We got on TV! Baker and Shuksan paintout

It was one of the more challenging paint outs logistically, but our facilitator, Karen Bakke ably handled it with enthusiasm and aplomb. Many of us stayed in the Mountaineers' Baker Lodge, together with another group of artists from Canada, and a photography group. It was a blast to see so many artists staying together under one roof, even for just a couple nights. I think PAWA got the other artist groups beat when it comes to wine consumption :).

(photo credit Susan McMamamen)

This is the second time I've been on a paint out at Baker, and the views are just spectacular.  The paint out was over the weekend. Saturday was a bit rainy and chilly, though people managed to come up with some spectacular plein air work anyway.

(Emiliya Lane)

Sunday, we got much nicer weather! With the sun out and blue skies.

(Laura Gable)

Among the guests at the mountainteer's lodge was Diane Lewis filming some of us for Evening Magazine -- and so PAWA got on TV! It's really fun to see the Evening Magazine segment, with much insights from Jan Jewell and Michael Hopcroft. I particularly liked Michael saying that "art is infinite."

Thanks again to Karen Bakke. One of the mountaineer's volunteers was talking about how they run the lodge, and he said that usually people trickle in Friday night and he usually had a few hours Friday afternoon to prep the lodge. "But this weekend, someone was there waiting for me when I arrived!" he said, incredulously. And Karen was like... "That was me!" Thanks Karen, your efforts made this one of the best paint outs of the year.

Featured Artist: Emiliya Lane

Emiliya Lane is a multiple award winning artist living, painting and teaching in Seattle, WA. She was born in Russia, and has been drawing and painting since she was three years old. Emiliya's parents were very supportive of her artistic gifts and enrolled her into art school at age 7. She has been constantly surrounded by the visual arts ever since.

After graduating from high school at the age of 16, Lane was simultaneously accepted to Ural State University and offered a job at a local film studio as an animator. So, the artist accepted the position at the Sverdlovsk Film Studio. After a 15 year career in commercial art, as animator and Illustrator, and earning a Master degree in Fine Art and Art History, she relocated to the United States and continued to improve her painting techniques with such masters as Scott Christensen, Jeremy Lipking, Pam Ingalls, Rob Liberace, Ned Mueller, Jim Lamb, John Bodicin, Ovanes Berberian, Kathryn Stats, Zhaoming Wu.

“I found a real joy in painting ‘ala prima’, directly from life, in the Russian Impressionistic tradition. The combination of color, light and brush strokes provided me with an intense sensation. Painting became both a profession and an obsession! The subtle effects of light upon a form or capturing the emotion of a very simple moment on canvas never fails to amaze me."

I really do think that there is really something about Emiliya's application of color, and handling of paint, that I cannot help but stop and look and wonder at her paintings.

Emiliya is affiliated with Oil Painters of America, Portrait Society of America , American Impressionist Society, Women Painters of America , Plein Air Painters of Washington and The National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society. She is a Signature Member of Puget Sound Group of North West Artists. She is represented by frankanddunya.com, Kronos Gallery and Brackenwood Gallery in Langley, WA. Her website is www.artlanegallery.com

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Speaking of wonderful artists, Michael Situ, this year's juror for our Meadows to Mountains show, is also doing a workshop November 8th and 9th. It's a wonderful opportunity to study under an amazing landscape artist. More information here.

More Congratulations

I just learned that a bunch of PAWA members won awards during the recently concluded Paint the Peninsula event, so more congratulations are in order. Congrats especially to Robin Weiss who won 3 awards including best of show!

Airstream and Tractors - Robin Weiss

Here are the awards:

Robin Weiss

• Best of Show for "Airstream and Tractors"
• Dungeness Light Station Award for "Driftwood Giants"
• Artist's Choice Award for his overall body of work.

Ned Mueller - Second Place for "Nash's Gas"

Jan Jewell - Olympic Interpretation Ranger's Award for "Righting a Wrong, the Remains of the Glines Canyon Dam"

Susan Ogilvie - Honorable Mention for "Salt Creek Morning"

Steven Hill - Honorable Mention for "Sol Duc Morning"

Jim Lamb

• Special Sponsor Award for "Beach at Marlyn Nelson
• Third Place in the Quick Draw for "Industrial Stream"

Melanie Thompson - Special Sponsor Award for "Shifting Waters"

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Also congratulations to all who have been accepted to Plein Air Washington's annual juried show. You can see the published exhibit at the daily brushwork website. Everyone's been doing so much good work!

Two PAWA members win June/July Plein Air Salon

Plein Air Magazine's awarded not one, but two Plein Air Washington Artists members in their June/July Plein Air Salon. Congratulations to Ned Mueller and Melanie Thompson! Ned won 3rd place overall, and Melanie won best artist under 30.

Here's Ned's painting, "Lowtide-Mevagissey, England"

 And here's Melanie's "Around the Bend"

Both are absolutely stunning. Congratulations again, well deserved, obviously.

