First Plein Air Painting at PVR

For those who haven't heard, "en plein aire" (pronounced: "on plehn air") is a French term meaning "in the open air". Just a fancy way of saying "outdoors". And in recent years, painting outdoors seems to be growing exponentially in its popularity among US artists. Even though I'm not a plein air artist myself, I've often thought the sights here at Painted Views Ranch would lend themselves quite well to all the plein air excitement among artists. Which is why we have a schedule for teaching artists to sign up to teach workshops in painting here at the ranch.

This past Saturday, two members from a group known as Plein Air Austin were here painting as a sort of "test drive" for our Ranch being a venue for one of the group's future painting outings. The good news is that Lori and Juanita seemed to have a little trouble deciding which of the many vistas here to choose as their "Painting of the Day". After scouting around a bit they decided on a shady spot, protected from a gentle breeze looking in a southwesterly direction that had some of our persimmon trees and about a five mile horizon in the view. Then they set up their gear, got after it with an air of determination, turned out a couple of good ones and even made it look easy in the process.

And here's a look at the end results.

  Pretty interesting, huh?

  Give each of these a click for a closer look.

  Very talented ladies!

 

Before they left, we talked about when the group may want to come out and the month of May seemed to top the list of possibilities. So if you're a plein air artist, or even just want to give it a try, make sure to subscribe your email address over there at the top of the right hand column, or "like" our Facebook page so that you can know when that event will happen.

And if you're a teaching artist, or a potential art student. and you're interested in giving or taking workshops here at the ranch, check out our website at:

www.paintedviewsranch.com

And who knows? I might even get up the courage to try this plein air thing myself. Seems a shame to let all these beautiful vistas go to waste, especially when I'm lucky enough to live here!