Picture Perfect- Plein Air Artists Paint Acton
This past Saturday, July 20th saw the Helson Galleries Plein Air painting challenge, a contest where artists are tasked with painting a location outside in less than 3 hours.
The day was a scorcher, but that did not deter the 30 artists from setting UP their easels around the town to apply their artistic accents of Acton to paper.
“Given the weather today and the extreme heat we are just thrilled at the level of participation we had” said July Daley, curator for the Helson Gallery.
“It was wonderful, it was really nice, I mean it was grey and no light and terrible when we started, but there was a breeze at least, and then it turned out beautifully and the sun came out about 11 and that was enough to get the light and the shadows in” said Carol Hughes, one of the participants of the event.
Even the threat of bad weather, heat, thunderstorm and rain warnings were not enough to stop artists from coming all over Ontario, one traveling as far as Peterborough for their chance to pocket the prize money.
The prize? for first place, $200 and of course bragging rights.
This year had a total of $500 dollars of prizes being given out.
The winners are listed below.
First Prize ($200): Michael Brennan
Second Prize ($150): Maria Antoniv
Third Prize ($100): Keith Thirgood
Honorable Mention ($25): Marlene Madole
Honorable Mention ($25): Eunice Sim
Those in attendance selected by vote the Peoples’ Choice award, this years winner was Eunice Sim who took home an additional $25.
Prize monies were generously provided by Dale and Dave Cox, Bruce Andrews, Verna McLean, with this years judge for the event being Jim Reid, a landscape painter who has been working on the craft for over 35 years.
“I just finished judging the work, and I’m really impressed”, said Jim “ the quality of work, the vision, the immediacy, there’s a great variety of work from townscapes to landscapes”.
You can check out some more of our pictures… of pictures, here…
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