This afternoon, as I was talking to Baltimore Ellicott City to paint. “It’s what you might call a target rich environment for painters,” he said smiling.
Indeed. According to Beth Forbes, there are around 28 juried painters participating in this years “Paint It” plein air event. That doesn’t include the 41 or so other artists who deployed around the old mill for the weekend. She said that was more than double the number from last year. Beth works for the Howard County Center for the Arts and together with Lauren Neal from HoCo Tourism they gave the big picture of the event. They were manning an exhibit of works from earlier in the weekend that was set up at the Second Sunday Market.
The combination of the two events on a sunny, but not too hot, summer afternoon only made it all the more target rich.
For me the fun was also in talking to the painters. None of them seem to mind my inquiries about their work and the event.
And painters were everywhere today, tucked into to myriad of nooks and crannies so prevalent in the centuries old town.
Yesterday, at The Wine Bin, I even spied one painting while inside a store. I joked to Cheryll DuVall that being inside an air conditioned store was not exactly keeping in the spirit of the whole “plein air” thing. It seems to have paid off for her though. I spotted the picture she was working on in the store at the Second Sunday exhibit. It had a sold sticker on it.
According to Beth, tomorrow evening the HoCo Arts Council will host a reception and exhibit of all the artists, juried and non, at 6:30 PM. Since most if not all the artists did multiple pieces there should be plenty to see. The event is open to the public.
