The Chestnut Group's Art Show & Sale to Benefit Radnor Lake

I am a member of The Chestnut Group, which is a group of plein air artists in the middle Tennessee area. This coming weekend - November 8 - 10 - we are having an art show and sale at the Radnor Lake Visitor Center. The Friends of Radnor Lake and The Chestnut Group have been working together for 15 years now to help support Radnor Lake. It's a beautiful natural area in Nashville - a state park - really a gorgeous place. Here's the flyer with the show information.

I gathered my courage and entered three of my paintings from Radnor Lake into the show. There's no competition - no awards - just an art show and sale. There's a long list of guidelines to prepare for the show. Any painting from a Chestnut member that follows the guidelines is accepted for the show.

It's actually my second art show. This past summer, I had two paintings accepted into the Outdoor Painters Society's "Associate Members Show & Sale 2019" in Corsicana, Texas. That show was open from August 12 to September 26. That was a good experience is learning how to ship paintings. Neither of my paintings sold, and so they were shipped back to me when the show ended.

Thankfully, the Radnor show doesn't involve any shipping! I don't anticipate selling any of my Radnor paintings, but I'm happy for the experience of being in a second show - and this one a local one! I'll actually be able to go (tomorrow) and see my paintings in the show. And if one should sell, that would be wonderful.

I entered three paintings - all done partially en plein air at Radnor Lake - and finished in my studio. Here are the three after final touch-ups and varnishing - sitting out with a fan directed at them - drying in my studio.

And here they are after I framed them.

And close-ups of all three:

Path to Radnor Lake, oil on 16x20 panel

A Place to Rest at Radnor, oil on 12x16 linen

Just Chilling Out, oil on 8x8 panel

Update: The Radnor show is over. One of my paintings sold. "Just Chilling Out" - the small 8x8 painting I did at the last minute. I'm a little in shock because my art is so amateurish next to some amazing art by professionals in the group. I figured my three pieces helped fill up space for the show. The other two painting are now back on the walls in my own home. The show did great - over $50K in sales. 

Bradley, the 5-year old plein air artist is mentored by Pam Padgett

Last month on the last day of the PAPSE (Plein Air Painters of the Southeast) paintout in Leiper's Fork, TN, my 5-year old granddaughter, Mary Bradley, spent the day with me. She accompanied me into town to see the wet paint sale at Leiper's Creek Gallery and to watch all the artists that were painting around town.

Pam Padgett, Chestnut Group member and PAPSE member, was painting at the Lawn Chair Theater behind the Gallery. We talked with Pam briefly and then went on to look around the rest of the area. When we walked near Pam again, Bradley pulled me to Pam and her easel. Out of all the plein air painters scattered all over town, Bradley was taken with Pam. So we chatted with Pam again, and Pam asked Bradley if she'd like to paint. Of course we all know the answer she gave - a resounding yes!

Pam lowered the easel, attached a fresh panel, and she asked Bradley to look at the pumpkin on the stage. She talked Bradley through how to look at the shape, how to do shadows and highlights. She discussed mixing red and yellow to make orange. With Pam's guidance, Bradley painted that pumpkin.

I loved seeing the attention Bradley and Pam gathered. Leiper's Fork was full of residents, visitors and artists - and many of them came by to watch Pam and Bradley work together. Many took photos. Yes, Bradley was as cute as can be. However, she was also serious. She was 100% into the creative endeavor of painting that pumpkin. She listened attentively as Pam gave her instruction, and she followed it carefully.

In the photo below, you can see the "Porch Sale" in the background with all the beautiful paintings from the PAPSE artists. The paintings go all the way around the building on all four sides. On the other side of the building is the main road going through Leiper's Fork.

Bradley and Pam continued until Bradley finished her pumpkin and signed her painting.

Here is the budding artist with her mentor and completed painting.

Here is Bradley with her finished masterpiece.

And here's a footnote to this story: We took Bradley's painting home and set it out to dry. We told her we'd like to buy her painting, and she finally settled on a price of $20 which we paid her. However, when her parents came to pick her up, she very seriously gave us the $20 back and took her painting home. She loved it so much she couldn't bear to part with it.

And THAT is an example of what art is all about. It's about sharing with children - or others of any age -  the joy and satisfaction of expressing oneself via art. It is sharing how to look at things differently - how to see the shadows and lights - how to combine colors to get the shade we're looking for - how to see the beauty and complexity of our world - how to look beyond the obvious. Thank you to Pam Padgett for so generously giving Bradley an experience she will always remember.

Plein Air Today - My "9 Suggestions for Beginning Artists" article published

 

I am SO excited and honored! A little over a week ago, I decided to re-work the post I made in September with suggestions for beginning artists. I revised, edited, shortened the article and submitted it to Plein Air Today - an online newsletter - which is part of the Plein Air Magazine family. I emailed it to them late last Wednesday evening. Early the next morning I got a reply that they planned to use the article. Immediately.  At their request, I sent them a separate email with photos, captions, and some "about the writer" information. And just a week later, it was published! 

