

This summer I actually painted outside, for an entire afternoon! It was the first annual Plein Air at Beaver Farm, an all-day marathon of outdoor landscape painting to benefit Camphill Special School’s Transition Program, organized by my wonderful and talented friend Nancy Bea Miller, who is a painter and parent of a son who attends the Camphill School. About forty area painters participated, and most of them are fine artists who came with their French easels and field boxes and created gorgeous paintings over the course of the day. It was very cool to look across the beautiful farmland and to see here a painter, there a painter, everywhere a painter, painter.
I found a lovely little shaded spot next to a cheerful stream, and sat in a folding camp chair with my paper and palette balanced on my lap. (Though I took along a brand new portable easel, it ended up staying in its nice zipped holder all day.) I painted four teeny-tiny pictures (2.5 by 3.5 inches -- the 'aceo' size that I guess is a new trend for creating art to swap and/or sell). I painted strictly from observation, and it was pretty difficult to paint fast enough to capture this little dryad getting her feet muddy in the stream.
So on Tuesday there is an exhibit and sale of the works created that day at the Rosenfeld Gallery here in Philadelphia. I saw the work this afternoon when I dropped off my little tinies, and it's really a stunning array of gorgeous and varied art, all for sale, and all with at least a percentage of the sale going to Camphill Special School. Stop by if you happen to be in the zip code (which is 19106, btw)!

















