For much of her career, Liane Whittum was known as a still life painter. Landscape called to her quietly but insistently, until plein air painting finally unlocked a way forward nine years ago. Once she began working outdoors, the alignment between experience and expression clicked.
Whittum’s New Hampshire is not the postcard version. She seeks out landscapes where solitude heightens perception. These are places that require commitment — and sometimes courage.
“I’m often alone on the edge of night,” she says, “next to a bog on a deserted road or the edge of a cliff.” For her, accuracy matters more than comfort. To paint what she truly sees, she accepts vulnerability as part of the process.
Those instincts were shaped early. Childhood camping and fishing trips deep in the northern woods with her mother, grandfather, and brothers instilled a habit of quiet observation — long stretches of time with no one else in sight. Today, those memories resurface as she stands alone with her easel, absorbing the landscape not as backdrop but as presence.
New Hampshire’s ecological diversity — forests, lakes, mountains, marshes, ocean — means no two paintings look alike. Seasonal extremes bring both beauty and fragility. Flooding transforms brooks into vast pools; drought drains them away. Wildfire smoke from Canada alters the color of the sky.
Whittum returns to the same places repeatedly, treating each painting as a kind of time capsule. “Every time I paint,” she says, “I’m documenting the moment.” Development has already erased some of her favorite sites, reinforcing a sense of urgency.
In that way, her work becomes both witness and warning — an invitation to notice what still exists, before it disappears. “I admire truth-telling in art,” she says. “I like to think I’m helping to tell the story of New Hampshire through my paintings while contributing to the canon of Northeastern plein air artwork.”
Connect with the artist at www.lianewhittum.com.
The editorial above is part of a series that spotlights the work of an accomplished artist featured in PleinAir magazine.
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Story prepared for the web by Cherie Dawn Haas, Editor of Plein Air Today
