A Week of Painting

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(Photograph by Grace Webber)

Last week I participated in the Bermuda Plein Air Festival. What an exciting, intense, and tiring week. Fifty-eight artists (local and from abroad) gathered to paint at various locations across the island. I felt honoured to be in the company of so many talented and professional artists. Plein Air painting, which is the style of painting outdoors, can be a challenge because of all the elements you have to deal with that aren’t issues while sitting comfortably indoors with a brush in hand. For example, there’s the weather. One day we had extreme winds that almost blew over my easel, and then it started to rain; not a good thing to happen when painting with watercolours. Then there’s the location to paint–to get the right composition on another day, I stood on a slope for several hours. That was hard on the feet and back. And of course, the light changes. A scene with beautiful shadows can suddenly change when a cloud moves in, or a boat on the water turns in the breeze, giving a completely different view than that one you are painting. When I was painting in town, a scooter I was putting in my scene disappeared when its owner hopped on and rode away!

The Plein Air Festival also included convivial meals with the group, workshops and lectures, and wonderful camaraderie. The culmination of the week was an exhibit of everyone’s work at the Bermuda Society of Arts gallery, with prizes for best watercolour, oil, pastel/acrylic, and best in show. I didn’t win anything (I didn’t expect to!) but I was excited to discover that two of my paintings sold.

Painting every day for a whole week taught me things about technique and style. I plan on painting a lot more frequently than I’ve done in the past, because, like writing, the doing of it has become something I need.

Here are the results of my efforts for the week:

Painted on Sunday at a property called Elysium: