Art is alive in the open air
Cavan art event features painters working in a natural environment
Nearly 60 artists will be capturing Cavan-Monaghan on canvas this weekend at the Outdoor Painting Festival.
Happening Saturday and Sunday, the event will feature both local and national artists competing in an open-air competition.
Fifty-eight artists, from as far as Vancouver and Deep River, are setting up their easels in Millbrook, Cavan and surrounding areas to paint.
Visitors are encouraged to stop by the festival to watch en plein air artists in action, and cast a vote for their favourite piece.
Afterwards, art enthusiasts will be able to grab the painting that catches their eye at the Fresh of the Easel sale.
Valerie Kent, owner of Cavan Arts Inc., organized the event. Cavan Arts Inc. is a gallery and academy that opened in July on County Rd. 10 in Cavan.
She said some of the countries top en plein air artists are painting in the event and it’s a great chance to see how they work.
“These are really talented people and (people) have to see how they paint and how they create and how all those things that they look at can be interpreted through these great artists minds,” Kent said.
Running in conjunction with Canada Culture Days, the event also has kids art activities, a jamboree and an award ceremony.
Visitors and artists can start off their days at the Millbrook Legion with a $7 breakfast before heading out head for the day.
Free kids’ art activities take place at the Millbrook Library, the Legion and the Cavan Art on Saturday, and again at Cavan Arts on Sunday.
Barn quilt artists will also be at Cavan Arts on Saturday until 3 p.m.,
painting boards representing memories of the community, which will be later mounted on local barns.
Saturday night, there’s a jamboree at the Millbrook Legion from 6 to 9 p.m., featuring the five-piece band Plain Country and a Patsy Cline tribute by Victoria Pearce
Then on Sunday, the freshly created paintings will be juried before The Big Reveal at Galerie Q from 1:30 to 3 p.m.
Artists of the top three paintings will be awarded monetary prizes donated by Galerie Q. There’ll also be six honourable mentions and a $100 prize for the artist of the People’s Choice Award.
Galerie Q is also raffling off an original landscape painting by artist Yvon Lemieux.
Kathryn Last is the director of Galerie Q, a fine art gallery in Cavan with a focus on French Canadian art. “We’re very interested in keeping this community flourishing and growing and cultivating an arts and cultural hub here,” said Last, of why they got involved.
After the awards ceremony, the Fresh of the Easel sale takes place from 3 to 6 p.m. at Maple Leaf Park on County Rd. 10 and on King St. in Millbrook.
Twenty-five per cent of painting sales will be donated to Millbrook Community Care.
NOTE: For more information about the festival, visit www.cavanarts.ca