First Place Winner in Brush With the Blues Plein Air Competition

 Brooksville Palms - I painted this during the Brooksville "Brush with the Blues" plein air competition,an event that is part of the Blueberry Festival in Brooksville, Florida. I was very happy to be awarded FIRST PLACE for this painting!!!  A little background story:  We had Wednesday, Thursday and half of Friday to paint on location anywhere in Brooksville.  The paintings were judged and the reception held on Saturday, May 4.   It rained both days that I went there to paint, but luckily there were  periods of just drizzle and I was using acrylics this time so I was able to paint anyway. I set up on the street, looking at a back view of the courthouse. I was drawn by the composition of the magnificent palms that were in the parking area there, with the old courthouse in the background. I tried to capture the drizzly gray weather contrasted with the colorful foreground palm leaves. As I was painting on Friday morning before the noon deadline, some landscapers came with their cherry-pickers and cut off all the bottom leaves and seeds of the palms -- leaving them looking vastly different with just a few of the top leaves left!  Luckily I had already gotten most of it painted.  Plein air painting has many challenges: difficult weather and energetic landscapers are two of them!
BROOKSVILLE PALMS, Acrylic, 11x14"

 


A writer for the Tampa Bay Times, Logan Neil, took a picture of me as I was finishing up before the deadline on Friday.  Below is a clip from the newspaper:

Two recent  six inch square paintings:  Gulf Harbors II (oil) and Green Key Beach (acrylic)

Both were painted en plein air.  They are on the very wide edge stretched canvases and look great when hung without using frames!