I've been painting in the 2012 Denver Plein Air Arts Fest over the past couple of weeks. This is my first year and it has been pretty fun. Artists are allowed to paint at select locations between August 10th and September 16th. Works that are juried in to the show in November will be eligible for awards and will hang in the Vida Ellison Gallery at the Denver Central Library. Here are a few pics from the various sites.
One paint-out was held at the world famous
Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison Colorado. I've been there at night for concerts but watching the sunrise over Denver is a spiritual experience.
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| Red Rocks Amphitheater at dawn |
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| Ready to paint the sunrise at Red Rocks |
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| One of my paintings of Red Rocks |
I also decided to paint the State Capitol. It wasn't my first choice since it is an obvious choice but I found a unique vantage point and captured the sunset glistening off the gold-covered dome. I ended up painting by the lights from the Voorhies Memorial for an hour + after the sun set. As it got dark, more and more homeless people started showing up. One of them, named Bryon, said he loved my painting and though it looked photo-realistic. Later, when discussing something else, he told me he had vision problems and could only see fuzzy shapes ;-) That was a let down. When I asked him if I should be worried about some of the troublesome looking folks starting to congregate he said not to worry as long as he was around he would protect me. It was a nice gesture but he clearly didn't take into account I was armed with multiple paint brushes and cadmium pigments.
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| Painting the Denver State Capitol |
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Bryon - a friendly homeless guy who I chatted
with as I painted past dark. |
On another day we painted at the Grant-Humphreys mansion. It's a beautiful old home and we had free reign of the grounds.
I used the sight-size method for my drawing of the planter below. The afternoon sun made the railings and planter glow against the dark foliage in the background.
The mansion also has wonderful architectural details which I decided to paint a few days later. The piece I'm working on below required some detailed drawing. I need to go down one more time to finish the painting. So far it looks good; I'll post pics of it later.
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| Drawing architectural details at Grant-Humphreys Mansion in Denver |
How fun! Your paintings look WONDERFUL! Nice plein air set up, too! Thanks for sharing your Art Fest experience with us, Scott. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Darla. It's great fun and I met a bunch of good people too!
DeleteThe things you do looks promising, looking forward to see them finished.
ReplyDeleteWell Roger, I ended up with four pieces to enter in the show. I won't know for a month if they get accepted. I plan to post a blog entry for each showing the in process shots as well as the finished pieces.
DeleteCheers!
Well done Scott, your paintings look fantastic, I also love your pochade box...fab...thanks for posting, so nice to see what other artists get up to!
ReplyDeleteGeorgie, I love using this pochade setup. I made it myself using the James Coulter Plein Air System as my inspiration. I like having my palette lower than my painting. I still use the pochade box I made and blogged about last summer too and like it because it holds paints and wet panels but it is heavier and not as good for hiking with.
DeleteTake care!
Love that setup you have going, did you make the easel part (that holds the panel) yourself, that attaches to the tripod?
ReplyDelete