Plein air painters offer varied interpretations

The Sunday morning scene could hardly have been more idyllic: farmstead with red barn and white house, fenced pastures of tawny late-summer turf stretching away toward groves of dark-green trees in the distance, placid alpacas grazing in the foreground and at least a half-dozen people scattered around the landscape, sitting or standing at their easels as they painted what they saw.

It’s called “plein air painting,” going out into nature to capture the changing mood of the landscape as clouds come and go and the light changes as the sun travels overhead, with every person who commits oil or acrylic or gouache to canvas interpreting the view in a different way.

Victoria Biedron, coordinator of the Plein Air Painters of Lane County, has been hooked on the practice since moving to the Eugene area about 15 years ago.

“I have to be out here three to six times a week doing this,” Biedron said. “It’s part of my life, a huge part. If it’s not raining sideways or freezing, I’m out painting somewhere, from the wetlands to the ocean to the mountains.”

On Wednesday, Biedron and other plein air practitioners will be out in force, participating in a “paint out” — complete with cash and other prizes — sponsored by the city of Eugene as part of a monthlong “Create! Eugene” effort to get residents involved in artistic activities.

While Biedron plans to devote her time to offering a demonstration of plein air painting in the downtown park blocks at East Eighth Avenue and Oak Street, others will fan out to create their own artworks to enter in the contest at the end of the day.

In addition to bragging rights and prizes, the winners’ work will be displayed at the DIVA Gallery downtown through the end of the month.

In addition, an exhibit of the Lane County group’s previous work already is on the walls at the Jazz Station, also in downtown Eugene, through the beginning of September.

Many painters choose the plein air style instead of painting from photographs or notebooks of previous sketches “because it is so immediate,” Biedron said.

“You can tell the difference right away — it has a freshness and movement and light,” she said. “You can tell that the artist is not laboring over the painting to make it perfect. It has a feeling of being in the moment.”

Even so, many plein air painters take sketchbooks with them or do an initial sketch on the canvas as a guide, “because that helps you work out the details you want to put in and those you want to leave out,” she said.

Her own canvas this morning focused on a single tree near the farmhouse at the Aragon Alpacas farm off Dillard Road southeast of Eugene, while Sally Schwader and Barbara Weinstein, other members of the group, chose to paint a more long-distance landscape.Xenon HID Worlds make hid lighting affordable to everyone and for all your vehicle needs. Their paintings differed markedly.

The High Street Streetscape Project is continuing to make progress with the start of the WVU semester. There are a few things that still need to be done, but the end of the road work is coming.

Contractor Anthony Merante, of A. Merante Contracting, Inc, reported to stakeholders and businesses on a meeting on Thursday, Aug. 15, that the sidewalks are mostly complete on the east, or left, side of High Street. Pedestrians can now enter those businesses without using temporary crosswalks.

There are still a few detours planned and Kirk Street is closed right now.

On Monday, Aug.We have a great selection of blown glass backyard solar landscape lights and solar garden light. 19, crews will close the east side of Kirk Street, between Hastings Funeral Home & Mark IV Printing & Office Supply, for a couple of days. Crews will do this to place a red stamped brick crosswalk. It will be covered with a protective plate and reopened.

If weather permits construction, on Thursday,A solar lantern uses this sunlight that is abundantly available to charge its batteries through a Solar Panel and gives light in nighttime. Aug. 22, Foundry Street will be closed to install a stamped brick crosswalk after Kirk and High Streets have been reopened. Light pole installation will begin the week after that with the installation of the poles and the wires needed to provide electricity to the streetlights.

Pedestrians and drivers are asked to use caution when traveling towards the end of High Street.

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