Plein air painters work outdoors, and if you’re curious about painting or drawing, Le Petit Plein Air Moab is for you.
For weeks now, third- and fourth-grade students at Helen M. Knight Elementary School have been studying the landforms and geology of the Moab area as part of their social studies, science and art curricula. The culminating experience is a day of “en plein air,” or open-air painting, at Canyonlands National Park’s Island in the Sky District and the Windows Section at Arches National Park.
Some 200 student images will be presented to the public for the first time on the evening of Saturday, Oct. 10, at the Moab Arts and Recreation Center, 111 E. 100 North.
Visitors can check out their paintings in pastel, watercolor and acrylic taught by HMK art instructors Sarah Hamingson, Shannon Scherer and Art Coach Bruce Hucko.
In other Plein Air Moab events, local painters will lead free workshops for artists of any age and skill level at Rotary Park from noon to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 6, and at Moonflower Canyon on Saturday, Oct. 10, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Called Art Experientials, these workshops provide everything that one needs to paint, including canvas, paint and brushes.
Margie Lopez-Read, local artist and 2014 Artist in Residence at Cape Perpetua Scenic Area, said she led a similar event at the park that people – especially children – loved.
“It is a friendly, enjoyable way to put down on canvas an outdoor experience – without judgment,” she said. “By painting plein air, individuals can learn to see what is before them in a deeper, more meaningful way. This appreciation of the environment, learned by artistic interpretation, has double value for children. Their age usually reduces their inhibition to participate in the experience, and their young minds are so much more open to creative expression.”
If you would rather watch people paint, or view art on display, be sure to catch the Downtown Quickdraw, where painters paint along Main Street from 4 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 8, and vie for a $600 best-of-show prize. The MARC will be holding a Quickdraw reception at 7:30 p.m. that evening.
“Wet” paintings will be displayed at the MARC, along with other plein air work, from noon to 9 p.m. during a three-day art sale that will run from Oct. 8 through Oct. 10.
Plein Air Moab events include exhibition of HMK artwork
For more details, go to pleinairmoab.com, or call 435-259-6272.
