The Plein Air Washington Winter Show was another amazing success! The PAWA organization comprising 350 plus members is one of the most dynamic plein air organizations in the country with many of the top painters. The Winter Show is the culmination of the years work and is consistently judged by the best artists painting now in the US and around the world. This year was no exception with Kimball Geisler as Judge of Awards and also our workshop instructor. Big thanks to Denise Cole, Scott Jones and the crew at the Cole Gallery for hosting again this year!
The Gallery began filling up with artists, collectors and members of the Edmonds art community as the awards presentation got closer and the excitement grew. After meeting friends and spending time greeting attending artists and family members Nora Masters, facilitator of events for PAWA introduced Denise Cole who said a few words and then the Awards Judge, Kimball Geisler.
The Materials Awards were given first and then the Honorable Mention Awards.
Kimball took time explaining his process of editing a large group of great paintings to just a few award winners. He explained how this process in no way diminishes the quality of the other work in the show and could change with another judge or even a different day.
Next came Third, Second and First Place Awards
Lastly the Best of Show Award was given to Ned Mueller for his masterful work " "Minaret Valley-Sierras"
Please go to the Plein Air Washington Facebook page to see photos of all the award winning paintings. This link will take you there. pleinairwashingtonfacebook
On to the Kimball Geisler workshop which was held at Art Works in Edmonds. Art Works is a joint project of Edmonds Arts Festival Foundation and the Edmonds Arts Festival Association and is the headquarters for each of these organizations. Opened in February, 2004, the mission of Art Works is to make the visual arts accessible to the local community and to provide a gathering place for artists.
In this large space, 20 plus artists gathered with their paints and pochades to learn more of the painting process from Kimball. He began the first day talking about the basics of painting three dimensional objects on a two dimensional surface by going back to the five parts of light and what he called "The Bowling Ball" or the sphere we have often seen explaining Chiaroscuro. He continued to explain why these concepts of light were very important to the painter of landscapes and are seen in every object hit by light as he demonstrated using reference photos.
The second day Kimball talked about value structure and emphasized "deliberate restriction of value to 3 or 4 values" saying that "color surprises come when values are done right".
The third day we looked at a lot of art as Kimball talked about composition stressing that you can be a "shape painter or a form painter or somewhere in between but you can't be the extreme of both". He also tried to explain "untruthfulness in designing a painting" where you rearrange elements in a landscape or shapes to" impose a narrative" and then demonstrated.
Kimball Geisler Demo Paintings
We were treated to demos all three days and had plenty of time to try out the concepts we were being taught as Kimball rotated around giving advice and critique.
As the 2024 PAWA season gets started it will be a lot of fun to try out new techniques and ideas gained from this workshop. I have already signed up for the Dosewallips Paintout and am looking forward to summer painting events. Hope to see you out there in 2024!
robin weiss
Student Work