More Plein Air!

A few more paintings from last the Brandywine Plein Air festival last week!

Frolic's Ford, 8x10 oil 

Pasture at Big Bend, 8x10 oil 

 During the exhibit at Winterthur, I demonstrated plein air painting in the main tent to entertain visitors. Here I am with my half-finished watercolor demo on Saturday. The painting sold before the paint was dry!

On Sunday I demonstrated watercolor painting again, this time using a photo from my recent plein air workshop in Calella de Palafrugell as my reference. Both my demo paintings are on the "Cezanne" 140 lb rough watercolor paper from Hahnemuehle. I was demonstrating alongside my co-organizer of  Plein Air Brandywine, Yvonne Mucci; and I invited my house guest Gerilyn Gaskil to join us. I gave each of them a block of the paper to use, and both of them loved it every bit as much as I do.

Brandywine Plein Air

October is a busy month for me with plein air festivals, demos, classes, and workshops. The Brandywine Valley Plein Air festival kept me on my toes for the last couple of weeks, as I am both a participating artist in it, and I'm also one of the organizers.

A couple of weeks ago, Yvonne Mucci and I demonstrated plein air painting live at our event's patron party, and then raffled off our demo paintings at the end of the night. Here we are with the lucky collectors who got to take our paintings home with them!

I also demonstrated plein air painting live on Saturday and Sunday at Winterthur for visitors to the exhibit. Here I am with the collectors who purchased my demo on Saturday before the paint was dry!

The patron party on Friday night drew all the best people, of course! Here I am with Yvonne, who is also on the plein air planning committee with me, and our wonderful sponsor from Janssen's Market who catered over a hundred lunches for all the artists, volunteers, and staff, every day of our event -- for several years! 

Under the bright lights of the tent at the patron party, with Dave Bart from Jerry's Artarama, Jeanne Bruneau, and Yvonne.

In the four days of painting, I created nine paintings, plus I finished two demo paintings during the weekend exhibit. Five of my paintings sold during the exhibit, same number that have sold every year! This is my 1st painting from Monday at the Wilmington waterfront. There were no boats there that day, just seagulls and geese and a cold and dreary sky. This watercolor painting was the 1st one to sell. 

While at the waterfront I also painted this watercolor on canvas. Wilmington Waterfront, 12x16

This is my Quick Draw --  the Blacksmith's shop in Marshallton. This 8x10 sold quickly. 

Some of my paintings sold before I had a chance to photograph them, but there are a few others that I will post here next week after I've had a chance to catch my breath. November is a busy month, too, so I have to pace myself and not stay up too late on the computor!

the best studio lighting!

I recently got this new task lighting from the Daylight Company for my workbench. The design is so thin and unintrusive that it's almost invisible in this photo. The lamp comes with another clamp as well, which allows it to be mounted on the mast of an easel. This lamp is compact enough to take it with me to classes and workshops, providing optimum lighting anywhere I go. It is goosenecked, dimmable, and the head swivels and turns to cast the light in any direction.

The light is truly colorless, and the lamp produces more light than all my other workbench lamps, combined.

The lamp is perfect for photographing artwork, too.

 When I mentioned to the daylight company how wonderful the lamp was for finishing plein air studies in my studio and providing the perfect lighting conditions for photographing my paintings, their response was something along the lines of "oh yeah? here hold my beer!" and they sent me MORE lamps! This Luminos lamp with the rolling floor stand is the absolute ultimate in studio lighting.

The Luminos lamp puts off a tremendous amount of light, and really creates daylight in the studio. 

The Wafer 2 lightbox is so thin it is really better described as a pad and not a box. That's my old lightbox on the bottom, with the Wafer 2 on top. The Wafer 2 weighs almost nothing, is less than a half inch thin, and is LED sandwiched between acrylic sheets which makes it almost indestructible. 

  

These products are all available at Daylight Company, and if you order and use coupon code AnnieStrack17 before the end of the year, you will get a 20% discount on your order!

Demos and Plein Air next week!

Next weekend I'll be at Plaza Art in Towson , Maryland, to demo paints and mediums for Amsterdam Acrylics during the annual Hands on Creativity event.

 This popular art expo brings together representatives from all the popular brands. Artists can come and check out all the new products, and learn new techniques and skills from seasoned professionals. I hope you'll come out and see me at this event!

Right after I finish my demos in Towson next Sunday night, I will rush up to West Chester to start painting in the Brandywine Valley Plein Air festival. This is a week long event of intensive painting including a quick-draw and a nocturne, with a gala art opening and sale at Winterthur the following weekend. I'm on the planning committee of this event, and I'm thrilled to be part of the largest plein air festival in the region!

In other news, I'm over the moon to announce that I just received Signature Status in the International Plein Air Painters (IPAP)! This is a huge honor to receive such recognition from the most prestigious plein air society in the world. I've been painting en plein air since before it was even called that, and have taken my paints with me around the world several times. I'm thrilled to have been awarded this special and quite rare designation. It's my tenth Signature (my second one this year!) of my career and I'm proud of each of them, but I'm doubly proud of the international ones.