Cheltenham En Plein Air Competition

Congratulations to all 70 painters that took part in Cheltenham's first En Plein Air event June 22 it was great to see you all enjoying yourselves.

What a joy filled day. The weather smiled on us and it was beautiful to be painting with so many people as this is generally a solitary experience for most plain air painters.It was a pleasure to meet each and every one of you and I was blown away to see so many different approaches to the landscape and the ingenious ways artists coped with the weather intense sun and breezy conditions. Well done to those artists who usually create in their studios and braved the great out doors for this event, we celebrate you.

Although I was a judge for this event I was lucky enough to paint for a few hours and enjoy this experience with you all.

I chose to use my palette knife to quickly create this 30 x 30 cm oil on ply, this is a great way of working if you have a limited kit and not many brushes with you. All colours were pre mixed for this into what I term as a family of colour, meaning that all colours mixed relate back to each other in some way. If this is a topic that you would like to hear more about do let me know.

Here are a couple of images of my set up and the finished painting:

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I will be revisiting ideas that will support you to work outside in a future blog post and will be sharing with you my preferred kit that I use.

Well done to the recognised artists of the day, you are all winners to me. I really enjoyed judging with Jen Gash and Conrad Clarke and we were clear with our criteria to embrace all mediums and approaches it was a great experience.

Jessica Bleasly - First prize

Jane Sasanow printed image - runner up

Angela Lord image - prize for Illustration / drawing

Hannah Drew image - Youth prize

Frances Brown - Bob Freeman award for attraction

There will be another plain air event in Cheltenham in early Autumn, organised and hosted by ‘Watch this space” and the incredible Niki Whitfield.I m just going to celebrate Niki's tireless skills as art coordinator for the first Cheltenham plein air competition and for the work she puts in to organising finding sponsorship and connecting the right people to make these events possible.

Much love to you all...