LAST PAINTING DAY/QUICK DRAW/OPENING RECEPTION

Flowers by Donna Chieves

Landscape painting by Dot Courson

Musical group painting by Robin Roberts

What a week! Artists have painted everyday—even under threat of tornados on Wednesday. By 9 p.m. Thursday, 124 new originals were hanging on the gallery walls at the Gadsden Museum of Art—everything from grand vistas to intimate flower studies, musical groups to garden ornaments, street scenes to charming cottages.

Today the artists paint in the residential historical districts—Turrentine Avenue; Haraldson, Reynolds, and Walnut Streets; and Argyle Circle. This morning they are painting houses and gardens in a leisurely fashion but this afternoon they will switch to “quick draw” mode. A Quick Draw means that the artists get set up on the view of their choice, a whistle blows and the artists have only two hours to complete a painting before the whistle blows again. Ruth Reynolds, the widow of the artist Leo Reynolds and the mother of Craig Reynolds, one of the professionals participating in the Southeastern Plein Air Invitational, has generously donated the prizes for the Quick Draw.

Best of Show and other awards will be presented this evening at a reception at the Gadsden Museum of Art, 6-8 p.m. The public is invited to see the paintings, participate in a Wet Paint Auction (silent auction) of the artists’ choice of their best work (two from each of the15 professionals), and meet the artists.