Bisbee AZ

We managed to surprise several of our friends in the park by showing up unannounced!!

The thing driving us right now has been the prospect of the Bisbee Plein Air Festival. 

Plein air is a French term which translates to“Open Air”. It is the painting of objects in natural light. From an artists perspective it is more challenging than painting in a studio or from a photograph because as the sun moves so do the shadows. Clouds come and go, cars park and drive off and people are fascinated watching the painting progress so they stop to talk. I find it very fulfilling.

This is my first ever competitive painting event and I only started painting plein air “Officially” last winter. As a result I was like a cat on a hot tin roof before the start and I was fighting my anxiety for the first day and a half.

The paintings had to be done in and around Bisbee and the last day had to be in Old Town Bisbee. You could paint as many paintings as you wanted but only 4 maximum could be entered for judging.

Being a newbie I decided to paint out of the way in Warren which is where the mine's upper management lived. There were some very nice “Craftsman” style houses and a few very large mansions. I chose an adobe style white church to paint but it didn't come out well. 

The Adobe Church

Talking with other more experienced artists I learned some of the tricks of Plein Air painting. The big one being to pick a colorful subject to paint. White isn't colorful!!

The second day I advanced into the town and found a gateway with patinated copper angel statues which appealed to me, and I really enjoyed painting them.

The Angel

For the third and final day I chose a store called “The Emporium” which was very colorful and let me sit in the shade as I painted. I only just completed it before the finish time.

The Emporium

Judging it turned out was far less stressful than I had imagined, as once I had set up the paintings in the park the artists were told to leave for an hour as the judges did their thing. All paintings were to be unsigned to eliminate any bias.

Set up in the park

There were many glorious paintings, 35 artists had entered up to 4 works each so there were lots to chose from. I was happy being among other artists and found several I already knew which made it even better. After the judging the public were given the chance to purchase any of the paintings and one of mine (the Angel) sold! So that paid for my entry fee!

The judges and winners

We are both happy with my art

We were camping at the Sierra Vista Elks Lodge during this event and they really looked after us. With dinner on Monday and Wednesday, breakfast on Sunday they keep you fed and we won free drinks in their daily draw. Water and electric sites for $15 a night and a free dump station just around the corner, what else can you ask for?

Roaming Las Vegas

 The big fall is know locally as “The Niagara of the West” as it has a greater drop than Niagara although it is much narrower.

The evenings are getting colder. Next week's weather forecast shows temps below freezing at night. Guess which direction we are heading? SOUTH!

It seems like we are being drawn back to Arizona. Actually that's a pun because it's art events that are happening that is making us go!

Rt 93 keeps on heading south and we kind of like driving a road it's whole length. This one ends in Wickenburg AZ. We've been there before and we have some great friends just North of there, John and Debbie. We began our RV adventures at the same time and we all looked at the same coach as our first class A purchases. We bought the Rexhall and they bought the Country Coach we'd seriously considered. So that's where we are headed before we start into art!

Las Vegas is on the way and strangely we kind of like the place. Strange because neither of us gamble. But there is much more to Vegas than just the casinos so we stayed in Boulder City, at the Elks Lodge naturally!

We had a rainbow during a thunderstorm! Couldn't get the lightning and rainbow in the sae shot.

We arrived on Taco Tuesday, progressed thru Burger Thursday, got invited the the Annual Picnic Saturday and finished with spaghetti on Wednesday! We are definitely going to have to diet when we get back to Casa Grande!

The Hard Rock sign

A pool hall sign

Between meals we explored the Neon Museum and Red Rock Canyon (one of Vegas's secrets). We discovered the International Food Market which has an incredible variety of foodstuffs from all over the world. We spent $80 in a heartbeat on all the English specialty stuff we can't get anywhere else, plus some Indonesian sauce mixes we've never seen anywhere else but here.

John and Debbie in Prescott Valley welcomed us with open arms and Gizmo their dog with licks! A week flew by. I had promised myself I'd paint at Watson Lake Park and finally did but before we could blink we were headed South again with a plan to stay 2 nights at the Phoenix Elks while I attended the monthly members meeting of the Arizona Plein Air Painters Association.

Gizmo my lap dog!

Watson Lake Park

Bud and Judy and us.

In a great surprise Bud and Judy Swartwood friends from our motorcycle days in San Diego saw we were in town at the same time they were visiting friend here. In the blink of an eye we were sitting catching u on each others news over coffee. We just live for these unexpected meetings. Nice seeing you Bud and Judy.

Being the “No plans kids” we found ourselves in Phoenix at 11am and not in the least ready to stop. We decided immediately the we'd carry on to Casa Grande and spend an extra 2 days there at our winter “Home” before carrying on towards Bisbee where I have an art event coming up.

We managed to surprise several of our friends in the park by showing up unannounced!!