Best of Show: New Berlin Plein Air

Thank you to the Lions Club volunteers for hosting the New Berlin Plein Air Event.
I am so honored to have my painting selected as best of show by judge Lori Beringer. 

"And Just Like That The Sun Came Slicing Through"  oil on panel 16x20 

Best in Show $1200.  purchase award

I wish I had taken a better photo of the painting...there is a great deal of subtle color in the darks.

Here is my orchard painting.

"Breezing -UP" oil on panel 12 x 24 

detail

detail

detail... the wind was blowing so much I just asked it to stop for a moment 

so I could paint the wires on the telephone poles!

I thought I would have a couple of days to paint but I went to my Aunt Jeanne's funeral in Madison South Dakota.  She was a marvelous woman and it was a blessing to see my cousins and meet many of Aunt Jeanne's 55 grandchildren and 65 great grand children....honestly, she deserves the award!  I am so thankful I was able to go.  Anyway, I got back to Wisconsin, taught my class on Thursday...(super cool students) and on Wed. morning I set off for New Berlin to paint for the day.  I got my panels stamped at 8:30 m and headed toward the orchard.  It was windy and cold, my easel blew over twice but several artists stopped by to chat.   After 5 hours I finished up my orchard painting and almost thought of going home but I knew I had a little more in me.   I went out Calhoun road where I saw all these trees ...like an overgrown nursery.  I met Greg Long who is an accomplished landscape architect.  He gave me permission to pull my car off the road.   It was overcast and I was tired but I thought what the heck...this is my day.  I painted for two hours with only dense cloud cover and just as I was about to quit.....the sun lit up the little patch in the distance and I knew I had to continue.  I titled the painting,  "And Just Like That The Sun Came Slicing Through" ... I think it might have been my Aunt Jeanne parting the clouds for me!  After another hour and half I called it a day and drove home at 8pm.  Next morning I had the pleasure of watching my girls run cross country in Verona and then off to deliver my paintings back in New Berlin!  It was a thrill to arrive and find my painting had won the $1200. purchase award!   There were many very fine works in the show and I commend all my peer artists!  I met many wonderful people and ate some very good apples!  I will be back again next year!  

Low and behold another Award.

Wow!  Low and behold I was selected by Plein Air Magazine Judge Michele Marceau Ward owner of Principal Gallery  as the June July first place winner!   I receive a cash award of $1000.  and the chance to compete for the annual award.  I am honored and I thank Michele Ward and Plein Air Magazine for the opportunity!  There is nothing quite like painting!

My painting "Community Garden New Years Day" is the work she selected. 

I loved making this painting!  The work is available: email me with inquires.  handzlib@uww.edu

Second Plein Air Event - I won Best of Show!

I cannot quite believe it but I am falling in love with the plein air event scene.  The other painters are so kind and effusively joyful.  They are competitive AND supportive!  It is so exciting to meet all the onlookers and talk to the children and people who I otherwise would not get to meet.   
It was a Joy to go back to my home town to paint!  What an amazing city...West Bend is so cool.   The West Bend Historic Society Building is incredibly beautiful!   And I thank the League of Milwaukee Painters , the judges and Epic Creative and all the sponsors for all they did to coordinate te event.

I am so "chuffed" I won the best of show ($2000. award) and second place for my market painting ($250.) . The paintings are for sale until Aug. 22 at the Historic Society if you want to see them.

To the young family who is in my Regner Park painting....please contact me I have some news for you! 

My iphone 4 doesn't take great pics but here are the paintings! 

" Quiet Morning 2" oil on linen 16"x 20"   Won Best of Show!  I stood on this site for about 6 hours painting.  I loved looking at every window and detail ...I could find my way around town from the new Museum to the Historic Society and library to the theater and back over the white bridge. 

The "Books" truck is about the size of 1/2 my pinky fingernail in the painting and a big SHOUT OUT to the people up on the orange cherry picker assessing the brick of the old theater! 

Not a great photo but this little bridge was the link over the river that connected the new to the old!

Here I am with founder of Epic Creative.  Thank you for sponsoring the $2000. best of show award! 

Dad and Mom still live in town and stopped by while I was painting.   Thank you dad for bringing me the Tennies Ace Hardware hat!  Thank you mom for the cold water and for cheering me on!

Nearly done at this point...the light effect has now reversed but I used the Museum as my benchmark for light and shadow.... 16 x 20 doesn't seem that big in these photos but it is a lot of ground to cover for these events.

Here is my morning "quick paint"  at the market.  The remarkable thing is, the woman pictured with me below, grew all these vegetables with her husband and they bring them market every week!  I filled with gratitude to them for their labor and the beauty of their produce. 

Here is my very colorful 16" x 12" "I wish everyone could have a day like this" painting of Regner Park Lagoon.   

If the little family pictured here in the painting sees this please contact me!  I would like to tell you something!  Here is my email:  handzlib@uww.edu

The day I was painting this a young boy in an orange suit top came up to me and asked if he was in the painting....I said no but you will be...and I placed this orange dot where he and his sister would be.   Thank you to him for his enthusiasm and all the joyful music of children splashing and chasing that breezy day!

Big Thank you to Dad and Mom for all your help!  It was great to be in West Bend to paint!  

