Evansville Plein Air Painting Event

The site for info for this event is: http://www.ecp-wi.org/theodore-robinson-plein-air-competition.html

Pheasant Branch Outing

Changing the painting date to Wednesday seemed to work out well.  Here's a backlit painting I did at Pheasant Branch and then during the rainy day today, I worked on it more at home.  Maybe I over did the dramatic cloud lighting thing but ... hey, I'm trying to compensate for my normal tendencies towards sutble, muted colors (i.e. sometimes "drab").  I'll eventually get that right balance which seems to be what painting is mostly all about.  I'll pick a September painting date soon.   Tom

Mineral Point 2014 Paint Out

E Survey Rd, oil on panel, 9x12"

Morning on Suthers Rd, oil on panel, 11x17"

The Mineral Point Paint Out was fun. We couldn't have had better weather. The countryside is so gorgeous the challenge is deciding what to paint.
I painted the Morning on Suthers Road on Thursday morning and the East Survey Road on Thursday evening.  It's a bit of a marathon knocking out two paintings in one day. Actually, I tried two more paintings on Thursday but didn't finish either of them (yet).

My E Survey Road (above, top) painting received an honorable mention. I was surprised and pleased to get an award. There were lots of nice paintings (including Tom Gilbert's!).

Very happy I went. The artists were friendly and it's always fun to talk "shop". The organizers had a nice get together at the Walker House on Friday evening for all the artists. I met many of the artists there. Often, at plein air events, you don't see any of the other artists or you're too busy painting to chat with them. The party was a great way to get to know and chat with many of the other artists.

Mineral Point Paint Out

Some painters from our group, or who painted with us at one time, participated in the Mineral Point Plein Air "Paint Out" event this past weekend.  Including Mary McCormick, Marla Brenner, Diane Washa, Jan Norsetter and myself.  I never saw a complete listing of painters so it's possible I'm missing someone else.

The best of show award was $1,000 and the event attracted a good number of high quality painters from Wisconsin and Iowa (and maybe more states).  Jan didn't seem to be all that satisfied with her paintings but she still won one of the awards.  Hopefully she will post the painting for the group to see.  I'm attaching my painting showing an example of the great rural scenery in the area.  The downtown historic village also provided good painting material and overall it was a fun event.

My only complaint is we had canvases stamped Thursday morning and then had to turn in paintings by 6 pm Friday.  It would have been nice to have more days for a more leisurely painting pace.  This was the first time for this event but I believe they plan to make it an annual event and they may make some changes for next year.

September Workshop

I just signed up for this workshop and since it will probably fill up quickly I thought I would post it in case anyone is interested.  I attended Kyle's Values workshop in June and it was very helpful and alot of fun. He is an excellent painter and teacher.  Using photo references is not my favorite way to paint but can be a big help especially when it gets too cold to paint outdoors (sorry, I should not even mention the word cold !)  We plein air painters have really had a great summer so far!.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about Kyle's workshops, etc.

McCarthy Park, July 29, 2014

Jan Norsetter, 11x14, oil on panel, July 29, 2014

Nice windy evening until a sudden storm blew in and we had to hastily put away our easels.