Honorable Mention at the Carmel Art Festival and Plein Air Painting Competition

My Quick Draw Painting from Sunday morning 6" x 8" Hill at Carmel River Lagoon. sold
I don't have a great photo of this because it was painted and framed in 2 hours ,but this gives you the idea. It is still on the easel, wet with an awkward shadow on it. I went to Carmel River Lagoon because I like the hills and open space so close to downtown. And you need to limit driving time with a time limit like this.

H0norable mention Carmel Art Festival Top of the World Carmel Valley 12 x 16 sold

The second plein air event in May was the Carmel Art Festival. The best things about this event are the location, the other artists and the artwork one gets to see in the galleries in Carmel. This is my fourth year participating in this event and my third time of being lucky enough to get an award. I painted up in Carmel Valley where the hills and sunshine lend themselves to my technique.

I don't know if I am just exceptionally lucky in my section of the alphabet but the artists around me are really accomplished and are fun to hang out with as the sale progresses ....Larry Moore, Donald Neff ,Michael Obermeyer, Robert Sandidge, Julia Seelos....and that's just M through S! Other favorites at this festival include Cornelia Emory, Larry Cannon, Mary Lou Correia, Kim Lordier, Terri Ford, Paul Kratter and Kevin Courter. There were 60 artists at the festival, so I won't list them all!

After the paintings were hung on Friday night, it was a pleasure to check out the galleries in town. The highlights for me were the William Hook show at Portnoy Galleries, Lesley Rich and Paul Kratter at the Nancy Dodds Gallery, Kevin Courter had a nice selection of work at New Masters and the highlight has to be Kim Lordier's one person exhibit at the Reiser Gallery.

We had great weather all week and I enjoyed the quick draw this year as I tried a smaller format that worked for me as a nicely realized abstract painting versus a sketch.