Olmsted Plein Air Invitational

Last weekend as I waited for a family to arrive for their portrait session at Cator Woolford Gardens (http://www.frazercenter.org/inclusive-community/gardens/), I decided to explore the gardens and happened upon several painters.

I was excited to learn that these were some of the elite artists in town for the Olmsted Plein Air Invitational - http://www.olmstedpleinair.com/

Plein air painting simply means painting in the outdoors. From http://painting.about.com/od/landscapes/a/plein_air_paint.htm  "plein air is a term derived from the French phrase en plein air, which literally means 'in the open air'. It's a familiar concept today, but in the late 1800s when the Impressionists ventured out of their studios into nature to investigate and capture the effects of sunlight and different times of days on a subject, it was quite revolutionary. a familiar concept today but was revolutionary when the Impressionists ventured out of their studios to capture the effects of sunlight in the late 1800s."

The 2016 Olmsted Plein Air Invitational featured a 6-day rain or shine event (and had a little of both!) featuring thirty six of the world’s greatest collectible artists producing beautiful landscape paintings.

As you can see from these photos, I caught them on a beautiful, sunny morning with gorgeous surroundings!