One of the landscape paintings that stands out among the semi-finalists selected by Michael Zakian in the September/October PleinAir Salon competition (www.pleinairsalon.com) is “After a Storm,” by Philadelphia artist Patrick Connors. We wanted to find out more about how Connors created the piece he calls a “breakthrough painting.”

There are a few coincidences among the bimonthly PleinAir Magazine Salon competition winners, including the fact that one husband-and-wife team worked on the plein air painting that won second place, and two artists who are married to one another won separate awards.

The first Local Color Weekend was held at the Bucks County Gallery of Fine Art, New Hope, Pennsylvania from July 26-29, 2012, and it was an overwhelming success. Find out who won the competition awards.