Click THIS LINK to go to my article in Plein Air Today. Enjoy - and share as much as possible.

PAPSE Painters In Leiper's Fork - What a treat!

The Plein Air Painters of the Southeast have been in Leiper's Fork this past week, and we have had the honor of hosting three of them in our home:  Perry Austin and his wife, Carol, Jim Carson, and Kathie Odom and her husband, Buddy. It has been such an enjoyable week!

Although we've spent the week with well known artists, the first photos of the week are of my own painting when my friend, Sheryl, and I went out plein air painting on Wednesday. We drove to a farm that had this barn. I loved it and decided to paint it. However, I wanted the roof to show up more, and thus I used artistic license to make it a red roof instead of green.

This is a terrible photograph of my painting. I have no idea what the shadow is on top. I will photograph it again later and switch it out.  I'm not quite finished with this yet - but I like it so far.

Later that afternoon we drove to Radnor Lake and painted there. Here is the scene a chose to paint:

I am FAR from finished with this one - but I have the basics, although I definitely have to change that path!  I will post the finished painting in a few days. The shadows are what intrigued me, and I'm eager to get back to this painting and get those shadows looking right.

The best part of the week has not been MY painting, but the opportunity to be with so many wonderful artists and observe them painting. Our conversations have been so fascinating. I hate to see Kathie and Buddy go home tomorrow - and Jim go home on Sunday morning.

The photo below shows Kathie Odom in our driveway finishing up one of her paintings in preparation to take it to Leiper's Creek Gallery for the PAPSE On the Porch Wet Paint Show and Sale. Thursday was a busy morning as all three artists had to get their wet paintings ready to take to the Gallery for the show & sale.

This photo shows some of Kathie's paintings drying on a table outside our barn - waiting for Kathie's husband, Buddy, to frame them.

Our good friend, Perry Austin and his wife, Carol, got word around 4:00 a.m. on Thursday morning that their new granddaughter was about to be born. So Perry scurried around Thursday morning finishing up his paintings so he and Carol could get on the road to see that new grandbaby! Kathie and Buddy offered to handle Perry's framing, and when the show is over, I will pick up his paintings and keep them until I can get them back to Perry. They were on their way back home quickly - and later we got word that baby Mara was born - healthy and beautiful.

Here is Perry, working out of the back of his car finishing up his paintings.

And here are Perry and Carol Austin with Buddy and Kathie Odom right before Perry and Carol left to go see their new granddaughter.

Here's Jim Carson working on framing his paintings upstairs in my studio.

On Thursday night, we hosted a dinner for our artist guests, along with our friends, Troy and Sheryl, and their artist guests, David Boyd and Greg Barnes. My husband, Ron, asked us to go around the table and each person tell about their most meaningful painting. Wow! What wonderful and touching stories! There were more than a few tears which just goes to show how deeply art touches our souls. If you ever have the opportunity to talk with an artist, I can wholeheartedly recommend asking them to tell you about their most meaningful painting!

Thursday afternoon, Jim Carson offered to let me watch him paint as he talked about his process and answer questions. I learned so much! I'm sure I slowed him down with all my questions, but he was so open and helpful!

All "our artists" (as I call them) got their paintings to the gallery on time and in good shape. Here are Perry Austin's paintings hanging at the Leiper's Creek Gallery. You notice the bottom painting in this first photo already has a red dot sticker! As a matter of fact, all three of "my artists" had a painting sell today!

And here are Jim Carson's paintings at the Leiper's Creek Gallery's Wet Paint Show and Sale.

And here are Kathie Odom's! I believe Kathie sold a painting before I took this photo.

Friday morning, all the PAPSE artists plus some Chestnut Group members painted in Leiper's Fork. I started a painting but ended up needing to go home. So I wiped off the panel and will try again another day.

Here is Kathie Odom painting. I predict this painting will win an award. I loved it! One thing I noticed is how accomplished artists "see" paintings in ordinary things - not the obvious. Kathy's painting is of a small trailer.

Here is my friend, MaryO Smith painting in Leiper's Fork. MaryO was working with watercolors this time - beautiful work.

My friend, Sheryl, a Chestnut Group member, was also painting in Leiper's Fork. And that's Kathie in the background - and other artists across the street. It was fun to drive through town and see so many artists painting!

And Jim Carson completed another beautiful painting Friday morning in Leiper's Fork.

And here is the reason Perry and Carol Austin went home early. Grandma Carol Austin holding newborn Mara. Just look at that sweet face!

Such a wonderful week. We will be sad to see everyone else go home tomorrow and Sunday. It has been a great week with good friends and a lot of marvelous art!

