Little Plein Air Painters

Last summer I was sitting at a coffee shop preparing to head out for a day of plein air painting at the Lakeside Plein Air Festival when I received a message on my phone from my fellow artist friend  Jim White. Jim was at the event too and he had apparently already been at it for a number of hours. The pictures accompanying his message were priceless. Jim lets kids help him paint his paintings. He is one of the few painters I have seen who do this. Most of us have been approached by children who would like to try painting of course-- but few of use are brave enough to allow a child to touch our pieces. Jim is the exception.

I knew I wanted to paint one of these pictures so I asked him if I could and he is a really kind hearted guy so he said yes. I didn't change much in the painting. I simplified the background, which originally was a complicated looking fence, and deleted some awkward-fitting clothing form the younger girl. The child painter and her sister (or friend--I'm not sure) are absolutely delighted to be participating in the Lakeside Plein Air paintout and this is what I was trying to convey. Although I enjoyed painting the girls, it was also a lot of fun to paint Jim's worn and colorful French easel with all the years of accumulated paint drippings.

A Plein Air Weekend

I spent a long weekend at the annual Lakeside Wooden Boat Show and Plein Air Festival. After a week of 100 degree heat the temperatures fell on Friday and I was wearing a jacket when I arrived at the gate Friday morning. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds in the afternoon and the jacket came off. Our final day was a breezy but warm Sunday, when the artists were invited to participate in a wet paint sale at the the park.

Jim White and I had decided we would kill some time by drawing people for free prior to the art sale, so we set up our easels and had some fun. Most of our clients were people who worked for Lakeside or children, but we didn't mind. The wind nearly took my paper with it a few times, yet every one seemed happy with their drawings. At least the price was right!

Here's Jim, doing his Sargent imitation.

Here's another friend of mine, Richard Maxfield, who's trying to sell some paintings. Or maybe he's just trying to explain his own unique creative process to them.

After the sale a friend and I took a dip in Lake Erie and THAT was extremely refreshing after being outside in the warm July sun all afternoon.

Here's a picture of my favorite subject from the weekend. I stayed with a great family and I asked one of the boys to pose with his rod and reel at dusk. I thought he would just stand on the dock and toss the line in once in awhile. Instead, he used real worms and he had a bite within minutes. It became an exercise in futility to paint him. The fish, a sheephead, according to my model, was reeled in after a few minutes of drama and it was a big, fat one! Unfortunately, the line broke and the fish swam away with the hook, which resulted in an interesting story about the actual size of the fish when he told his cousin about it later that night. It was getting dark so I took a few pictures, roughed the sketch in and finished it in the morning.

The Fishing Story

16" x 16"

SOLD