Vive le Plein Air

Capturing Our Rocky Mountain Landscape

The leaves have popped here in southwestern Colorado within the past ten days and it has felt like full-on summer since last Friday.  We’ve been transported from a long, bleak period into a lush, green season as fast as you can paint a scene.  The rivers and streams course between and within our mountains, creating a thunderous soundtrack throughout the land; our bright, sunny days are melting the snowpack at twice the usual rate. Today on my walk I spotted my first lupines of the year, tall bushy blooms with purply-colored flowers hanging thick on the stalks like grapes on a vine.

When I interviewed Ronnie Palamar, director of the Sheridan Opera House in Telluride, a few weeks ago for my Travel Fun radio show, the summer season seemed light years away.  Now it’s nearly upon us (officially) and what a great season it is for outdoor painting. The Impressionists were particularly consumed with the effects of changing light on color outside.  Pissarro, Manet, Monet, Degas and others took to setting up their canvases en plein air, or in the open air, creating some of the finest pieces of the Impressionist movement.

The striking scenery of Colorado, with its often dramatic interplay of light, provides the perfect setting for painting in plein air, especially during the summer when the days are plenty warm for standing outside at great length.  Plein air festivals have taken the country by storm in recent years, some of which originated on the coasts.  The Telluride Plein Air festival, modeled after the Carmel festival and created by the Sheridan Arts Foundation, is certainly the best known in the Rockies.  And now this year this terrific celebration of the arts is also establishing itself in Aspen in conjunction with the Sheridan Opera House and Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House.

Painting on Telluride's Main Street

Most of the works on view and for sale in both of these festivals are painted sur place, or on the premises, the week prior to the official festival opening.  For me, that’s the best part of this event; I love seeing the artists—some thirty painters in Telluride—set up their easels around town and in the surrounding area at all hours of the day and night.  Indeed there’s a certain romanticism about it all and fortunately the artists don’t seem to mind if we peek over their shoulders and perhaps even ask them a question or two.

Both the Telluride Plein Air and the Aspen Plein Air festivals are marked by exhibitions and demonstrations that are great fun to attend even if you’re not shopping for a treasure.  Be sure to check out the Quick Draw Competitions where artists must complete an on-site painting within only ninety minutes. Now that’s what I call a showdown.

The Historic Sheridan Opera House

Click on the play button below to hear Ronnie talk about the historic Sheridan Opera House in Telluride and also the seventh annual Telluride Plein Air and the first annual Aspen Plein Air festivals.  She tells some wonderful anecdotes about the artists that you won’t want to miss.

Telluride Plein Air, June 28-July 4

Aspen Plein Air, July 6-July 10

Photo Notes

The top photo features Niles Norquist painting in Telluride.  Niles will be returning to the Telluride Plein Air Festival this year.

“Home of the Ski Bum” below was painted by Wayne Mckenzie, a local artist that will be featured at both the Telluride and Aspen Plein Air festivals.  Ronnie recounts his story in the above interview.

If you’d like to host an artist in Telluride or Aspen during these festivals, contact Ronnie at ronnie@sheridanoperahouse.com. That’s a wonderful way to support the arts for which you’ll even receive a painting as a special thank you. Commissioned pieces may also be arranged for particular scenes; contact Ronnie for those enquiries as well.

Home of the Ski Bum