PPAP Paint the Newark Art Alliance Garden Tour 2014

Under clear blue June skies with perfect weather for some plein air painting, the PPAP traveled to Newark Delaware at the invitation of the Newark Art Alliance to paint at their 2014 Garden Tour. The group of painters Jen Polillo, William and Alina Sentman and myself arrived at the NAA gallery around 11 and meet the director and volenteers and got maps of the 11 gardens that spread across Delaware and up into southern Pennsylnania.

                                                                    The Asian Garden

Since the day was burning away fast we decided to try and scout out the closest gardens and then choose our spots to paint as we had only about three hours to paint. We did loose some time due to heavy traffic on 1-95 coming down due to road closures.

We started at the gardens on the grounds of President of the University of Delaware and then hit four more local gardens about 5 minutes apart.




















We decided to settle on the last garden we visited and then if time allowed to go back to the President's garden. It would have been great to paint all of the gardens but we would have needed more painters and more time. The tour only lasted till 3pm, so time was burning away fast after we picked our spot. The gardens all looked great but we need a "Goldilocks" spot that could accomidate the four of us and give enough views---and shade! I ordered my easel umbrella but it hasn't arrived yet and with a coudless sky you need some cover to paint and not get burned up. Except for the Presiden's garden most of the gradens we visited didn't offer that much shade.

The Wilgen Garden

We all finally settled on the beautiful garden and home of Julie Wilgen as it had everything we needed, good views, angles and shade, so we set up and got to work. Another benefit of the garden we choose was that there was nice music being played by the Serenata Strings and a cool friendly dog named King Solomon. Mrs. Wilgen was a gracious host and even brought us some water and refreshments.

I choose an angle where I knew the shadows would not change much and also give me a good contrast of light and darks. I painted on a panel I bought a while back at Dick Blick, I think it was a Blick cradeled panel, which had a nice surface that was slightly textured.

                         















Here is my block-in and my final painting.

                                                Here is apic of me working that Jen took

Here is Jen's block-in and final painting

                                               Will and Alina set up in front of the house

It was great time and we hand many on-lookers come by and watch as we painted through the afternoon. The clouds did come in about halfway through and the light changed for a time, but that's just something you have to deal with and plan for.

 


















The time went quickly and before you know it we were done! We had wanted to go back to the President's garden but the tour was done by the time we were done with our paintings at the Wilgen garden, but I did snap many pictures from the gardens I visited that I can work from if I desire.


Will once again painted with gouache and got a great result!

The group will be having a group show at the NAA Gallery in January which will include the work we painted during the garden tour as well as other work.

We'd like to thank the NAA for inviting us to come and paint during their garden tour and look forward to perhaps doing this again next year.