats with a ‘shoreline’ park and bike path (Parks Canada, 2018). Painting the canal revealed how it is now treated as a riverside, with sunbathers, bikers, tourists and picnickers lining the canal on summer days, and skiers and snowshoers using groomed trails in winter. Former factories are now condominiums, bars, and offices, and a former silo now operates as a rock-climbing gym. While the architectural redevelopment pays homage to their history, their re-use portrays a rather scenic and nostalgic scene that is disjointed with the rugged and dirty reputation of factory work. Painting also revealed smaller historical traces that simple observation may have missed: Old lamp posts next to newer ones, a former bridge turning mechanism, and cleats for docking large steam ships. The fieldnote became a way to think through the micro-histories of place and its transformations.

Painting as slow thinking and theory generation

Creating these fieldnotes was a meditative process where ideas and reflections appeared, calcified, reified, or fell away. This led to many insights for other research components, which I documented in a notebook as I worked. One prominent insight that overlapped with my teaching and subsequent consideration of spatial theory was when, in spring 2023, Montréal was hit with a massive ice storm that knocked out power for five days in some places. Damage to buildings and debris from downed trees and garbage cans was strewn everywhere. Frequently used spaces such as parks and storefronts were put back in order relatively quickly, whereas less-used spaces such as the alleyways behind houses had visible debris and damage for weeks and months. I considered how the level of expected formality within the space informed how quickly it was put back into order.

Formal and informal spaces became a guiding framework for my teaching and for my personal practice. I sought ‘informal’ spaces that frequently changed, which included construction debris, unstructured outdoor third spaces, and an outdoor park that underwent constant reconfigurations and construction (Figure 7). One such space was a bicycle stand and flyer board that were changing before my eyes with comers and goers! Nearby industrial brown sites were another example where debris was seldom cleaned up. Meanwhile, I came to see the social dimensions around the formalization of space in connection with wider structural changes in the neighborhood, such as how gentrification and urban renewal tend to formalize spaces. New builds, whether redeveloped industrial sites or ground-up developments, impose sleek décor, neutral colour palettes, and rigid uses for space that appear intolerant to disorganization. Some students noticed how their perception was that the neighborhood was becoming increasingly formalized, which beyond developments included laws governing everything from noise to clotheslines. Reflecting on formal and informal spaces were one of many ways that the modality of painting became a way to think through and develop spatial theories.

Figure 7.

There is a painting of a construction site on an easel in the foreground on an overcast day. The painting (which depicts what is visible in the background) includes a construction site, fence, mounds of dirt, and residential buildings in the background. Construction Siting. 8” x 10.” Oil on Paper. 2023.

Painting as a public discourse

Painted fieldnotes became a multimodal public practice, inviting several inquiries at different stages of my research that proved to be useful, varied, and unexpected. Members of the public would ask what I was doing and told me about their own relationship with the neighborhood. These interactions shaped how I saw space and animate my memory of the fieldnotes. Students also asked questions about my work, and I was invited to elaborate on my research and ultimately shared the technique with others (Figure 8). Some students adapted what I called the small-but-multiple approach in their own making, developing spatial insights integrating their own perceptions and interests. The painted fieldnotes live on in my writings and in piles in my studio and office (Figure 9) and have been a key point of dialogue with colleagues in art education and urban studies (See also: LeRue and Jalil, 2024). Since painting most of these in 2022/23, showing the paintings to others—and looking at them myself—has allowed me to interpret and re-interpret the work through shared, ongoing meaning-making. Whereas fieldnotes are often a deeply private affair (Sanjek, 1990), the painted fieldnote modality invites conversation and ongoing reinterpretation, which helps get to the core of what they reveal about space.

Figure 8.

An instructor paints on an easel with two students standing around. The site is the Lachine Canal with tall condominiums in the background. The foreground includes a picnic table and a tree, which are the subject of the unfinished painting. Arranging paintings in the studio.

Figure 9.

A photograph depicting several small paintings of various sizes from this research on a studio table. The studio itself is messy, with paper, paintbrushes, and bags strewn about. Sharing painting techniques with student-participants.

Reflecting on three painting approaches

The three insights I identified were derived from across my three chosen painting methods. But each painting method also provided their own opportunities, insights, and challenges that are worth remarking on. The mint tins had the benefit of being quick and portable but were unforgiving to mistakes. The surface was so tight and absorbent that as soon as the paint was on the paper there were no ways to lift it off. This amplified any mistake in the making but also forced me to be affirmative with my brushstrokes. I conceptualized this approach as ‘puzzling in’ the image, where I captured and placed elements in a believable rather than accurate space (LeRue and Jalil, 2024) (Figures 10 and 11). The small surface meant paintings were made in 20–60-min. These impressions were individually truncated but provided a larger context due to their quantity, where I could make three or four works in a session. The larger paintings invited more ‘painterly’ decisions—I could work in thin washes to capture light and atmosphere, play with brushstrokes and texture, and partially remove paint to correct mistakes as necessary. Though, the paper was not as forgiving as canvas, which I favour in studio settings. On a canvas treated with a sealer, paint can be wiped away and reapplied easily. Paper has ‘tooth,’ meaning that paint is pulled from the brush quickly, and leaves traces when wiped from the paper. This means that while the larger paintings provided space to ‘build up’ images in successive layers, subsequent adjustments were minimal (Figures 12 and 13). This retained the immediacy I was looking for painting from life but still provided more space and time to think through painterly and conceptual decisions. A natural time limit of 1–2 h emerged before the paper was saturated with paint or the conditions outside like light and weather changed from the initial scene.

