Wekiva Paint Out Quick Paint

Continuing my plein air Florida adventures I had found out about this one in an article from Plein Air magazine. My plan was to just do the quick paint. Maybe next year I can investigate getting juried in. The quick paint is part of the last day of events during this paint out, capping the night with the "gala"; music, art and sales opportunities.

Wekiva Island is just outside the state park. I had never been there and it turned out to be one hopping party place. Lots of people much younger than me, families, dogs, and just a fun atmosphere. Oh yeah, there was a lot of art on exhibit and what turned out to be a dozen quick paint artists. While I was fairly happy with my piece (more than two weeks ago at Lighthouse), it didn't grab one of the top three awards. Here are a couple photos I took during the progress.

 The location alongside a creek with sun hitting some top water vegetation

 Block in. Turpy wash with darks

 ID the focal points and wipe out some excess paint

Framed at the car and ready to hand in for judging. Fair amount of palette knife in the highlights

Lighthouse Plein Air Quick Paint

I ventured further southeast in Florida this past weekend and entered the 5th annual Lighthouse Art Gallery Quick Paint event. This 2 hour window of "spontaneous artistic combustion" kicks off their week-long plein air festival. About 40 artists, including me, participated in the downtown Stuart, FL area for the quick paint. It was a bit cool by SE Florida standards and by the noon judging of entries the winds were howling about 20-30 mph. You had to make sure your display easel was weighted or turned just right to avoid having wet paintings from being blown over.

I haven't been painting outside much this year and struggled with moving shadows and a busy street corner where I set up. In the end I was not thrilled with the results but had a good time "practicing" and being out there amongst other artists. Here's a quick set of sequence photos;

 Start block in- 15 minutes

 Lay down darks- shadows already moving- 40 minutes

Finished and framed- 2 hours

Here are some of the entries with a few showing awards that were handed out. Some nice stuff by a good group of 'circuit' plein air artists.

 Honorable Mention

 Third Place

 Honorable Mention

 First Place

Winter plein air. Closing out my time in Wisconsin

Just passing through this last winter in Wisconsin. It's off to Florida for the rest of my life with palm trees, alligators and lots of oceans to paint. But why not bang out a few quickies outside in the elements of winter.

 Set up at this creek

 9x12 oil on panel

 Set up next to a small lake 

about to freeze over

 9x12 oil on panel. Man it was cold!

Gray day is a perfect day to paint outside

It's a couple days after Christmas. I'm still looking for a job. It's gray outside. I haven't seriously painted in several weeks. Hello...brain...tell this body to get off it's butt and do something...like paint.

So I know I have to paint more from life. But, it's winter. It's cold. It's ugly out. Isn't it? As a matter of fact, I love snow. It's the cold that I really could live without. I enjoy a big snowstorm. And when the snow is wet and sticks to everything, it's really a beautiful sight. Guess what it did just before Christmas? It snowed. Wet snow. It hasn't melted down and there's a painting waiting for me somewhere.

Okay, make a decision: I'm going to go paint outside. Ya know, plein air style. And I know just where I'm going to go because I scoped this spot out earlier yesterday, a whopping mile from my house. The resulting plein air trip produced a nice little study of snow, trees and a winding creek with fallen trees. It was a beautiful scene. The study has got me thinking about a full size studio version.

But for now, here's the video I put together as I trampled through a field on a perfect neutral gray day to do a little painting.