For the last month or more I have been busy with visitors and painting as much a possible.
The Olmsted Plein Air event was here for a week and I attended the Quick Paint on Sunday 4/26. They had a very impressive list of painters and I was able to spend some time with the few I know. Of all the recent co
mpetitions I wanted to do well here and after some prep work on the previous weekend, I was set to perform. I did an 8×16″ and thought my work was good but in the end, was not chosen. This perhaps was due to poor placement and some bad choices. I was a little stunned but I did sell my painting and that helped my ego a bit.
Australian artist Leon Holmes and new wife Sara came to Atlanta on their way to the Forgotten Coast gig at the end of April. They have been touring and painting the West after attending the Plein Air Convention in California. I picked them up at the Atlanta Airport and after a day or so here we traveled down to Apalachicola for the event. On the way down we met up with fellow painter David Boyd for a painting session at a junkyard filled with vintage 40’s Ford trucks and cars. While there I was stung by some kind of bug on my left foot and ended up limping around for mos
t of my stay in Florida. I was not one of the invited artists but I went down for the Quick Paint on Sat. 5/2. Leon and Sara stayed as guests and I rented a hotel room for a few days. I did several paintings in addition to the Quick Paint, sold one but did not finish in the money once again. Still, I had a great time. The weather was perfect – cool and breezy and the oysters were out of this world—fresh and tasty. I drove home Sunday 5/2 by myself.
The Forgotten Coast lasts for ten days and Leon did fantastically—after a huge success last year I was a bit fearful of a possible sophomore slump but again he kicked butt —pretty much selling out. We met back up afterward and they spent a few days here before renting a car and driving up to NYC for a brief stay before flying to London. One cannot but admire the energy they have maintained on their plein air adventure around the world.