Figure 10.

A small oil painting of a spider web-like playground with thick brushstrokes. Colours start to blend together with the brushstrokes. In the background there are trees and a building painted. Playground. 2 x 2.5”. Oil on paper. 2023.

Figure 11.

A detail of the playground painting showing the ways that paint is layered on in thick passages. Playground (detail). 2 x 2.5”. Oil on paper. 2023.

Figure 12.

A medium sized painting of an overpass over a canal at sunset. Paint application is more varied than in the smaller paintings. In the background there are buildings, in the middleground water, and in the foreground a bike path that fences off access to the water. The viewer is directly under the overpass which recedes into the distance. Overpass. 8 x 10”. Oil on paper. 2023 or 2024.

Figure 13.

A detail of the overpass painting showing thick paint passages over a wash. Overpass (detail). 8 x 10”. Oil on paper. 2023 or 2024.

As I have written elsewhere, the digital paintings provided the most freedom and were a radical break from the limitations of the physical materials (LeRue, 2024b). I do not have a background in digital art, and I chose the software Art Set 4 because it felt most intuitive and related to my material practice (Figure 14). I was impressed with how the software simulated texture, washes, and layers, such as how one layer would remain ‘wet’ until I chose to dry it. Wet paint would mix on the surface—A stroke of red paint overlapping with yellow would create streaks of orange. In addition to mimicking oil painting, the digital interface meant I could zoom in and out, pick almost any colour on the visible spectrum, and undo and re-do brushstrokes. The overwhelming choices meant that I put a strict time limit of 1 h on the oil paintings, which felt appropriate given I could be more fearless when equipped with an undo button. The greatest limitation of the iPad was its ability to translate the colours I was seeing with my eyes onto the screen. With physical oil painting, I can hold the paint on my brush up to the object and compare the colour. Screens, on the other hand, are backlit, meaning the colours on the screen do not appear under the same ambient light as the physical paintings would. As such, I focused on the relative colours within the digital frame without necessarily copying the colours I saw with my eyes. The software therefore provided a lot of versatility and felt like a studio in my backpack that provided even more painterly comforts than the paper paintings did (Figure 15). But the digital paintings also interrupted the immediacy and embodiment that the physical work provided.

Figure 14.

A digital painting from the interior of a café. To the left there is an artwork on a wall, and on the right there is a window with stickers on it that includes the café logo. Beyond the window there is an abstracted streetscape. Digital Painting of Café interior. 2025.

Figure 15.

A detail of Figure 14 showing the interface of the software art tools 4. The viewer can see the texture of the paint, with a full spectrum paint wheel to the left. Digital Painting of Café interior (detail) and ArtSet software screenshot. 2025.

Implications for art teaching

The benefits these fieldnotes had on my teaching were myriad—they helped me find inspiration for course lessons and decide where to visit. I also continued a tradition from the school I was working at which was to make alongside students, meaning the notes were made alongside my students, and directly inspired their practices. This made artmaking a starting point for research, and not an academic afterthought. A natural dialogue emerged between my making and the findings in the classroom and academic research.

These experiences informed how I teach pre-service teachers in my current position. A terminal problem in art teacher training is encouraging teachers to develop a personal art practice, let alone encouraging them to build connections between teaching and making. It has re-enforced my belief that finding connections between ones’ practice and teaching can help provide variety and inventiveness to instruction. For example, a common pre-service teacher reflex is to teach how one was taught, delivering static, overly historicized content that follows a pattern like: “Pablo Picasso was born in Spain…Pablo Picasso made collage…here is how to make collage… Make a collage about your life.” But embodied personal making replicates how artists grow while bringing teaching and practice closer together. Additionally, teachers are often strangers to the places they are teaching in. By creating and working within a place, a teacher can develop first-hand knowledge about the neighborhood and the flows of daily life that can help make course content relevant to students’ lived experience.

Conclusion

I began painting the Pointe as an aside, but it incidentally re-invigorated my relationship to place and became the node connecting teaching, research, and space. This sustained me through my 4-year fieldwork engagement, inspiring how I theorized space, developed my lessons, embodied space, and discussed my practice with others. The modality of painted fieldnotes captured diverse and expansive interpretations that transcended the written word, while offering insights for what teachers can learn about and develop site-responsive and medium-appropriate projects. I return to my fieldnotes from this project repeatedly, and they continue to inspire my making, research, and teaching, and remind me about the fractured but complementary parts of my professional practice. I also continue to make portable paintings which provide another tool for artistic and pedagogic reflection.