Snake River Plein Air Show

This weekend was the 16th annual Plein Air show for the Snake River Plein Air Painters. (Plein Aire is a French term meaning "out of doors". It was first used by the French Impressionists to describe paintings completed outside on location)

They are a fantastic group of local artists I just joined up with this year. Such a fun and lively group of painters. The show is held each year in an old rock church in a tiny town outside of Idaho Falls. It's a fantastic building, but a bit off the beaten path which makes it difficult to get a big turn out. Not a lot of paintings sell here, but it's still a good experience. You can check out the group's web page HERE.

It was a lot of fun for me to spent the weekend getting to know some of these local artists, look at plein air paintings, eat great refreshments, and to talk art. I have a fresh dose of inspiration...

My little corner. (Check out that baby belly!)

A shot of the main floor

And the balcony.

Rusty

There is a fantastic automobile graveyard in town. The caretaker/owner just happened to be there as I was driving by one day and I asked permission to take some photos of the cars. He was hesitant for some reason, but gave me the okay. His wife, and subsequently, gigantic junk yard guard dog did NOT get the memo. She released the beast in my direction, and I nearly escaped to my vehicle. Not a nice puppy. (Or a nice person if you want my vote...)

So I guess I risked life and limb for this one. I have a few more to come hopefully.

Art Card Trade

My local art guild held an "Art Card" trading night. This was the first of hopefully many gatherings of local artists to create and trade miniature original artwork. It's becoming all the rage in the art community internationally, so if you are an artist and haven't heard about this, I strongly suggest you get Google-ing.

Though we only had a few artists this time, more are expected next month. Each artist had an hour and a half to complete two- 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch (business card size) works of art in any 2D medium. Cards can be completed ahead of time as well. Then we trade! Each person chooses one artwork by another artist to take home.

These are the ones I finished there (Of course the photographs are horrible as they were taken indoors in poor lighting.) The top one was traded.

And this is a watercolor by Darla Waters that now belongs to me:

I love it! Thanks Darla!!

And here are the rest of the cards created there. There are some watercolors, colored pencils, mixed media, collage, and pastel.

This was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to the next one.

A Few Holdups...

Did you think I fell off the planet? I can't believe it has been over a month since my last post and since my last PAINTING! After all the craziness of the Hawaii trip and the art festival I was totally burned out. Not to mention summer vacations and madness. I am also expecting a baby in January and in the first trimester of pregnancy all I can think about is SLEEP. I actually never put away my pastels from the art festival. I went downstairs this morning and there they were in their tin, dirty and all mixed up.

This week I feel like I finally woke up out of my sleep cocoon have enough energy to somewhat function. We'll see how it lasts. So this morning I got out my beautiful unused Cherry Pastel Cleaner machine and tried it out.

It works wonderfully! So all my pastels are clean and somewhat organized, and now I have no excuses!

I had one other small hitch. I realized this morning that my children *accidentally* erased/moved/deleted a folder I had on the computer containing all my references and ideas for future projects. Gone. Who knows where. I recovered a few of the files, but since I haven't looked at it for over a month I don't completely recall what I'm missing. Oh well. Back to the sketchbooks. I have a lot of new ideas swimming around in my head, so stay tuned.

River Rocks "Quick Paint"

The folks that were in charge of the "quick paint" didn't communicate well to those of us participating in the event. I was about ten minutes late, so my hour painting was more like 50 minutes. I was a little intimidated to do a figure painting in public since it has been a while since I have done any figure drawing or painting. But I dug in and got 'er done... Unfortunately I was not informed that the paintings needed to be framed upon completion, so my beautiful assistant (A.K.A. Mom) ran to the store to grab a couple of frames. A very nice gentleman was there with framing wire, and we made it work. I didn't take any pictures before it was under glass, so this is as good as it gets:You can see the actual colors a little better here:

And for round two, Landscape painting. I went a ways down the road, so again it was about a 50 minute painting. It didn't start until 8:00 at night, and the lighting was changing FAST. Totally different reference about every fifteen minutes. It was a challenge.

This isn't a very accurate photograph either. The colors are quite a bit brighter. But you get the idea...

It was a really fun evening. I haven't done anything like this for a long time. It was a beautiful night, everyone was very friendly, and as it turns out, I still remember how to paint plein air.

River Rock Festival, Day Two

The skies cooperated for a few hours this morning and I was able to squeeze in this plein air painting. This is an 8 by 10, soft pastel on texturized mat board, and took just over two hours.

