Friday, August 5, 2016

Summer Blooms

Summer Blooms
plein air oil  10" x 8:
SOLD

I recently participated in a plein air event hosted by the FOX Garden Group.  FOX is the "Friends Of eXtension", which is a part of the Colorado State University Extension Group.  This group deals state wide with "serving current and future needs of Coloradans by providing educational information and programs that safeguard health, increase livelihood, and enhance well being."  There are Extension offices in many towns in the state.  In Colorado Springs they have volunteers who who can call to ask questions about gardening, plants, etc.

The local FOX group has an annual garden tour.  Last year, my plein air group, Garden Artists, was invited to paint during the 2 day annual event.  That was a big success and this year we were invited once again.  I spent 2 days painting in 4 gardens.  This painting was done in the Saturday afternoon garden.  Not only was the event wonderful for gardeners to see gardens new to them, but for me, being a gardener and artist it was amazing!  (Also, it was in a neighborhood very near to mine and so convenient!)  The FOX group is very organized;  there were several volunteers in each garden to answer questions about flowers & gardening.

It can be challenging plein air painting under any circumstance, but with 100s of people touring the gardens I had to be very focused.  Many of the visitors had never seen a plein air painter and came to talk to me.  It was a great marketing event and overall a win, win situation.  I'm already looking forward to next years' tour!


2 comments:

LindaHunt said...

Oh this piece...stunning!

Pam Holnback said...

Thank you so much Linda. I think that the pressure of having people walk by really made me focus and paint!