Review: British Plein Air Painters 2023 Exhibition

"A Plein Air Vision", the third exhibition by the British Plein Air Painters (BPAP) Group opened today at the RWS Gallery at 3 Whitcomb Street (next to the National Gallery). 

I went to the Private View last night which was a very convivial happy affair with many people and rather a lot of red dots. 

I was very impressed by it - and I'll explain why below. 

You can see photos I took last night in this album on my Facebook Page.

You can see all the artworks via this page on the BPAP website. Click the pic to see a page of bio and artworks for each artist. All sold paintings are clearly marked up.

Why this exhibition looks impressive

Membership of the group: While this is a plein air group, it's not open to all painters who are plein air painters. Those being invited to become members over the course of the last three years are:

• all experienced artists generally - many are professional artists with some having a career that has lasted decades
• many have been to art school
• they are all very experienced in working plein air and 
• all have produced a lot of quality artwork over a longish period of time.

I would suggest that a page on their website talking about how to apply to become a member would be useful.

Exhibiting artists at the British Plein Air Artists PV (30th October 2023)

Many of them are also members of one or more of the National Art Societies. The majority are Full or Associate members of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and some are members of the Royal Society of Marine Artists and/or the Wapping Group of Artists.

There is a little bit of a sense of the group being the plein air arm of the ROI - although I think it might also be that the ROI has taken on more active plein air painters in recent years!

The 27 exhibiting artists for the 2023 exhibition are listed below. 

The 7 women artists make up 26% of the exhibiting artists. I suggest this could be more - maybe a point for consideration when considering future members?

• Adebanji Alade - President of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters
• David Bachmann
• Trevor Chamberlain ROI RSMA
• Roy Connelly
• David Curtis ROI RSMA
• Tony Dakin
• Roger Dellar RPI PS RI ARSMA
• Tim King PCAFAS
• Sarah Manolescue AROI
• Tom Marsh ARSMA AROI
• David Pilgrim ROI
• Valérie Pirlot AROI (6 paintings sold)
• Rob Pointon ROI
• Georgina Potter 
• Adam Ralston ROI
• Michael Richardson WGA
• Andrew Roberts 
• Chris Robinson RIBA
• Maria Rose AROI (6 paintings sold)
• Tushar Sabale WGA
• Daisy Simms Hilditch
• Tom Stevenson ROI SWAc
• John Stillman RSMA WGA
• Haidee-Jo Summers VPROI RSMA
• Mo Teeuw IEA
• Karl Terry RSMA
• Johnny Walsom ROI RSMA

Five of the seven female painters pictured below.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Valérie Pirlot AROI (@valeriepirlotart)

Nature / quality of artwork: 215 artworks are on display (which is a good indicator for anybody thinking about hiring this gallery for an exhibition of similar sized artworks).

Most of the artwork are plein air paintings. They cover a very wide range of locations ranging from "home turf" for individual painters, to various places in London and other locations - typically in the UK - that the painters have visited.

The one thing for me is I'd have liked to have seen an indication of which:

• started plein air
• completed plein air
• completed in the studio
• studio art from a plein air sketch

I think that's helpful to the viewing public and also helps to keep the group focused on what the exhibition is all about. 

Private View

Size of artwork: It's the first time for a long time that I've seen an exhibition which is made up of medium and small size artworks.

The three galleries and the exhibition all looked well designed with walls with two rows of paintings small and medium sized paintings at a good height - with the eyes moving up or down easily. They are all well lit.

I gather the previous exhibitions had established that larger studio finished artwork is much less likely to do well at an exhibition which is being promoted as being about plein air painting - and the decision was made to go with small and mediums sizes for this one.

I think that was an inspired decision as it results in a very coherent exhibition where the smaller sized works do NOT appear to be filling in the gaps between the larger artworks.

A wall of small and medium sized paintings

Media used: Most of the paintings are in oil. This is not uncommon in terms of media often used by plein air artists and by members of the ROI!

Paint Offs, Paint Outs and Quick Draws - in September 2019

A couple of events for those who like their plein air painting are coming up next month - in Bristol and on the Broads.
This is in addition to the normal plein air paint out days organised by the British Plein Air Painters during the summer

Inaugural Bristol Plein Air Paint Off

Central Bristol has a rich landscape ranging from the soft slopes of Brandon Park, the historical, industrial cranes and harbour, the modern architecture of Millenium Square and the traditional architecture of the cathedral and university, not to mention the iconic suspension bridge - a feast for "Plein Air" painters whatever their medium or practice may be.

