"A Touch of Red in a Sea of Blue", 8x10. oil on panel, Lighthouse Plein Air, Plein Air festival, Palm Beach, Jupiter, Lighthouse, red lighthouse, DuBois Beach Park, Maryanne JAcobsen art, beach, Florida beaches

"A Touch of Red in a Sea of Blue", 8x10. oil on panel, plein air

Just returned from a week of painting on Florida's east coast in the 4th annual Lighthouse PLein Air Festival, covering an area from Palm Beach up to Tequestra, where the Lighthouse Art Center is located.

Overall, I had a great week, lots of painting and good weather for the most part. These plein air paint-outs are much more exhausting and demanding than most people realize, with traveling with gear from one loaction to the next, painting in all kinds of weather, then going back and framing the work, cleaning brushes and palette and getting ready for the next day's events. The event culminated with a gala event at the end of the week, with opportunities to win awards and display the work you've created and just relax after a week of hard work.

In spite of a bad cold, I kept going each day and was not unhappy with the results of my work. "A touch of Red in a Sea of Blue" was my favorite painting of the week, probably because it was painted in the most delightful spot immaginable at DuBois Beach Park in Jupiter. It was afternoon and I took advantage of the shade of the palm trees to set up, and there was the most delightful balmy breeze keeping me comfortable the entire time that I painted.

This was one of those paintings that I didn't need to touch up afterwards. It was fresh and vibrant and reflected the incredible blues of the water with the red lighthouse in the background as the scene reflected.

While it was not my first painting of the week, it was definitely my favorite! Please contact me at maryannejacobsen@aol.com if you are interested in the painting. It can be sold framed as shown or unframed.

"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!