Just plein cool: Sylvania Plein Air Festival celebrates spur-of-the-moment art

Sylvania will soon be awash with painting as the second annual Sylvania Plein Air Festival begins Sunday and runs through the following week.

The purpose of plein air, which translates from French as “painting outdoors” is to capture the majesty of the great outdoors on location. No painting in an artist studio, it’s about getting outside and painting what you see in front of you. The lighting of the sky, the position of the sun, everything. It’s about capturing one glorious moment in the medium of paint and brush.

Katie Cappellini, executive director of Red Bird Sylvania, which is hosting the festival, said that response to the event from artists all over North America has been huge.

“Plein air is making a huge comeback nationally and somehow we tapped into that movement and we have artists coming from all over the country and Canada to paint Sylvania, it was limited to 125 and that filled up in April.”

Cappellini said it’s now common to drive through Sylvania and see artists about town painting in public.

“There have been people out practicing already.  It’s almost a spectacle while its going on because people drive by and they're like ‘What's going on?’ because there are painters out,” said Cappellini. “Usually in an outdoor painting you have three or four hours because then the light changes. You’ll have one group set up in the morning, then another group in the afternoon, then another group late in the day at all the different locations. It’s almost like a 5K for artists. You have to be fast. You don’t get to mess around in your studio for days and days.”

Sylvania artist James Foos, an art teacher at Bowsher High School, will be participating in this year’s event after entering last year’s inaugural festival, his first plein air competition. Foos said he enjoyed the challenge that plein air painting provides.

“It’s a real challenge to capture the lighting,” said Foos.

The 2nd annual Sylvania Plein Air Festival will begin on 8 a.m. Sunday, where 125 painters, both professional and amateur, will descend upon downtown Sylvania at 13 different locations, which have been commissioned as purchased prizes (a map of the locations can be found at redbirdsylvania.org ).

Jules Webster, chair of the festival, said a competitive quick draw art competition will take place on Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon.

“Painters have two hours to make a completed painting anywhere in the downtown area,” said Webster. “There’s a $10 cash entry fee and whoever wins the people’s choice award get the prize money.”

The final awards ceremony and artist reception will be held Friday from 5 to 8 p.m. during the Red Bird First Friday Art Walk at Fuller Art House (5679 Main St.) and Hudson Gallery (5645 Main St.) in downtown Sylvania. The youth category award will be held at Art Supply Depo, located at 5739 Main St.

The artists turn in their paintings on Wednesday afternoon.

“Each artist can submit three paintings. so you have more than 300 paintings of Sylvania,” said Cappellini. “The people that commissioned the purchase prizes get to choose the one they like for their location and then the paintings are juried in and then the two galleries — Fuller Art House and Hudson Gallery — take all of the emerging and professional artists and then Art Supply Depo takes all the youth category artists.

Cappellini said last year’s Plein Air Festival event was a huge success.

“Last year it was hard to get into the galleries on Friday night. The paintings were selling so quickly. Everybody wanted a piece of Sylvania,” said Cappellini.

More than anything, entrants like Foos say they are looking forward to the challenge of the participating in the competition again.

“They say you have a little more than an hour before the lighting environment changes so much you have to remix all your colors again. It’s different from doing a portrait of somebody,” he said. “You have to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time.”