Mark Your Calendars

 
I know this is an early announcement, but you should mark your Calendars for Solomons Plein Air Festival.  The overall event takes place from September 16^th to the 20^th.  Over the coming weeks I’ll be highlighting some of the amazing artists that are schedule to participate in the wonderful event, but let’s back up for a minute.

A Plein Air event is when artists paint ‘in the open air’, in other words outdoors.  There’s no photograph taken back to a perfectly lit studio.  This is outdoors, with changing light conditions, and plenty of distractions, and lots of dynamics in play. 

There are several facets to the overall event.  The main event is for 26 invited professional artists from all over the country to compete for honors.  They start on Wednesday and have to Saturday to present finished works.  The artists will scout for the perfect subject in the Solomons area for their master pieces.  Saturday evening the submissions will be judged and then offered for sale.

Two other notable aspects are the Sunset Quick Draw and the Paint the Town for a Cause.  The Quick Draw will be on Thursday evening with strict start and finish times of 6 pm to 8 pm.  The artists only have that time to paint!  The canvases tend to be smaller than those of the main event, but they are still spectacular.  Since the time is so short most of the artists are on or near Solomons Riverwalk.  This gives the public a great opportunity to watch them paint.  Some artists will interact with the crowd, but please be respectful that they have work to do!

 

The Paint the Town for a Cause is another great part of this Plein Air Festival.  Again, there is a time limit, but registration is FREE.  This opens up the participation to a wider group of artist.  Last year brought out students from grade school to colleges, home school groups and other local artists looking for something new to try.  This takes place on Saturday from 10 to 1 with judging and sales to follow.  It was a blast last year and I’m sure it will be great this year too.  The cool part of this event is that a good portion of the proceeds are donated to local charities.



 Hopefully the photos here of last year's festival will give a small idea of what it was like.

And if you'd like to be a sponsor of this fabulous festival, please let me know!

Stay tuned, much more to come, but mark your calendars.  You won't want to miss this!