My Monday Plein Air Painting Group

My friend, Sheryl, and I have started plein air painting together every Monday. Each week we've gone to different places and painted. It's great practice, and it gets me actually painting.  

On our first week, we went to the farm of Roy, a friend of ours.  He has a lake in front of his house - with a little covered walking bridge, and then a barn. The location was beautiful, but I am not pleased with this effort at all. I will probably paint over it at some point, or maybe I will try to salvage it. The walking bridge is leaning - and so is the barn. (Carol, get the perspective and basic outlines right before starting to paint!!!!) The banks of the pond are way too "perfect," and don't even get me started on the pitiful trees. However, still it was great practice.

Then we went to the farm of a well known ball player. Ron had met him, and so he gave us permission to paint this log cabin on his farm. He, his wife and kids came by while we were painting and chatted with us for awhile - such nice people!  I like this painting. I would've liked it better if I'd put the house on the other side of the painting or at least not in the bottom corner.  Sheryl was painting the same scene, and I wanted to make mine different. Lesson learned - Paint what you want to paint - two people can paint the same scene from the same perspective - and the results will be different.

The next week we went to Radnor Lake in Nashville.  Several other artists from The Chestnut Group went with us. I had painted this scene last year, but I still painted it again but from a different perspective.  My trees are awful. I'm not happy with this painting at all.  Not sure what I'll do with it.

 After we got home from Radnor, I looked at some of the other photos I'd taken, and I painted this next painting from one of those photos. It's one of the walking trails there, and I like this painting much better. I still need lots of practice painting trees.

Our Monday painting group is growing. It started out as just Sheryl and me. However other people are joining us, and it's a lot of fun.  It's invaluable practice.

PACE19 in San Francisco is a wrap, too!

I attended my second Plein Air Convention and Expo last week.  It was held in San Francisco.  I considered canceling the trip because there has been so much negative press about San Francisco lately - trash everywhere, human feces in the streets, hordes of homeless people. I didn't see all of San Francisco - and there WERE lots of homeless people. However, I didn't see piles of trash - and no feces of any kind on the streets. What I saw of San Francisco is beautiful, and the convention was much better than last year.  Last year everything was so crowded that I couldn't see speakers or the huge monitors.  This year the rooms were bigger - and I could always get a good seat - even for the most popular speakers.

Before heading to San Francisco, I had to select the paintings I would take for the Gallery -  a place right inside the expo area where attendees could pay for an easel and display a painting for sale.  Below are the three paintings that I selected to take. I could only display one at a time, but I decided to take three in case one sold. IF one sold, I would have another one to put on the easel in its place.

What I learned is that the Gallery, for me, is a waste of time and money.  I only saw one painting with a sold sign on it.  I saw a couple paintings that I would have liked to buy, but I couldn't justify buying any paintings when I spent so much to ship my paintings there. None of mine sold. So the last night we were there, I boxed them back up and shipped them back home. Thus I spent several hundred dollars in shipping there and back and learned that I won't waste money on renting easel space at PACE again. I didn't expect to sell any paintings, though. I AM a beginner - but I'm glad I at least tried and took that chance.

Ron and I flew to San Francisco - a direct flight from Nashville - on Tuesday,  April 23rd, and we had a direct flight home on Monday, April 29th.  We spent six really wonderful days there! Lots of great food - great scenery - beautiful city.

Although we got there on Tuesday afternoon, the conference didn't officially begin until Wednesday afternoon.  So we had time to do other things.

As soon as we landed that first afternoon, we explored San Francisco a little bit. We headed to Fisherman's Wharf. I loved that area. Had delicious fish and chips, and then we just walked around the area.

We heard a lot of "barking" and walked over to where there was a floating platform covered with seals. They were huge! A lot of people were on the walkway above the platform looking at them. Look closely at the photo below and you'll see dozens (a hundred, at least) of seals flopped out on the platform. Periodically, they'd all start barking, and that was an impressive sound! It was such fun to watch them swim around and then maneuver their big bodies up and onto the platform. 

From Fisherman's Wharf, we could see Alcatraz Island across the water.  We had signed up for a tour on Wednesday morning (the next day).  So Wednesday we went on the Alcatraz tour, which was fascinating. We got lots of pictures, and we ended up buying several books about the different prisoners and different perspectives of Alcatraz. Here are Ron and me with Alcatraz as the backdrop.

The view of Alcatraz Island from the tour boat.

The view from the boat heading back to San Francisco from Alcatraz.  Love the streets going uphill!

 Our hotel was the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.  This was the view from our room.  Just spectacular.  We were on the 37th floor. We kept the curtains open the whole time because the view - morning, day, night - was beautiful.

