It was an overwhelming 3 and a half weeks of plein air events. It was mostly enjoyable and I learned a lot from it. Got a decent amount of money from it too!
Let's start with "Paint Sausalito!" plein air. It was hosted by the Sausalito Arts Center.
The cons: The boundaries of the event for the required days was restricted to downtown Sausalito. I'd rather have painted wherever I wanted to in Sausalito, because some of the better spots in my opinion are outside of downtown. Also, parking in downtown Sausalito is BRUTAL. If you want to park anywhere near the art center(the main hub of the event), it would cost $15 for the day. If you're doing that day after day, it will add up. Fortunately, the event staff was able to provide us with a parking pass that reduced the price to $6 a day. The crowds, though all full of respectful people, are relentless there. You can easily have hundreds of tourists walking by you as you paint, so if you're not willing to be occasionally interrupted by passerby's, this might not be the event for you.
The pros: We had BEAUTIFUL weather in Sausalito the whole week. Highs in the 70s and 80s with little to no wind. The fog mostly kept away the whole week, which is pretty atypical for Sausalito. Actually, I'm not totally sure it's not pretty sunny in September. Downtown Sausalito, although very touristy, has a ton of beautiful views and interesting subjects. Whether it's the marina area, parks with interesting sculptures, the waterfront with views of San Francisco, the East Bay, Angel Island and more, it's not lacking for paintable subjects.
The first couple of days were open to anywhere in the Sausalito area we wanted to paint. Vanessa had been wanting to paint at Fort Baker for years but we had never made the time to do so. This provided the perfect day for painting there. After carefully scoping the area out, I decided on this scene of the Bay Bridge with the Coast Guard boats in the foreground.
I had a funny interaction with two very drunk artists from out of town who were so excited that I was a) using gouache, and b) going to be showing my work at the end of the week. They never showed up though. Typical.
Although we were free to paint the rest of the week, we weren't required to, so I didn't come back to Sausalito to paint until Thursday. I first went straight for this scene that I had scoped before. I really liked all the variety of color in the scene as well as the contrast of light and shadow around the focal points.
"Statue At Vina Del Mar" 8x10 inches. Gouache on paper mounted to panel.
I came back to the same scene from Monday in Fort Baker to finish it. I'll get a better photo of it if it comes back to my possession after the show is over.
 12x16 inches. Gouache on paper mounted to panel.
The next day I just did a couple of small paintings in the late afternoon and evening to finish it. Fortunately, I won awards for both of these paintings so it was definitely a good play!
"Behind The Club" 6x8 inches. Gouache on paper mounted to board.
"Late Dinner" 6x8 inches. Gouache on paper mounted to board.
On Saturday, we had until 3:30 to turn in everything for judging. This gave me time to do a couple more small paintings and get them in right under the wire.
"Dockside Motif" 4x5 inches. Gouache on paper mounted to board.
"Sailing Around Angel Island" 4x5 inches. Gouache on paper mounted to board.
The awards ceremony was interesting. I won "1st Place" for the 6x8 painting of the of the back of the Sausalito Yacht Club. However, there was also a Best of Show, and Best of Show runner-up, ostensibly making my award third place.
We were also allowed to bring previously completed paintings to be shown separately from our plein air paintings. I was able to sell these two pieces the day I brought them in:
"Layers of Time" 16x16 inches. Oil on linen mounted to board.
"A Fine Day At McClure's" 9x12 inches. Gouache on paper mounted to board.
If you are interested in seeing these paintings in person, you can do so for the rest of the week. We take our paintings home at 5pm on Sunday, September 29th.
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