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By the way, speaking of competitions, I just learned that because of some billing snafu, PAWA's deadline for our annual art show and competition is extended to September 20. So there's just enough time to squeeze a painting in!

To be honest, I wasn't feeling like submitting anything this year. I had many excuses, like the fact that we have so many world-class talent in our ranks (see above), and how I hadn't had as much time painting as I wanted this summer, and so on. But I decided what the heck, better to have tried and failed than to not have tried at all. So I entered what I thought was a last-minute painting.

And now with the deadline extended, you can submit your very own last minute painting too! :)

Featured Artist: Jolyn Wells-Moran

Continuing our series highlighting our premium members, this time we feature Jolyn Wells-Moran. 

"There aren't any better days than the ones in which I feel that I’ve accomplished conveying my aesthetic and emotional experience of nature -- although I love the struggle, drama and comedy of the actual process too,"  says Jolyn Wells-Moran. Wells-Moran is a plein air painter in oils. She often uses her plein air studies, memory and sometimes photographs to enlarge upon a plein air piece, or to develop it further, in the studio.  Wells-Moran studied at the Marchutz School of Art, Institute for American Universities in Aix-en-Provence; minored in Art in college; and has taken workshops and classes from Kathryn Stats, Camille Przewodek, Pam Ingalls, Eric Jacobsen, Mitch Albala, Charles Emerson and other fine artists-instructors.

Here's some example of her work:

To me, Jolyn's strongest work really evokes a sense of the atmosphere of a place. Wells-Moran was recently named a finalist in the Artist's Magazine's Annual Art Competition, received a Special Recognition Award for Outstanding Art from Art, Space & Time Gallery's 2014 International Open Competition and was featured in the editorial of Southwest Art Magazine, “Top Honors,” January, 2015. Her work can be seen at Gallery North in Edmonds, WA and upcoming shows in the fall, to be announced on her web site. She will show some work from Baja California Sur, Mexico, Arizona, Canada and the Pacific Northwest.

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By the way, there's less than a week left for our upcoming art show and competition! I hope everyone is wrapping up their work. Paint, paint, paint!

Hurricane Ridge, Mt Vernon, and Deception Pass

Well, we had a fun couple of paint outs since I last posted. The Hurricane Ridge paint out had a surprisingly large number of people come out and paint, maybe 20 of us were there over the weekend. I was there on Saturday that weekend, and has a really nice time painting the scene with the dramatic clouds over the mountains.

Towards the end of the day Karen Bakke and I were starting to paint a mountain slope, when it started raining really hard! My painting did not do well in the deluge and ended up looking like this:

Karen had better luck with the oils, and while we had to pack up quick, she finished the painting in the studio:

The next week, we had a nice sunny weekend in Mt. Vernon/Deception Pass paint out. I was only able to go to the Mt. Vernon one, but it was nice to paint side by side with Sharon Curran, who did this lovely painting of the Skagit River:

Couple more from the paint out:

(Kathleen Ritz)

(Brooke Borcherding)

By the way, the deadline for the upcoming art show and competition coming pretty soon.  This year's theme is Meadows to Mountains, and will be juried by Michael Situ. The deadline is September 15. Here's the prospectus. Happy painting!

Featured Artist: Sylvia Carlton

I'm glad to say that the second in our planned regular series of posts highlighting our advertising members is Sylvia Carlton. As the founder of Plein Air Washington Artists, all of us in PAWA owe Sylvia a great debt of gratitude. If not for her founding PAWA and being its president for a large part of its existence, we would not be the organization that we are now.

More in Sylvia's own words:

As PAWA founder, I am passionate about painting outside on location. I love being outside painting what I see and how it moves me. The beauty of the landscape is like music to me. I want to paint the day’s light in all of its subtleties and its glory. 

I am also a studio painter inspired by what I see outside and through inspirations by ‘painting from life’  usually florals. I rarely paint from photographs but rather from smaller paintings, sketches and still life. 

Always eclectic, my style will change depending on how my painting unfolds or how my subject speaks to me. My work can range from traditional to whimsical and abstract. I interchange materials such as Oils, Acrylics, and occasionally Oil Pastel. 

When others are able to experience the beauty of the natural world through my artwork I am happy. I was honored to have been chosen to show a number of my plein air paintings in the inaugural exhibit at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art.

Here's a sampling of Sylvia's work:

Poppy Daze

Rainy Day At Skagit Wildlife

Orchid Splendor

Coastal Storm

Personally as someone who likes to paint in acrylics, I find it inspiring and comforting whenever I see Sylvia painting in acrylics in our paint outs, among the sea of oil painters (not that there's anything wrong with oil painters). Regardless of medium, there is a directness to Sylvia's work that I really appreciate.

Sylvia's work is available online, www.sylviacarlton.com, at her studio on Bainbridge Island by appointment anytime, or through Blue Water Artworks, Poulsbo WA.

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In other PAWA news: our prospectus for the upcoming art show and competition is up.  This year's theme is Meadows to Mountains, and will be juried by Michael Situ. The deadline is September 15. Here's the prospectus. Happy painting!