Thanks to great leadership and lots of volunteers willing to put in hours of time, there have been many opportunities during the dark days of covid to paint with friends at Plein Air Washington Artists, either online or at pop-up paint-outs.
One recent online event was the Father Christmas Zoom Portrait Painting Session. Twenty members participated in this session, and it was such a big success that Karen is working on planning more portrait sessions in the future. In fact, I just heard there may be two more sessions in January.
In the past artists have participated in and looked forward to the big, annual end of the year show at the American Art Company in Tacoma .
This year of course, it was conducted online with as much or more participation than usual! PAWA leadership and volunteers worked hard to get the virtual gallery in place and line up national, award winning artist, Dave Santillanes, as judge of awards. There were 260 entries by 96 artists and 188 paintings accepted. Every artist who submitted work had at least one entry accepted.
After we all settled in front of our collective screens for yet another Zoom event, Susan Mcmanamen introduced Dave Santillanes. He did a great job of explaining his selections for awards and encouraging the artists. Veteran plein air painter, Ned Mueller, won Best of Show with his stunning figurative piece "Summers Roses". I was incredibly honored and surprised to win two awards in the show, First Place for "Front Street" and Best of Washington award for "Farm Stand Field". Also winning awards were Janice Wall, Second Place for "Wine Country Lane".
Joan Iatesta Smith, Third Place for "Blush Roses". Best Plein Air went to Steven Hill for "The Air the Air is Everywhere". Best Water to Jonathan Bradham for "Upper Christine Falls" and Best Expression to Melanie Thompson for "Shadow of the Earth. Honorable Mention awards went to Judd Mercer and Simon Bland. Big thanks to Dave and the whole crew at PAWA for another well run virtual event!
Be sure to read PAWA newsletters to get the latest on upcoming events and shows for 2021! We will be actively promoting and participating in plein air painting with all of our members in the coming months as Plein Air Washington Artists continues to grow into one of the premier plein air painting organizations in the country.
Happy Holidays to all of you, and much peace and joy in the coming new year!