Plein Air: An Event Close To Home

Red Delicious & Bird Bungalow

Luckily I Didn't Have to Travel Far for This Plein Air Event

I always see the plein air ads in magazines that offer overseas plein air adventures; that sounds lovely but I prefer to have my plein air adventures closer to home. I am not a light packer, I do not know how I would get my gear overseas! My fellow artist friend, called me a "Girlscout" because I am prepared (and probably carry too much stuff).

This was my second year participating in the FRESH Milford Paint Out, which occurs in a town near me. It is a great local event and I am always incredibly impressed with the artistic talent in the area! WOW!

The Advantages of a Local Plein Air Event:

• I can scout the area ahead of time
  I made a list in order of ideal of painting locations
• I can invite friends/paint with friends
• I paint in the park weekly, I have favorite painting spots
• I can pack my lunch
• I know where the restrooms are
• I can go home at night to my comfy bed
• I can use frames from home and have assistance framing wet paintings (hello husband). If you read about my Eureka Springs Paint out, me doing the framing each afternoon was tough and exhausting, I would not sign up for that again for awhile.
  

Solitude

In the two day plein air event, I was able to produce 4 paintings. Two of them I was pleased with and put into the show!

Friday we started painting on a barn and farmhouse property, despite the threat of rain. The day stayed gray and overcast, but we got lucky and did not get rained on. I think we started painting at 930 (it took me while to get my composition placed) and stopped painting at 2, that was my first painting for the day. I did not take much of a lunch break as I had packed my lunch. Another reason it took me longer to paint was the fact that I used an 11x14 canvas which is larger than I typically use for plein air (I love 8x10 and 9x12). But the barn scene had so many interesting things going on--the light field and green trees behind, the stone wall in the front--just interesting! I could have stayed at this location all day, and had hoped to paint the farmhouse in the afternoon. One art friend was worried about the threat of rain, so we moved to one of our rain locations (we had scouted the local area for hours before the event). At the second location, the cemetary,  we took in the view from the shelter, which was not great. We all still painted near our cars, in case of rain. The sky did turn dark all around, but it did not rain on us. At 5 pm I had to stop, I was tired, my painting arm was tired. It had been a good day!

Fence & Flowers

On Saturday we woke up to pouring rain and even as I drove to the park, it was raining. I put black garbage bags over my gear as we walked from the car to the park shelter (a bit of a walk) in the light rain. I was very thankful for the shelter as it poured rain for several hours; hours that I painted comfortably. My first Saturday painting was a 9x12 birdhouse. I loved the light white of the birdhouse against the deep green trees and grasses, and the sky was dark with rain. I also really wanted to get in the pale pink flowers at the base of the birdhouse, they were lovely. Overall I am happy with the birdhouse painting, I took many photos and in the future may do a studio painting from them. Once again, my AM painting took longer. It took longer than I thought to get in the fences and the flowers.

Love this scene, but it may rain!

For my PM painting I chose a smaller 8x10 canvas and I had wanted to paint yellow day lilies against a fence post, this was more challenging than I anticipated. Another long but good day.

After painting all day I was happy but exhausted! I would go home, walk the dogs, take a bath, repack my art kit and make a lunch and go to bed early.

My favorite day was Sunday when we attended the art show and sale in which artists could take in 2 framed paintings created over the 2 day event. How fun to see all of the works created over the weekend. Wow! The talent in the local area is amazing! 

Go see the show at the SHAC on Main Street in Milford, now through August 21st!!!