Paint Out Wells 2016 Artists
16-18 September 2016 some 20 artists from across the UK descend upon the North Norfolk coast ready to compete in the juried-entry Plein Air Paint Out art competition in Wells-next-the-Sea. Check the daily schedules to see when and where the artists are in action or view their paintings in the art exhibition and food fest on the Buttlands, 2-7pm, Sunday 18 September. (Online gallery to follow)
Only days before the event, the UK experienced its hottest September day in a century. Meanwhile, the artists arrived to the threat of thunderstorms and a cooler outlook – but that is plein air, whatever the weather. The challenge of light and weather, from sunrise to sunset, from sunshine to predicted downpour, is part of the theme of the weekend.
“The substance of painting is light” – Andre Derain
A workshop on painting under pressure of time and changing light takes place on Saturday 17th September, and painting at both sunset and sunrise across the weekend will push the artists’ skills and sleep!
Karen Adams, John Behm, JC Bradwell, Mary Brady, Alfie Carpenter, Jack Godfrey, Jane Hodgson, Andrew Horrod, Jerome Hunt, Brian Korteling, SuE Mann, Vicki Norman, Eloise O’Hare, Tanya Pawsey, Michael Richardson, Christina Sabberton, Jennifer Sendall, Jenny Swann Homewood, Pat Tinsley, Will Topley
You can also view photos of them on Wells Beach, the Quayside, and up Staithe Street, painting Wells-next-the-Sea.
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Wells-next-the-Sea 2015 Artists
26 artists were selected to compete at Wells-next-the-Sea, 21 were able to attend – illness and circumstances can defy even the most ardent plein air all-weather painter!
John Behm, Antonella Beschorner, Richard Bond, Alfie Carpenter, Lara Cobden, Roy Connelly, Tom Cringle, Chris Daynes, Alexandra Egan, Katie Falcon, Cornelia Fitzroy, Jack Godfrey, Tom Hill, Jane Hodgson, Pippa King, Tom Lamprell, Sue Mann, Celia Olsson, Michael Richardson, Tony Robinson, Jennifer Sendall, Will Topley, Candide Turner-Bridger
John Behm
Antonella Beschorner
Antonella studied art at Norwich University of Arts (NUA) and loves working on large-scale projects, landscapes, and even in 3 dimensions on “Skipper”, one of the recent Norwich-based Go Go Dragons who resided in the iconic Royal Arcade – which will also feature as a location for Paint Out Norwich 2015. She has studied art as practice as well as art as therapy and views art as for everyone. She works in oils, gouache, acrylic and watercolour, and is currently a gallery artist in residence.
Richard Bond
Richard is another veteran of Paint Out Norwich 2014 and also offered a workshop in watercolour painting on the day before the Wells competition started. Richard lives in Norwich, works in oil and watercolour, and has taken part in numerous national and regional painting competitions. In the International Artist Magazine, he said, “one of the chief joys of watercolour is to say more with less.”
Alfie Carpenter
Born and raised in rural Suffolk Alfie also remembers and loves childhood visits to the North Norfolk coast. He loves music and art throwing himself into both experimentally, impulsively with enjoyment as the main purpose. As media he uses a “rich playground of materials” even “giving ‘ugly’ items a chance at glamour” in his artworks.
Lara Cobden
Lara graduated in Fine Art Painting at the University of Brighton, and currently lives in Norfolk. Her work has been exhibited in the UK and internationally. She is interested in memory and sense of place with Wells-next-the-Sea already one of her ‘go to’ places when in need of both peace and inspiration. She loves the challenge of trying to capture a “sense of place, that fleeting moment, at once spiritual and physical; ephemeral.”
Roy Connelly
Roy was the third-placed winner at Paint Out Norwich in 2014 and competes again this year, at Wells. Roy is a founder member of the Plein Air Brotherhood, and says he is just as happy with his easel and box of oil paints on a deserted beach as he is at noisy and busy Trafalgar Square in London. His home turf is the area in Suffolk, close to where Gainsborough and Constable lived and worked.
Tom Cringle
Tom was raised in Norfolk’s Burnham Market and spent most of his early years sailing, playing and walking on the beaches of Brancaster and Burnham Overy. He loves large canvases for the big skies of Norfolk and Suffolk but also works on smaller landscapes and cityscapes drawing on his earlier experience and training in graphic design and architecture.
Chris Daynes
Chris Daynes was the runner up second prize winner at Paint Out Norwich 2014 and is also competing at Wells, this year. Chris is a seasoned en plein air painter who works all over England in all weathers, “always a challenging and sometimes uncomfortable experience, very social and never dull”, he says.
Alexandra Egan
Alex volunteered at Paint Out Norwich last year and was drawn to be a participant rather than observer this year. She works in charcoal, watercolour, pastels and pencil. Describing the incentive to get involved this year, she says, “There’s a an inexplicable buzz when painting from life and in I think in public this would be
heightened.”