First Plein Event : Jefferson County Plein Air

First of all I wanted to let you know I am on instagram: pasmeche

And now for my latest painting adventure!

I signed up for my first official plein air event...and it was fun!  I got my linen panels stamped and away I went feeling exhilarated.    I painted the bridge...my eye was led to the school at the top of the hill.  A tall pine stands right next to the "tower" on the school... school (academic knowledge)  and nature at the top of a hill (spirit)... the wires on the left side also really balanced the bridge.   The arcs of the bridge distributing the load and the wire swooping down being pulled by gravity.

As I painting a whole bunch of people stopped by!   A boy on his bike came by 4 times and so many others stopped by to encourage me!   I made a small thumb nail and then settled into a 16x20 painting.  I started the big painting at about 9:30ish and didn't quit until about 4:00ish.   I went home feeling kind of discouraged but I knew the next day was the quick paint.  

When I got home with my painting and put it in the frame it looked much better than on site...I think I just need a drink of water and a couch!   Onward ho! 

On of the volunteers came by and took this photo!  I love the patch of sunlight on my panel.

Thank you to all the volunteers!

here is my little thumbnail / color study

Here is my work when I dropped it off!  I was thrilled to learn this work sold.  I will give my little color study to the collector as a gift...just have to get it in the mail to them!  

I was also so honored to receive the "Artist's Choice" award for this painting!  

Thank you fellow painters this award means so much to me!

Next Day arrived at 7:30 to get my panel stamped for the "quick paint"

Our car was being worked on so my wonderful husband dropped me off at the sign in table...I just walked to the nearest allowable corner and looked around.  There was the tree and the tower again...it was like a telescopic view !  I loved it right away and I knew I wanted to paint a big swath of sunlit cement in the foreground.  

Here is my Quick paint as I finished up... you can see the yellow building and the bridge and the school and the tree ... I loved the lamp posts!  And really steadied my hand to put in the wires!

Two of my biggest fans stopped by!  Thanks Dad and Mom! 

Low and behold my painting won the Quick Paint! Hurrah! 

It was really fun to hear the jurors critique my study.

I also found out this work sold!  Hurrah! Hurrah! 

After the Quick Paint I ate lunch with my parents and Pat, ran home and Pat took me out to St. Coletta's where I began painting the fountain!  I did two little color studies first. The fountain is so beautiful and as I was painting I learned the water is mingled with water from the Vatican and from Assisi Italy.   That made it even more special to paint!  A big storm came up fast but because our car was still in the shop I did not have a car.  Almost all of the employees were gone for the day so I ran for cover between buildings with my painting...I called Pat but he was 20 min away.   When I heard the alarms go off I ran around to a different building and a very nice woman let me in!

I went back the next day and painted a few more hours.  I really love the angels.  I think I might go back out to do another painting of them! 

 In order to make the angels "glow" a little I had to really amp up the color effects....it was super fun trying to figure this out with a time pressure.  This final work had to be back at the drop off sight finished and framed by 4pm.  This is a detail and you can scroll it over so you can see the paint color interplay better.

Here is another angel and below is the final painting along with the two color studies.  This is a 16x16" painting.   I am so honored that it was purchased by St. Coletta's and will be part of the permanent collection.   It was a pleasure to paint and the residents and staff were so encouraging and kind.

There are still some "strokes" I would like to add but all in all I am really happy with the work.

I am definitely going sign up for the Jefferson County Plein Air event next year.  Great people, beautiful town and really well organized.  

James Watrous Show!

The work is at the Gallery! 

Thought I would post my statement for the show followed by the poem for which the painting I am working on in the photos is titled: :The Peace of Wild Things.

 "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the

Universe”, John Muir.

Sometimes whole vistas emerge, other times it is a dead bird, bee or butterfly my

husband finds and brings to me, sometimes it is a pressed specimen, but most often

the work is about sitting low on the ground looking down or out at arm’s length. The

life scale heightens the verisimilitude; smells are evoked, sounds are not far. The

images are of plants connected to other plants, connected to dirt, connected to a

season, connected to a place, connected to a person. While painting Hepatica which

derives its name from the three lobes of the liver I was smelling the earth, my vision

seeped with the green sheen and fuzz of the leaves, another experience was evoked.

One of prayer for my cousin, who as a young woman has liver cancer. These

emotions, conditions are linked in the Universe. When painting a Lady’s Slipper with

its bulbous, bilaterally symmetrical flower poised on its leggy stem, I thought about the

symbiotic relationship of plant and fungus and about the beauty and strength of my

daughters how they will grow and go out in the wide world, and about the plants other

name Moccasin Flower...all this, evoked thoughts of solitude. Solitary flower, my

solitude painting, and now yours as you look, as no one else can, into this painting of a

plant that is connected to the peace of the woods and the “day-blind stars”.

These paintings are slow; filled with wind, changing light, breezes, mosquitoes and animal sounds... While in the field, much concentration is needed, the work is at times arduous-- at other times like a meditation.


Wendell Berry’s poem “The Peace of Wild Things” is the title of the painting I am making above.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. 

James Watrous Gallery May 17, 5-7 pm

I am honored to be part of this exhibit.  The opening reception is May 17 5-7pm .   

It would be great to see you there! Link :  Uprooted Plants in a Changing Climate