The Woodbury FAF Arts Festival

The PPAP was invited to participate in the 2nd annual FAF Festival hosted by the City of Woodbury, NJ, just a hop over the bridge from Philly. Jacqualynn Knight, the Creative Director  contacted me a few weeks ago and was excited to invite the group of us over to plein air paint in the churches and scenes live as the event as it happened on Saturday and gave us a spot to display our work on Sunday. It was a great time and great weather and a great opportunity to paint and talk to a lot of people.

 Saturday we all arrived around 9-ish and signed in and then moved over to Braod Street and found spots to start painting. I was incredibly beautiful weather wise and a perfect day to paint. Jenn Polillo and Alexandra Thomas and I set up to paint the Memorial United Methodist Church, while William Sentman and Alina Osipove moved off to paint another church around the corner. Niloofar Gholamrezaei, who is in the MFA with me at PAFA set up in the parking lot behind the church.

 Jennifer set up near our table and showed us a great painter's stance as she worked away on her first painting.

 

Here is my painting of the Methodist Church, I had to work quick and had a lot of people come over and watch me work and ask me a lot of questions about my work and hat I do, if I do this all the time. I find it so funny that people always ask the same questions, "Are you and artist?" and "Are you painting that?" I am always tempted to answer NO to both!

Later in the day after lunch we all switched places to start more paintings. The shadows started to grow and the light was so great, but the time to get something down was really short, in 15 minutes the light at this time of day changes a lot of things.

Lexi and Niloofar chat as Alina puts a final stroke on her painting

Jennifer races the sun and turned out a great little painting really quick!

My second painting was pretty much a wash, but that's the way it goes painting outside. We wrapped it up and all went home pretty charged and also pretty beat from a long day of painting outside. Plein Air painting is a weird combo of relaxation and intense concentration at times as you have to race and make decisions as the light can suddenly change and then you have to decide what you are going to do--change and race the light or use your memory.

 

Niloofar did a a great little painting, she had a better idea than I did.

Sunday Niloofar and I showed up about 8:30  and set up over by the train station and went to work. I love Woodbury, it has a very Edward Hopper type feel to it, these old buildings are such a joy to paint and have such personality. I set up and went straight at it---and I felt a lot more in sync and also maybe not having my concentration broken by a crowd helped too.

  

 I did take a break and walk down the train tracks a way. I love tracks like this and the smell of the diesel oil takes me right back to being a kid wandering the train tracks by my house in Detroit.

 

A few trains did come by as Niloofar and I painted which was great.

I was almost done here and then it got pretty cloudy and suddenly the light changed, and it was near noon, when we were all supposed to meet up and set up our paintings to display.



 We set up our table and easels and ate lunch ready for an afternoon in the festival. The FAF comped us a table so that was great!

 

Lexi and Alina's paintings

Lexi out painting off of Broad Street

 

Lexi and Niloofar take a lunch break and Nilooofars paintings

       

Niloofar's painting we called Jesus's Garage as it was near the Catholic Church and a picture of me taking a cookie break.

 My final stage of my railroad painting, I had a great time with this and really want to paint this spot again! It had been well over a month since I had a chance to get back out and paint plein air--and boy did i miss it! i feel very recharged by it and hanging with my great friends and great painters!

 

Will's set-up and his great paintings, I really liked the one of the statue in the shade.

 Jennifer had to take off early but therest of us held down the fort till the end of the event at 4pm, then we packed it up and headed out. It was great time and we are all really happy and thankful to Jacqualynn Knight and The FAF and hope to return to Woodbury soon to paint it's quaint buildings and landscapes again soon.

Philly Rooftops

 The PPAP once agani gathered to paint on the rooftop of our friend Kathrine's apartment on Pine Street in Philly. The dog days of summer, or the Pittbull days or August have been replaced by the Poodle days, at least the past few days. I have been mostly painting at home the past month due to work and the crazy weather. Often it was just too  darn hot to get out and paint. I tried it in the heat and did get along for a time, but I always ended up having to pack it in becase of the weather. They say this is the wettest summer on record in Philly. I believe it--we had a huge storm this week which was flooding the region all over the, place including an F 0 tornado in Jersey. So like a few month's back Kat invited everybody to come over and paint off of the roof of her apartment which offers awesome views of the city to paint. I decide because of the time allowed and the wind to paint on a small  12 x 12 Ampersand panel. I did finish up the painting at home, adding a few little touches and especially reworking the chimney a bit.

                                                       Here is my setup--ready to go!

 You can see the process of Alina's painting in these two photos. they were smarter than me and stayed in teh shade.

 Aaron working on his first view for the day, but after his model left he ended up changing his view.

 As people came and went David Wilson showed up to race the sun and set up next to Alina.

 I had to stop it here as for one thing without and umbrella of coverage I was totally baked by this point and my eyes were done from fighting the glare.

 Lexi sketching away in her drawing pad like Kathrine and Narcissa did. That's the cool thing about these paint-outs, people come ,go and do whatever, from watercolors to pencils sketches, ballpoint pen to oils.

 It was just a glorious day and the sunset was just amazing! We all stayed late and ordered some pizza and watched the sun go down and the moon come up, what a great day!

4th of July Paint Out

 To celebrate my Independence day I didn't fight aliens, go to the movies , BBQ or watch any fireworks, instead I cruised around the Brandywine area hunting painting spots and eventually setting up to paint until the sun drove me back inside and back home. I scouted around for a good while driving the back roads around the Brandywine area off of Route 100 and  Route 92. I found so many awesome spots to paint- however so often they were on roads where there was no parking spot, no place to stop and set up to paint. A few spots I found the state troops cleared me off and said I couldn't park there. I think being on a motorcycle would be a great thing to have for spots like this--but I don't trust driving motorcycle--they are too deadly around these parts.

 The good thing is even thought there were a lot of spots I couldn't stop I took about 400 photos I can work with and noted spots I can go back to. It was hot for sure and the air conditioning in my car needs a recharge, so it was a hot ride in spots. but driving down these small winding roads there was a nice cool breeze in the shade. Eventually I stumbled upon Delaware State Park and drove in there and found a spot to paint. the trouble was there was no shade. So I put on some sun screen and my new hat that I grabbed at target, which is great for painting in the sun. i really need to get an umbrella for painting and I guess that will be my next purchase.

I knew I'd last maybe 90 minutes tops in the sun with the heat just beating on me, so iIworked fast and snapped pics as I knew I'd be finishing this in the studio.

This was my start and below I snapped another process shot. My eyes kept filling with sweat and it was hard after a while to judge the values a bit. I did take a break and sit back in the shade on the car for a spell to give my eyes a rest.

 I got things blocked in in around an hour or less and called it quits. But I got what I wanted which was my eyes and my sense of the space, colors, atmosphere. I snapped a few more pics and headed back home.

 After a shower a siesta and some dinner I worked from the pictures I snapped and finished up the painting in about 3 hours.  It was one of the best 4th of July's I have ever had!

                                                         Delaware Barns 16 x 20 Oil