Tuesday, April 24, 2012

April 12-15 I attended the 1st annual Plein Air convention, hosted by Plien Air Magazine and it's publisher, Eric Rhoads.  I sketched every day, in my way of taking notes, here are the results
1st day, finding my way in...

Some random notes during the 1st installment of the Marketing Boot camp.  6:30 am every day!

A demo by Peter Adams, a very funny and charming painter.  Mr Adams is also the president of the California Art Club. Riffing on the pallet decoration theme.

A three man Demo: Tony Pro, Jeremy Lipking and Alexey Steele.

They were the only figurative painters doing a demo during the conference.

Alexey Steele overlapping with a presentation by Clyde Aspevig, who gave a very  insightful presentation about painting and his thought processes.  He talked a lot about fractals in nature, repeating shapes from big to small all around us. When I went out painting several days later it was almost all I could think about! 

Drawn while listening to a presentation about John Singer Sargent, by Richard Ormond, a scholar and relative of the painter. 

Sketch of  a demo by Ulrich (Uly) Gleitner and some notes from the Marketing Boot camp.

More notes, and the beginning of a very impressive 1.5 hour demo by painter Ken Auster.  He painted a 60" x 40" San Francisco street scene from a photo, freehand and quickly!  A good lesson is just going for it and not being fussy!

Ken Auster painting furiously!  Then the stage was set up for Matt Smith, a much more restrained painter.  

Demo by Matt Smith.  His demo style was very different from Ken's.  

Matt Smigh during his demo and Scott Christensen beginning his.

Scott Christensen demo and presentation.  Scott is a former athlete turned painter.

Double demo by Camille Przewodek and Ned Muller.  They were the George and Gracie of the Convention, with the roles reversed!

Some notes on painting and more demo's.  

Nikolai Dubovik, Russian painter.  I was pretty much running out of steam by now! 2 full days of demo's, lectures and slide shows!

My quick sketch of some of the Beers I sampled at this years Firkin Festival, held at Triple Rock Brewery in Berkeley, on April 7th.