Cass Arts Bristol @ 43-45 Park Street, Bristol - organiser, assembly point and exhibition holder

EVENT: Bristol Plein Air Paint Off

• Registration / Exhibition Space: Cass Art Bristol, 43 - 45 Park Street, Bristol, BS1 5NL
• Dates: Sunday 8th September 
• Hours: 9.30am - 5pm
• Organised by: Cass Arts and Jen Gash (Sky Landscape Artist of the Year 2018)
• Event Link: Bristol Plein Air Paint off

Jen Gash painting plein air this time last year - in the semi-finals

Who can take part

• 50 places available (there are 35 left on the Eventbrite website as at the time of writing)
• Minimum age for entering is 16 years. 
• £10 entrance fee per person
•  and it would be helpful for you to have a mobile phone so we can find you and visit you during the day!

What you have to do

• bring your own supply of art materials, tools etc and lunch/drinks etc (Cass Art will be providing a discount for materials on the day, should you need further supplies!)
• 9.30am  assemble at Cass Art Bristol, 43 - 45 Park Street, Bristol, BS1 5NL
• to register for a 10.30 start (i.e. time needed for paperwork etc.)
• You will be given a unique entrant number
• stickers will be applied to your intended supports
• you'll also be given a waiver and a permission form for photos etc
• provide your mobile phone number so that you can be located during the day
• 10.30am start painting (maximum canvas size of 100cm square)
• 3.30pm - finish painting. This gives you 5 hours painting time, in total. 
• thereafter - gather at Cass Art for preliminary judging and shortlisting.
• 3.30 and 5pm - paintings by 20 artists completed on stickered supports will be shortlisted for an exhibition during the following week
• 5pm - collect your paintings if not shortlisted

PLEASE NOTE: Jen Gash and Cass Art are not responsible for participants safety and wellbeing. Please make sure you have sun screen, umbrellas, food etc and are able to take care of your own needs.

Prizes:

There will be prizes for the following categories:

• Young Talent Award - 16 - 21 years, to be awarded at 5pm on the day
• Cass Art Plein Air Award - overall winner to be awarded at 5pm on the day
• Peoples Choice Award - to be decided following a public exhibition where members of the public can vote for their favourite piece.

Prizes and judges to be announced... but there will be some lovely things !

A Brush with the Broads

A fourth annual weekend of painting activity on the Norfolk Broads which seems to invade my Facebook feed once a year!

The Broads is a network of mostly navigable rivers and lakes in the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.
The lakes, known as broads, were formed by the flooding of peat workings

It's back after a break of two years having run in 2014, 2015, and 2016

A Brush with the Broads™ started as the dream of local artist, Linda H Matthews, to bring artists and collectors together in an area steeped in artistic inspiration and history, the Norfolk & Suffolk Broads.
For artists to inspire, socialise, learn from and compete with each other.

EVENT: A Brush with the Broads

• Registration / Exhibition Space: change of location, to Hall Farm Cottages - a complex of self catering cottages in converted farm buildings.
• Dates: Thu, 26 Sep 2019, 14:00 – Mon, 30 Sep 2019, 22:00 BST
• Organised by: Linda H Matthews
• Event Link (for Booking tickets): A Brush with the Broads™ 2019
• Registration: Online and at Hall Farm Cottages

The snowy painting challenge - the results

Last Saturday, I asked to see the paintings people had been doing during the recent cold spell and snow.

I'm thinking of doing a blog post about RECENT snow paintings.
If you've been braving the temperature and painting snow scenes - or even staying inside and painting the snow outside

• EITHER - leave a comment with the url of where I can find the pic
• OR - send me a pic of your snow painting - preferably with a pic of you painting it!

The ones I'm posting below are those done recently and from observation. I'm afraid I eliminated most of those that appeared to not have been done in the last few weeks.

If you enjoyed the challenge - either in terms of sending/nominating paintings - or just reading the results please let me know on my Facebook page (sorry - comments are still suspended on this blog due to the idiots who post spam)

This is the painting - and entry - which impressed me the post. It's a lovely painting of 'snow on allotments' by Valérie Pirlot (website: https://www.valeriepirlot.com/englandmainlyinbath Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valeriepirlotart

A better picture of the painting I did at the week-end in the snow. I've painted that view dozen of times, but it looks so different covered in white. So much fun to paint! Now available on my website:https://www.valeriepirlot.com/englandmainlyinbath

Even better - we got the artists's eye view too. So you can see what she was painting.



Best of the lot is we get what it takes to go out painting plein air in wintry weather. Love the comment to go with it!  Truly a British Plein Air Painter of snowy weather!



This is one of the later ones to come in. I like to think I maybe inspired Martin Truefitt-Baker to have a go!

You can see from his post Snowy day tree that this is a favourite tree that he has painted a number of times. Like Valerie it's a view he's painted many times. Maybe this is a tip for snowy paintings - much better to paint a view you know under snow then spend time working out which is the best angle and how to paint structures. You don't want to hang about too long working out

More importantly this is his second oil painting after a break of 30 years. He's been using acrylics for a long time but has only just recently started painting in oils again.!

