Overview:
Artists from 14 states will paint across the region, with public events and an Art Center exhibition to follow.
Connie Schmidt already has a list: Sprague Lake, Lily Lake, maybe Bear Lake if she can land a parking spot, and somewhere she can catch a few aspens beginning to change color.
Schmidt is not mapping out a sightseeing itinerary. She is deciding where to set up her easel during Estes Valley Plein Air, when artists have six days to turn the landscapes around Estes Park into paintings created on location.
“As you can see, lakes are kind of my thing,” Schmidt said. “Water is my thing.”
Water is especially fitting for Schmidt, who paints in watercolor and will participate in the event for the fifth time when Estes Valley Plein Air returns Aug. 20-25. The French term “en plein air” means “in the open air,” and participating artists work outside before submitting freshly completed pieces for an exhibition at the Art Center of Estes Park.
“There are now 38 artists from 14 different states,” said Lars Sage, gallery manager at the Art Center and organizer of Estes Valley Plein Air.
Colorado supplies the largest contingent, but artists are also traveling from across the country, including Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, Texas, California, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Schmidt came to the event from the other side of the easel.
A summer resident of Estes Park, she began painting in watercolor about 10 years ago after taking workshops through the Rocky Mountain Conservancy. Long before she entered Estes Valley Plein Air, she regularly attended its exhibition and watched the downtown Quick Paint.
She eventually decided she was ready to apply in 2022.
“My first year in Plein Air, I got an award, which was quite a shock for me,” Schmidt said. “It was the Mayor’s Award.”
The winning piece was, appropriately, a painting of Sprague Lake.
Watching a painting happen
Estes Valley Plein Air has been part of the community for more than three decades, although the organization behind it has changed.
Sage first became involved about 14 years ago as a volunteer with the Cultural Arts Council, the organization that founded the event. He helped with what was then known as the Quick Draw and later worked part-time for the council.
When its plein air program ended in 2016, Sage was serving on the Art Center board. Another board member asked what would become of the event, prompting Sage to write a proposal for the Art Center to take it over.
“Plein Air has been a long-standing tradition in Estes. It’s been around for over 30 years in this community,” Sage said. “It generates excitement from a wide range of people, and it’s neat that we can attract people from all over the country to come here and paint.”
One tradition that survived the transition is the Quick Paint, which will take place in Riverside Plaza from 8:30 a.m. to noon on Aug. 22.
“The whole point of that is to be able to allow the public to see what an artist goes through to change a blank canvas into a piece of art in a 90-minute period,” Sage said. “And then we auction everything off down there. It just adds a community feeling, which is really great.”
Schmidt has grown comfortable painting with an audience. During the summer, she paints outside two or three times a week and helps organize Wednesday outings for a local group affiliated with Plein Air Artists of Colorado. Those trips take painters throughout Rocky Mountain National Park and to locations around Estes Park, including Lake Estes, the YMCA of the Rockies, and Hermit Park.
Visitors regularly stop to see what she is doing.
“I like having people come and watch and ask questions,” Schmidt said.
Those interactions also make the Quick Paint one of her favorite parts of Estes Valley Plein Air.
“When we’re down doing the Quick Paint down on Riverside, we have people who know about it from the community who always come and watch, and they come around and take pictures of every artist that’s working that day,” Schmidt said. “But we also have a lot of visitors, and people just wander in, you know, ‘What’s going on here?'”
Painting against the clock, weather, and smoke
The Quick Paint may compress the process into 90 minutes, but the rest of the Estes Valley Plein Air comes with its own time pressure.
Artists paint Aug. 20-25 before turning in their work Aug. 26. Sage gives artists a 50-mile radius partly to encourage them to explore beyond Rocky Mountain National Park. Boulder, Loveland, and Nederland are all possibilities, although he said most painters tend to concentrate around Estes Park.
Rocky Mountain National Park’s timed-entry system adds another consideration. Sage sends participating artists information in advance so they can make reservations and plan around access restrictions.
Then there are the factors no organizer can schedule.
“The other thing I really don’t have much control over but do a lot of praying about is the weather,” Sage said. “That includes any potential rain but also the smoke.”
He said the event has generally been fortunate, with storms or wildfire smoke often clearing enough for artists to keep working.
Behind the scenes, Sage also has to recruit artists, coordinate the jury process, find hosts for painters who need housing, raise sponsorship money, assemble information packets, and organize the various events.
He initially invited 41 artists this year, anticipating that some would withdraw. His goal is generally to finish with between 36 and 38 participants. This year landed at the top of that range.
Estes Valley Plein Air is also a fundraiser for the Art Center, making sponsorships important in offsetting expenses such as judges, jurors, awards, and other costs.
Some additions to the week have come directly from artist feedback. After a participant suggested a group paintout several years ago, Sage began looking for a location and found one at MacGregor Ranch. Artists will return there from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 25.
“I’m planning on going out there and painting part of Bumpy Ridge again, not so much the buildings,” Schmidt said.
From the landscape to the gallery
Once the easels come down, the results move indoors.
Artists are asked to submit three primary paintings for the main exhibition, along with a miniature. They may also create a nocturne painting, made at night, and have a reserve piece available.
The finished works will be unveiled during the Estes Valley Plein Air gala from 5 to 7 p.m. Aug. 28 at the Art Center, with awards presented at 6 p.m. Approximately $11,000 in cash and gift certificates will be distributed across categories, including Best of Show, second, and third place, People’s Choice, Artist’s Choice, the Mayor’s Award, the Art Center Board of Directors Award, and awards for miniature and nocturne paintings.
Award winners are automatically invited to return the following year without going through the jury process again, although they still must apply. Sage also considers sales when deciding which artists to reinvite.
The sale and exhibition will remain open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily Aug. 29 through Sept. 27, giving visitors considerably longer to study the paintings than the artists had to create them.
Before any of that can happen, Schmidt still has to decide what landscapes will make it onto her paper.
“I started making a list already of where I want to go this year during Plein Air,” she says. “We’re kind of early, so there won’t be too much of the fall colors yet, but there’s sometimes a little bit in some locations. I’m trying to get at least one spot with some color.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.