"Afternoon Garden", 8x10, oil on panel, plein air, Lighthouse Plein air Festival, Palm Beach, Jupiter, Florida, Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach Garden Club, wet paint

SOLD

"Afternoon Garden", 8x10, oil on panel, plein air

Here is another painting that I did for the Lighthouse Plein air Festival, which sold at the gala.

I painted it in the afternoon of the second day of the event and it was a lovely day in the gardens of the Society of the Four Arts. As I mentioned in my last post, the Society is located in Palm Beach and the gardens are maintained by The Garden Club of Palm Beach. There is an abundance of beautiful color there in the garden, as well as beautiful art sculptures everywhere.

The night of the gala there was a wonderful crowd of art enthusiasts and many paintings were sold that night. Here is my wall of four paintings from the gala:

If you look closely you'll notice that my paintings ended up sandwiched between Neal Hughes (who won first place) and Shelby Keefe, (who won second place). Neal painted right next to me in the Japanese garden one morning and it was an honor to have been juried into a show that included artists of such incredible talent. Morgan Samuel Price judged the winning paintings at the gala, and as I said in yesterday's post, some of America's leading plein air artists participated in the event, so it must have been very difficult to choose the winners! Congrats to all who participated and thanks to the Lighthouse Arts committee for putting on such a lovely event and producing so many sales!

"Spanish Facade Garden", 9x12, plein air, Society of the 4 Arts, Palm Beach Garden Club, Lighthouse Plein Air Festival, Spanish facade

"Spanish Facade Garden", 9x12, plein air

The painting above was painted on location at The Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, Fl., during the Lighthouse Plein Air Festival a few weeks ago.

The gardens there are maintained by the Garden Club of Palm Beach and they are truly lovely and serene. For my first painting of the festival, I chose a shady area of the gardens that is called the Spanish Facade, because they built a small replica of a Spanish hacienda there. The gardens were in complete shade in the morning light, and although the sun began to produce dappled light throughout the garden as the morning progressed, I knew I had to stick with the original light pattern that I started with rather than chase the light.

The festival was wonderful and some of the best plein air painters in the country participated including Shelby Keefe, Jason Sacran and Ken deWaard, who painted right behind me in the Spanish facade garden that morning. I managed to paint 4 paintings in a short time span and I was pleased with the results. I'll be posting more paintings from the event over the next few days.

Here's a pic of the finished painting in the garden. You can see the the light was very different at noon from when I began the painting around 9:30.

If you are interested in purchasing this plein air painting, please send me an email at maryanneJacobsen@aol.com

"Morning Light, Edson Keith Mansion", plein air, 14x11, Sarasota Florida paintings, Paint Sarasota, Light-Chasers, gala, award-winning paintings

SOLD

"Morning Light, Edson Keith Mansion", plein air, 14x11

It has been way too long since I posted in this blog, but I am hoping to get back into a regular schedule very soon.

To begin to catch up, I thought I'd do a post about the "Paint Sarasota!" paint-out that I particpated in a few weeks ago. The plein air competition is run through the Light-Chasers organization, an avid group of plein air painters out of Southwest Florida that includes some illustrious master plein air painters like Bill Farnsworth, Hodges Soileau, Katie Dobson Cundiff and Dominic Avant, to name a few. The group is large and run by  a board of directors, with Terry Mason, of Sarasota, as director.

Terry works very hard, and this year her hard work really paid off when the annual Paint-out and show produced over $10,000 in sales , which will be put to good use to help restore the historic farmhouse at Phillipi Creek.

It was a fabulous night for me, personally. I was gifted with an award by the amazingly talented and wonderful judge Morgan Samuel Price, which included a Raymar wet paint carrier, filled with an asoortment of incredibly wonderful Raymar panels, as well as a generous gift certificate to Sarasota Art and Frame. Here  I am with the thumb's up sign to signal my happiness!

In addition, my painting sold to an amazing artist in her own right, Louise Pond, who took 2 nd place in this year's plein air competition. Here is a picture of Louise with  Morgan.

To complete my hat trick, I won the raffle for Bill Farnsworth's lovely painting of the Edson Keith Mansion, "Hangin' with Albin." Bill is an amazing guy, with boundless energy to both paint and teach. He's won countless awards, been juried into OPA and other prestigious shows over the years, but still manages to hold workshops that are a blessing to artists like myself, who want to improve while maintaining their own signature style. I took one of Bill's workshops recently and cannot recommend him enough as a teacher! Here's the image of my beautiful painting!

The gala was a truly memorable  night and I had a chance to hang out with some special friends as well.

These paint-outs are a lot of work for both the artists and the volunteers, but the rewards are tremendous. The painting above was done on a sunny morning and I love sunny light-filled paintings. It is sold, but if you have any interest in it, please feel free to contact me about a similar commissioned piece at maryannejacobsen@aol.com.

Thanks for checking in! Hopefully I'll be keeping this blog more updated in the days to come!