On the top floor of the hotel (46th floor, I think) was the Cityscape bar - which served drinks and snacks, and it had the following view.  We went up there several times during the week. They made a pretty good Cosmo, which I enjoyed several times during the week.  We also went out to eat each evening - each time selecting a restaurant that was recommended to us.

A restaurant right across the street from our hotel - the Taylor Street Cafe - had a great breakfast that we tried once - and Ron tried a second time later in the week. I, of course, took the opportunity for Eggs Benedict. I took a photo of this sign that was on the wall, which I thought was cute - and true.

Once the conference began, I attended a bunch of painting demos - but only took a few photos here and there. There was a wealth of information available - and great learning from accomplished artists. Some of the artists were better at painting than talking about painting, but, for the most part, the demos were helpful. I learned a lot, and I have a lot to study and practice now that I'm home again. One of the best was about how to be your own art instructor.  Can't remember who led it, but it was super helpful. I feel that I've attended so many workshops, but haven't had the time/motivation afterwards to implement what I learned. That changes now. Two days ago I started a "paint every day" challenge - painting the same scene five days in a row. That was one of the suggestions in the demo.

Eric Rhoads - the "founder" of PACE and Plein Air Magazine was everywhere. I attended all three days of his Marketing Boot Camp - which means I was up, dressed, and in the main conference room by 6:30 three of the mornings. Eric was well prepared - had good interaction and engagement with the audience. I took many pages of notes, and I learned so very much! I'm not really much interested in marketing my painting at this point.  I'm still a novice artist. However, the information was valuable as I improve my art and work towards someday being able to sell my art.

The paintouts were great.  Imagine HUNDREDS of artists set up in the same general area painting. It was inspiring and fun. First Day of painting (Thursday) - the Golden Gate Bridge as seen from Crissy Field.  I brought my painting home to finish. The shipped paintings were delivered late yesterday.  So tonight or tomorrow I will try to finish it. That was the coldest day during the conference. When I was packing, at the last minute I packed a jacket, and I'm so glad I did. The day at Crissy field, I needed that jacket! The fog covered the top of the Golden Gate Bridge - which gave it a dreamy look. I hope I can make my painting convey that look well.

Second paint-out day (Friday) - Golden Gate Park.  I chose one of the garden areas.  Again, the painting is unfinished.  I will finish it within the next few days.  This photo shows the scene I painted.

Our third paint-out day (Saturday) - the Golden Gate Bridge as seen from Land's End. This was the place that as I walked back to the bus after painting for several hours, I thought to myself, "I LOVE this!"  It was fun!  It was invigorating! I was fascinated walking around and looking at what some of the other artists were painting. Everyone had their own style and way of painting. Truly amazing!  I am really pleased with my work on this one. It will be the first one I finish tonight or tomorrow.  Painting it en plein air, I found that some of the details looked skewed from the photograph.  So I'll work on that, too.

On the final day of the convention (Sunday) - after the expo and gallery and everything else was closed, PACE19 spent the day at the Viansa Vineyard and Winery in Sonoma. Ron spent the day with me, and so I decided not to paint but to sightsee with him. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge twice, and I enjoyed seeing it from this perspective.  

We went by Viansa Vineyard and Winery and took some photos of the other PACE folks painting there. In reviewing the convention, I will make the decision next year to stick with the PACE group on the last day of painting. At the time, there was nothing at the vineyard that really inspired me to paint. However, I missed an opportunity to paint and connect with other painters, and I won't do that again. There were buses to take us to and from the paint-out locations.  I had signed up and paid to ride the bus to all four paint-outs, but when Ron decided not to go out on his own that day, I skipped the bus and rode in the rental car with him instead. We had a good day - sightseeing and seeing some things I wouldn't have seen if I had taken the bus and painted all day at Viansa. So it all balanced out in the end. Here's a photo of some of the PACE19'ers painting at Viansa.

All in all, it was a great six days. Next year's convention is in Colorado - outside of Denver. I've already signed up for it, and I'm looking forward to it. Ron can probably fly his plane to Denver. It will be a long flight in his small Bonanza plane, but do-able in one day. That means I don't have to worry about packing light or shipping things ahead. I can take whatever I want to take without worrying about weight and shipping prices. Plus, in Colorado there will be plenty of things that Ron will enjoy doing on his own while I'm at the convention. It will be fun.

Speaking of Ron - on the days that I was attending demos and riding the bus to paint-outs, he was having a good time on his own.  He spent one day learning to fly a float plane at a place a couple hours outside of San Francisco. He spent another couple days at a gun club about an hour outside of San Francisco. He spent time in China Town with friends he made at the gun club. So he was able to do things he really enjoyed doing while I was "art-ing".  He's been wanting to learn to fly a float plane for years. I was so happy he finally was able to do that.  It was a good mix of each of us spending time doing what we enjoyed during the day - and then being together in the evenings to eat dinner and talk. Good time all around.