Arts Council of Wayne County hosts first Plein Air Paint Out
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on December 10, 2015 1:46 PM
The Arts Council of Wayne County is hosting its first-ever Plein Air Paint Out where artists can win hundreds of dollars for their paintings, and entries are still being sought.
First place receives $300, second place receives $200 and third place receives $100. It costs $20 to enter.
There have been a handful of entries thus far, and the Arts Council is accepting a maximum of 50 artists for the event.
"Ideally, we would like to have 20 artists," said Arts Council Director Sarah Merritt. "This is like the fashion show. It's one of those things that you have to try out and see how it goes."
The Arts Council is calling for artists from near and far to enter the event, where they will live-paint outdoor scenes Friday night from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
All paintings must be completed during the event and scenes can only be from downtown Goldsboro, with the exception of artists being allowed to paint scenes from Jingle in the Park at Herman Park on Friday night.
"Plein Air events usually happen in the Spring when the weather is nice and everything, but we originally wanted to do this in the fall," Mrs. Merritt said. "Then we thought about moving it from the fall because Streetscape was still going on, and now that everything has opened up there are lots of people bustling around downtown, so we wanted to do it during the holidays when lots of people would be downtown. We thought having Friday as a night event would be cool because of how the lights and the artwork and buildings downtown look at night."
The Arts Council opened the event up to include Jingle in the Park to provide the artists with more scenes to paint.
"You know, there will be the lights and the ice skating and everything like that, and we thought that would make a good scene to paint," Mrs. Merritt said.
University of Mount Olive professor John Blackwell will be the jury for the event and will be in charge of choosing the winners.
Only paintings done on canvasses that will be given to the artists by the Arts Council at the time of the event that have an approved insignia stamped on them will be accepted.
The works completed by the artists will be available for sale in the Arts Council.
This event is a fundraiser for the Arts Council of Wayne County, which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit. The sale and reception will take place in the main gallery on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. The Arts Council will retain 35 percent of all sales revenue generated. Payments for all work sold will be mailed Jan. 4, 2016. Artwork that hasn't been sold will be available for pick-up by the artists after the exhibit.
Any artist interested in competing in the Plein Air Paint Out can call the Arts Council of Wayne County at 919-736-3300.