Friday, April 19, 2013

Plein Air Convention and Expo

Wow!  We just returned from the 2nd annual Plein Air Convention and Expo  held in Monterey, California.  We had a great time taking in all the marketing seminars and most of the artist demos.  We packed light and didn't take our painting supplies but we really enjoyed watching all the outdoor painting.  It was fun to watch the artists pick a location and a subject and then proceed to make a great painting within an hour or two. It was pretty windy and I felt very intimidated by all the talent but I managed to sit still long enough to do a quick sketch of Fisherman's Wharf.


Here are a few of  my convention highlights!

This is one of my favorite painters, Ken Auster doing one of his demonstrations onstage.  This picture was taken from the huge screens they had on either side of the stage.  Very easy to watch.

This is Ken's finished painting.  He paints large (love it) and completed this San Francisco trolley car scene in less than an hour.  Impressive to watch!

This is Russian painter Alexey Steele drawing a likeness of another great painter Scott Christensen.  Alexey is very animated and great fun to watch.  He will keep you fixated with his accented commentary.

John Crump, Another of my favorite painters is shown here painting on the windy beach.  He also paints larger than most of the others so naturally I am interested!

This is John's finished painting that he created for his demonstration the day before.  This 24"x48" painting was executed in about an hour. Amazing!  I missed his demo but sought him out on the beach and got to talk to him in person.  Great guy!

This is Don Demers doing a demo on the beach.  He is a great Maritime painter and always draws a huge crowd.
And there were plein air painters everywhere!  They came from all over the world to be here for this event.  Spectacular!

1 comment:

  1. WOW!! How fun is that! I would have loved being there, just to observe the painters. Thanks for sharing, Don, and your sketch is amazing!

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