This is a painting I've just finished in the last couple of days. This is only the second oil painting, I've now completed, after returning to the medium after 30-ish years. 

Snowy day tree

Haidee-Jo Summers sent me some of her paintings done at the weekend. She's a very experienced plein air painter in the snow - and I love her snow paintings.

Hi Katherine, we haven’t had much snow here in Lincolnshire but on Saturday I managed to get out in it and paint these... no photos of me painting them though...

Bothy by Haidee-Jo Summers

The woodman’s bothy at Belton village, this site used to be the woodyard for the whole Brownlow estate.

One of the things I very much like about HaideeJo's paintings is that she always gets the light and tone just right.  You can feel the cold!

Logs by Haidee Jo Summers - providing you don't need a lot to make a snowy picture

These are a few of my favourite things... wood pile in the snow from last weekend 8” x 10”

Review - Inaugural exhibition of British Plein Air Painters

This is a review of the inaugural exhibition by British Plein Air Painters at the Menier Gallery, 51 Southwark Street, London, SE1 1RU. 

It is the first exhibition by the newly formed collective British Plein Air and promises to be one the most exciting exhibitions to be held in 2018.

The exhibition comprises over 200 paintings for sale by 27 leading plein air artists in the UK - including David Curtis and Trevor Chamberlain, Pete Brown, Adebanji Alade and Haidee-jo Summers.  All work is for sale during the show and can be viewed on their artists page.

Most of the British Plein Air Painters participating in their exhibition

Last night I went to the Private View and this post is about what I thought about the exhibition and the exhibiting artists

The exhibition continues until 4pm on Saturday 20th October.

Foreword

Back in 2006, one of the very first blog posts on this blog (age 4 months) was about a listing of Plein Air Painting Organisations. It contained the following

Why is it that so many art societies in the UK seem to be so dedicated to limiting their activities to having demonstrations or talks with slides or painting a still life indoors or social get togethers rather than arranging plein air events/expeditions? It can't be the weather - as we only need to go and look at some of the photos of the weather some of our north american artist friends paint in! Maybe we need a focus or a network for plein air activity in the UK? It's not as if it isn't happening - it's just not happening on a website near me - whinge now officially over!!! Maybe somebody will prove me wrong...........please?

We now have the answer! See the end for more information.

What I liked about the British Plein Air Painters Exhibition

The best things about the exhibition were that....

• it was an exhibition about British plein air painting, 
• all the paintings were done from observation and 
• there were absolutely no paintings which were copying photographs!

Each painting featured will have its origins based outside; some will have been finished on site and some finished in the studio. Every painting strives to capture the essence of the landscape in which it is based. 

As such it demonstrated the very wide variety of styles and approaches to painting landscapes from observation - and it was a pleasure to look at much of the work on display.

It was also great to walk into an exhibition which was already sporting red dots on many paintings - and it was great to see people walking out the door with the paintings they bought.

Both the new group and this exhibition provide a platform for plein air painting which has been very much lacking in the UK in recent times. (see Foreword above)

To me, from what I've seen so far, in terms of the creation of this new group; their website and social media presence and having an exhibition to show what they can do - all serve to indicate great things to come.

Especially given their commitment to paint-outs and the fact they got very nearly 100 people coming to their paint out in St James Park last week! (See Capturing the Moment - plein air paint out in St James's Park)

Capturing the Moment - plein air paint out in St James's Park

Today was a plein air "paint out" day in St James's Park organised by the British Plein Air Painters as a preliminary to their first annual exhibition at the Menier Gallery next week (16-20 October 2018).  This was the second paint out - with the first having been held last month.

a plein air painting box - home made in plywood by Paul Franks
- with some very nifty features!

Some 90 painters attended the event - and when I turned up later afternoon (after other commitments) I found painters scattered all over the park.

The events are FREE and all levels of ability are welcome.

Below are some of the painters with their paintings. Most are not in the exhibition at the Menier Gallery - but I'm guessing some will be in future!

Keep an eye on the events page of British Plein Air Painters for more paint out days

Details of the exhibition

Both David Bachman and Mo Teeuw are going to be exhibiting in the exhibition at the Menier Gallery.  David is a professional plein air landscape painter. Mo is a professional artist, experienced tutor and the author of Painting Clouds and Skies in Oils (Crowood Press 2017)

David Bachman painting the lake in St James Park and Buckingham Palace from the bridge

Mo Teeow captures Horseguards Parade at the end of the lake in St James's Park

Over the bridge I found a number of artists who had enjoyed the day's painting in the sunshine.