River Rock Art Festival, Day One

Today was the first leg of the annual River Rock Art Festival in Idaho Falls. It snuck right up on me! I found myself this morning with an itinerary of painting and artsy stuff, and no babysitter for my three little stinkers. Oops. So we loaded the car to the hilt with snacks, toys, entertainment, laptop with DVD's, all the goods, and my art supplies too. I located a suitable painting site on the map and we made camp. The kids watched two full movies while I painted. They had a super time, and so did I. Here is my first painting. I have to turn in three by Friday morning. Hopefully I can squeeze in another tonight after the Mister gets home from work...

Hawaii, Plein Air

I was planning on finishing dozens and dozens of paintings in Hawaii. Well, it turns out that Hawaii is this really tropical, amazing, relaxing, breathtaking place, and I wanted to enjoy it! I ended up sight-seeing and playing on the beaches much more than painting. But since I did lug all my cumbersome painting supplies 3000 miles across the ocean, I figured it would be quite a waste not to paint ANYTHING. The first day I forgot all my boards, so I just did a sketch on paper:

I was so amazed by all the different colors of turquoise! My palette was not completely decked out for all the tropical hues.

I only managed to paint twice more, once on Waikiki, such a beautiful place. This cute old Chinese woman kept coming to check on my progress. She didn't really speak English, but seemed to approve. She kept pointing to my painting and then to the water saying, "Same, same!" Too bad I didn't know how to say "You want to buy it?" in Chinese...

and one last painting on another beach which I do not remember the name. (Sunset Beach maybe?) It was in the upper 90's this day, and the sand was totally burning my feet. One arm got sunburned. It was really windy too. Not ideal painting conditions.

I took hundreds of photos which may or may not make their way into future paintings...

My Website

Still in progress, but here it is...

http://brittanylane.webs.com/

Off to Paint...

I've been neglecting my paintings in getting ready for my upcoming trip to Hawaii.  I have my art equipment pretty much packed up, so I'm not going to get much accomplished before I leave on Wednesday.  Expect lots and lots of tropical plein air landscapes upon my return...  I've researched out some great sites and I'm so excited to get painting!  ALOHA!!

Thank You Mrs. C.

This is of course a painting for a "thank you" to my son's 1st grade teacher.  She has been so awesome this year!  I completely admire her dedication and patience.  My son has improved a great deal in many ways under her watchful eye.  I hope he is lucky enough to have great teachers like Mrs. C. throughout his life.  

My son chose the objects for the still life, and insisted that it had a flower because, "They are Mrs. C.'s favorite!"  This painting is 10 by 10 inches, soft pastel and pastel pencil on texturized mat board.  (And is not for sale.)

Tropical Beast of Burden

Soft Pastel on Texturized Matboard, 9 by 11 inches

Lower Eagle

In the North-Northwest they have these really cool trees that look like evergreens most of the year, but are actually deciduous and turn bright yellow and drop their needles in the autumn.  They are so striking!  My husband goes on a manly-man motorcycle/camping trip with the guys every fall and this is one of the gorgeous places they go.  It's pretty remote and hard to access, so not a lot of people get to see it.  A rich guy flew to the lake in a helicopter one year while they were there.  Ruined the fishing for a couple of hours I guess.  I'd love to see it for myself someday, but on horseback, not motorbike.  

I painted this roughly based on a photograph my brother-in-law took.  It's soft pastel on texturized mat board, 12 by 15 inches.

Just Passing Through

Soft Pastel on Texturized Mat Board, 7.5  by 8 inches

Teton Overlook

Soft Pastel on Texturized Mat Board, 6 by 8 inches

Plum and Pussy Willow

Soft Pastel on Texturized Mat Board, 7 by 10 inches

Factory Window, Spring

Soft Pastel on Texturized Mat Board, 9 by 11 inches

Whew.  I've been busy.  I neglected my painting a little bit last month. (And I had such great intentions....)  There are a few in the works.  I've been drawing and scheming, but most of that isn't blogworthy.   Here is the fruit of last weeks labor.  We went to SLC and I was enchanted by all the windows.  I have one more.  Maybe spring will decide to come HERE one of these days.  

Cold again today.

Stumbled across my painting online...

My painting is on the front of the arts council web page.  Cool.  Gotta love any "face" time I can get.  Check it out here.  Scroll down a bit to the art show info.

Emerging Tetons

8" X 8" Soft Pastel on Texturized Mat Board

Warming Up

Soft Pastel on Texturized Mat Board, 11" by 14"