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Discover the latest art news from the world of plein air painting, including recent winners, upcoming art events, art competition deadlines, and more!

OPPORTUNITY: Painting Schooners This Weekend

The Connecticut Schooner Festival offers New England painters the chance to depict majestic ships this week.  This schooner, Mystic, will be...

How the American Masters Painted the Landscape

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis is presenting a landscape show that illuminates how past American masters painted...

Easton Conjures up a Pearl of a Winter Plein Air Event

Easton, Maryland, a spot well known to plein air painters thanks to its hugely successful Plein Air Easton! event, is involving local businesses, land...

Winners at an Island Event in Maryland

PleinAir magazine editor M. Stephen Doherty served as judge at the recent Solomons Plein Air Festival on Solomons Island, Maryland. Who took the top...

Conserving Land in a Place That Loves Land Conservation

Even in a state in which the citizens dearly love their landscape, someone must work in order for the land to be conserved. The...
"Plein Air Self-Portrait" by Jim McVicker, Oil, 18 x 14in.

McVicker Takes Top Honor, $15K in PleinAir Salon

If you feel one of your paintings is something special, don't give up on it. That seems to be the message from Jim McVicker,...

The Foldable Landscape

Lili Schuch realized that her sketchbook had at some point become the artwork. Lead Image: The small format of a sketchbook provides portability and...

Parting Shot: Beauty Found in Simplest Things

Lynne Price found a painting in a puddle. Lead Image: “Simple Beauty,” by Lynne Price, 2015, oil on panel, 6 x 6 in. The Georgia artist...

Glazing Acrylics With a Palette Knife

- Bob Bahr reporting, Editor PleinAir Today - Canadian painter Sylvio Gagnon makes paintings with a distinctive look, and once you hear about his process,...

Paint Snow Hill

- Bob Bahr reporting, Editor PleinAir Today - More than 70 artists went to Snow Hill, Maryland, recently for the Paint Snow Hill event, a...

Parting Shot: Salmagundians Capture Rose Week

- Bob Bahr reporting, Editor PleinAir Today - Joan Marie Palmer was among the painters who visited the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens recently as part of...

OPPORTUNITY: Mariemont Paint Out in Cincy Area

- Bob Bahr reporting, Editor PleinAir Today - More than $5,000 in awards will be given in October in the 2016 Mariemont Paint Out, in...

Painting Carefully From the Start So That Every Stage Could Be a Finish

Michele Z. Farrier is very careful with her underpainting, in part because she always hopes that her piece will feel done to her from the earliest stages, when the abstract nature of the painting most simply but effectively states the scene’s feeling.

Spotlight on PACE Faculty: Carol Marine

You’ll often hear artists say that a key way of improving in your art is to fill miles of canvas. Plein Air Convention & Expo (PACE) faculty member Carol Marine agrees — in fact, she wrote the book on it.

How Southern Utah Unites Diverse Art Groups

In a sense, Bobbi Wan-kier creates one big piece of artwork a year, without ever picking up a brush. Her work is organizing the Arts to Zion event in Utah.

Neighborhood Turned Upside Down? Call an Artist

Barbara Tapp has driven through a suburb adjacent to hers for years, but while taking the Strada 31-Day Challenge in January, she uncovered a fascinating, emotionally charged story.

Why This Works: Not Every Branch, Twig, and Leaf

In this series, plein air painter and instructor Jeanne Mackenzie takes a look at new paintings by contemporary artists and points out why they succeed as painted images. This week, Kathryn A. McMahon’s “Beaverdams Pond.”

Los Gatos in June

Stunning views, sunshine, art, and wine. Sound like a good time? The artists and dates are set for the 9th edition of Los Gatos Plein Air this summer. All you need to know is one click away!

Inaugural Gloucester

The waterfront community of Gloucester, Virginia, received an enthusiastic response from regional artists and enthusiasts during its first ever Gloucester Arts Festival. A comprehensive recap is just one click away!

How Does $20,000 Sound? Better Act Fast.

Plein air painters from the emerging to professionals have a chance to win $20,000 via the NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize in Australia. Think it’s only open to artists from “down under”? Think again. The electronic deadline approaches.
  1. Plein Air Podcast 248: Guido Frick on the Rules to Follow for Great Paintings