Painting by Robin Roberts of Decatur, AL A beautiful rendering of the area looking up River from behind Twin Bridges Golf Course.

Noccalula Falls - Always a favorite attraction for tourists and artists alike. This painting, done by Katrina Weber of Huntsville, Al, was completed from the view not seen by most visitors - near the wedding chapel at the Falls. It was also the artist's choice as the best painting completed on Tuesday of the Plein Air Festival. Congratulations, Katrina!

The mark of a good artist is to find an interesting angle not perceived by everyone and make us take note. I think Donna Chieves of Birmingham was successful in doing so - don't you? Someone else must have thought so, too - this one sold during the silent auction.

And I guess this would be considered the "big" winner - the Old Rail Road Bridge by John Guernsey of Marietta, Georgia. John won the "Best of Show" prize for this work done on the first day of the Festival

Wow! Plein Air 2010 came and went so quickly I can hardly believe it. And guess what? We're already busy making plans for 2011. Thought you might like to see some of the paintings completed this spring -- Enjoy! Look for more of the paintings plus plans for 2011 on my blog - More next week! Elaine (Girl Friday!)

Stormy Weather

The weather was really bad last evening, but thought you might like to see some of the photographs taken by Volunteers Harry Parker and Julie Curtis before the rains came!

Plein Air "Stars" for 2010

Well, the time is getting really close for GMA's 2010 Plein Air Festival and things are a bee hive of activity around here! We have a truly great line up of professional artists (Stars) for our Second Plein Air Festival:

Ron Bayens from Auburn (native of Canada)

Donna Chieves - Birmingham, AL

Dot Courson - Pontotoc, MS

John Guernsey - Marietta, GA

Greg Little - Oakland Park, FL

Susan Loeb - Atlanta, Georgia

Deborah Pellock - Suwannee, GA

Brenda Plunkett - Cave Springs, GA

Jan Polk - Southgate, Kentucky

Dmitriy Proshkin - Chattanooga, TN (native of Russia)

Craig Reynolds - Gadsden, AL

Ann Rhodes - Atlanta, GA

Robin Roberts - Decatur, AL

Ann Stickney - Northport, AL

Joan Ray Weaver, Fayette, AL

Katrina Webber - Huntsville, AL

Two volunteers have been busy with the camera taking shots of potential painting venues for the artists to consider. Here are a few of them for your viewing pleasure!

A Dickens of a Christmas

Things have been moving at a fast pace as we get ready for Christmas presentations - A Dickens of a Christmas and Memories of Christmas Past. One of the parts of the presentation will be a Christmas gallery of winter paintings that typify Christmas memories. Do you have one you would like to submit? If so, send a digitized image by e-mail to ecampbell@cityofgadsden by Friday, October 30. Be sure to include dimensions so that we can plan spacing. Artists will be notified of acceptance by E-mail on Wednesday, Nov. 4. Sorry, we cannot accept shipped paintings for the Christmas exhibit. Call for more information. (256) 546-7365)

Exhaustion & Euphoria

I took the week off after the Plein Air Marathon - I have felt both exhausted and exhilarated before, but never more so than on Friday evening, May 1, at the close of the Wet Paint Auction on First Friday. That auction, however, was not the end of the Festival. The night of the First Friday Wet Paint Auction we sold nine (9) paintings of the 32 that were up for bid. And the bidding began on those other paintings that were not included in the "Artist Selection" for the first auction. (Each Festival Artist could select one painting to be included in the Wet Paint First Friday Auction.) So, bids are ongoing on at least 45 of the other paintings completed during the Festival. More to come - we will officially begin the ON LINE AUCTION with the "Director's Choice" paintings (another 32 or so)for your purchase. The Webmaster will be in tomorrow to finalize the plans, but this is the format that we have proposed: Thumbnails of "Director's Choice" paintings will be up for bit, with link to enlarge for better viewing. Enlarged view will include Title, Artist name, Size, inventory number, minimum opening bid, current bid and bidding instructions. Bids will be sent via email so that date and time bid received is automatically recorded. Then the bidder will receive an email confirming the bid and telling whether the bid is the current high bid.
More information tomorrow after webmaster works on the presentation package for auction. Enjoy these other photographs from the most exhausting, most exciting, most exhilarating, most rewarding week ever at GMA!

The River was beautiful

I guess the most challenging day for "lunch" call was while the artists were painting around the Coosa River & backwaters. We even resorted to special delivery sandwiches that day so that prime painting time wouldn't be lost!

Works in progress

Somewhere along the line I forgot to continue to use my camera as I should have, but thought these photos showed a good sampling of artists at work. Photographs of paintings of some of the works will be included, and in my next blog I will cover the important ON LINE AUCTION which will begin Friday, May 15 or Monday, May 18, depending on webmaster time line.