Wayne Plein Air

Crum Creek Reflections 11 x 14 oil 

   My Painting "Crum Creek Reflections"  was awarded 2nd Place at the Wayne Plein Air Juried Festival by the   Juror, Roger Dale Brown  OPA .  I was surprised by the event , the gallery where all 30 artists exhibited their paintings done during the 3 days was very elegant.   The  way the organizers presented the Show was very well done.   Sales were very good,  according to the recent news  55 paintings were sold the first few days.  For an event only on its second year ,  I'd say they did a great Job. 

     

    As far as My experience ,   as someone from another state,   I spent a lot of time driving to look for places to paint,  and usually due to lack of time or fear that you might run out of time,  you just paint whatever the area you went to  gives you.   Although  I did find a lot of good subject matter ,  the town was very nice and especially with Valley Forge National Park just 10 minutes away.  The Painting "Crum Creek Reflections "  was the second to the last  painting  I did for the competition.   I was able to do five,  plus one after the deadline to submit for the Jury,  which was to be hung outside in the lobby.     The scene was on the creek where there was a red covered bridge ,  on Goshen road.    Although the covered bridge was a very good subject in itself,  I was in awe of the dappled light hitting the water and rocks and especially the reflection the red bridge had on the water.    I set up sitting down and painted it for almost 4 1/2 hours.   I know the light had changed a lot but It took me this long because the clouds were causing the dappled light to come and go.  I was forced to wait and observe most of the time.  

The night of the Gala I walked in seeing the painting already had sold.  I was  pleased with the results I had on the painting  that  I was almost not going to submit it because I wanted to do a big studio painting of the scene.   I am happy and grateful that it sold ,  I just wanted to do another one first before I let it go,  for my own use.  I guess now I understand why some of the   great western painters  do not sell their field works,   It is like their journal and source of information for the major paintings they do. 

               

  

Evening Showers   8 x 10   Oil on Linen

Another  painting I did was of the Wayne Train Station.    I started around  6:30 in the evening and it was raining most of the day.  I did this on an 8 x 10   C13 linen panel.  I wanted to capture the wet pavement and the reflections of the light on the scene.     It was a grey wet evening and I was forced to paint a little thicker than usual due to my easel getting wet . I was standing across from the station under an awning that I thought would keep me dry.   I was constantly cleaning my easel and drying it with my paper towels.   It got dark around 8:30 as I finished and called it a day.