See our highlights from the first couple of days at the Plein Air Convention & Expo (PACE) here!
Day 3: Friday Highlights
Hundreds of artists were able to experience three live recordings of Eric’s PleinAir Podcast (stay tuned — we’ll publish the recordings soon!) during PACE. In one podcast, he welcomed artists from Pixar Animation Studios and DreamWorks in a presentation on how they use plein air to inform their work on movies such as Cars, Toy Story, and How to Train Your Dragon. Seeing their landscapes come to life brought tears to the eyes of many of us. And in the second podcast, Eric interviewed a small group of artists who arrived at PACE after taking a historic train ride (“En Train Air”) to raise awareness about a threatened American icon.
A tip from Albert Handell’s demo on pastel and watercolor: Payne’s Gray watercolor is Mars black in oil. (Thank you, Lori C., for sharing this and the following note with us!)
In her demo “Multi-Media Pastel Painting,” Jill Wagner decides what attracts or intrigues her to paint a scene, then she writes it down. She calls this a “love note” to her painting.
“Students who don’t go outside will have trouble learning. Some say, ‘I’ll go outside once I get better,’ and I say, ‘All right, let me know how that works out for you.’” — Keiko Tanabe, during her demo on “Capturing Light and Atmosphere in Watercolor” (special thank you to Matthew Bird for sharing this quote with us!)
In Marc Dalessio’s presentation, “Alla Seconda: Indirect Painting Techniques for Extended Plein Air Projects,” he explained what it means to paint into an effect versus painting out of an effect.
Larry Moore presented on the topic of “Gouache and Field Creativity” during his morning demo. We learned that it’s OK to be playful and, for example, paint a farm animal into an indoor setting for an unexpected visual. And we learned that Larry sometimes speaks to paintings in the voice of Barry White: “Who’s your daddy? Not me, apparently.” 🙂
We’d like to give a special shout-out to Jean-Pierre Jacquet, who has been sharing his daily illustrations of his “Plein Air Dude” leading up to PACE this year. Thank you, Jean-Pierre — we love it!
One afternoon most of us headed out to paint at Golden Gate Park, which is the third most-visited park in the United States.
Day 4: Saturday Highlights
Did you hear? On Saturday of the Plein Air Convention, we announced that we’re going to COLORADO next year! Watch the live location reveal here — you’ll feel like you were there with us yesterday during the announcement (and we wish you were)!
After the reveal, Joseph McGurl led a demo on “Transforming the Plein Air Sketch,” and then we headed to the breathtaking views at Lands End and the Legion of Honor. Later, we wrapped up the day by dancing — and I mean dancing — at a ’60s/’70s-themed party where everyone let their hair down.
“There are no nice colors. There are only nice color relationships.” — Camille Przewodek during “This Could Be the Start of Something Big”
Richard McKinley, painting with pastels at Lands End. During his seminar earlier in the week, he explained why he believes pastel is the perfect medium to take out plein air painting. (It’s portable, it’s easy to set up, and there’s no need to mix colors.) He loves to include the color violet in particular: “The phenomenon of violet mixing with other colors is magical.”
Eric paused along the walking path to talk with two painters about the trees in their composition. The view from here was spectacular; one of the artists I spoke with this week said one of her favorite things about coming to the Plein Air Convention is getting to travel and paint at new places like this with our friendly tribe.
Homecoming Party 2019!
Final Day: Sunday Paint-Out
The Plein Air Convention came to a quiet close during our final paint-out at the Viansa Sonoma Winery and Tasting Rooms. Click here to join us next year!
Our team here at PleinAir would like to say thank you once again to some VIPs for making the Plein Air Convention such a great success. If you volunteered, if you came as an exhibitor to sell your quality products to help artists make great work, if you taught or demonstrated, or if you came as an attendee for the eighth or the first time, thank you. And, if you’re reading this, thank you. Each of you is so important, and we’re honored that you’re making the Plein Air Convention a part of your art journey.
Is there still a special early entry fee of $897?
Thanks
Hi Daniel! It looks like the registration is still only $897 as of today, but I don’t know when the price increase happens. You can register for 2020 at https://pleinairconvention.com/. Thanks for asking – we hope to see you there!