Katie Falcon
Katie is another veteran of Paint Out and recently painted for the front cover of the 2015 Hostry Festival brochure. Katie is a part of Group Eight, a Norfolk painting group, who set up their easels in a variety of locations to capture what they call “intense natural loveliness”. Katie can be found painting outside in all weathers and at all times of year, capturing the changing seasons. She has spent many years drawing and painting all around Norwich particularly inside and outside the cathedral.
Cornelia Fitzroy
Cornelia is also part of the Norfolk painting group, Group Eight, formed “primarily with a single intention to energise and progress Life Drawing practice” it has since then “gathered pace to emerge as an identifiable collective of independent, multi-disciplinary, Norfolk-based artists, who regularly exhibit their work at different venues in London and East Anglia.” Cornelia says she becomes totally immersed in the moment and responds powerfully to changing weather, light, colours, and pattern.
Jack Godfrey
Jack is a well known Norwich portrait artist who studied at Wimbledon School of Art but is more secretive about his plein air habit and “often nighttime forays to gather inspiration”. He says of his approach that he’s, “looking for an unconventional kind of beauty, something surprising. I’m excited by the challenge of portraying recognisable landmarks and perhaps finding a way of making some very ubiquitous and charismatic locations speak out loud in a new but also perhaps comfortingly familiar way.”
Tom Hill
Tom previously studied art and design in Suffolk and Cheshire and has recently returned to art practice and study at Wensum Lodge. He has a wide range of interests including complementary health, ancient history, and oriental martial arts.
Jane Hodgson
Jane started painting seriously eight years ago and loves “painting outside and in all weathers…focusing particularly on the North Norfolk Coast.” She says that, “Street scenes in Wells would be a departure and a challenge” that she would relish. She recently became an associate member of the Institute of East Anglian Artists.
Pippa King
Pippa lives in Wells and is a poet and self-described “post-modern eclectic” artist. She has exhibited widely in East Anglia and London, including The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and The Guardian Best British Art Now show. She was London Editor of Marvel Comix in the early 1970s. She is eager to paint local views, the quay, the sea, the seagulls, and the people.
Tom Lamprell
Tom is a young painter. Born in Norwich yet grew up in the Middle East. Educated at Wimbledon and Byam Shaw School of Art. His style is expressed not so much in the content of his work but rather through his choice of techniques and materials. Tom was one of the artists involved in giving Tombland’s Samson and Hercules statues a multicoloured makeover in 2012.
Sue Mann
Cornish born but now Wales resident Sue has “been driven to paint” all her life and “knew from the age of twelve she wanted to be an artist”. She studied at Falmouth School of Art and later West Surrey College of Art & Design. She paints all-year-round, including winter, recently painting in January and February when there was still a deep frost and snow on the Welsh hills. She likes the challenge of working at a faster pace and always works from “reality, often on location outside at the mercy of adders, weather, horses, cattle, insects, and parachutists!” Composition, light, and colour, are important to her “as are boundaries between wild and civilised.”
Celia Olsson
Celia can’t “imagine being anything else” but an artist, calling it a “joyous experience”. She loves the “wonderful fresh, vibrant colours” of watercolour and regularly paints her Dartmoor and rolling Devon countryside surroundings. She recently fell in love with the North Norfolk coast and its “myriad colours, wide views with big skies of the marshes”.
Michael Richardson
Michael Richardson is a well known painter who competed and Norwich in 2014 and also offered a workshop in oil painting at Wells before the competition proper began. Michael was a wartime evacuee to Ipswich and is a member of the Plein Air Painting Society, The Wapping Group of Artists, and shows in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. He paints outside almost every day in the Impressionist style for collectors worldwide.
Tony Robinson
Tony lived and trained in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and graduated in Fine Art at Stoke-on-Trent but moved to Ireland, where, in 2008, a growing interest in painting en plein air led Tony and some fellow artists in Wexford to develop Ireland’s first outdoor painting festival, Art in the Open. This annual, week-long festival, now in its eighth year, attracts an international following. He is passionate about painting outdoors even if it is sometimes difficult and frustrating but lets the “subject dictate the painting” believing in an “authentic response to the subject.” This is his first visit to Norfolk though he has always loved and admired the work of many notable East Anglian landscape artists.
Jennifer Sendall
Jennifer is a regular at Pintar Rapido ( London and Amsterdam), and a consistent award-winner at Art in The Open, Wexford, Ireland. She is a member of the UK Plein Air Society, Ipswich Art Society and President of Gipping Valley Art Society. She has built her own “Imaginarium and Time Travelling Tea-Hut – an eclectic tiny gallery, tea-making relational aesthetic space, live/work trailer” with which she tours East Anglia, plein air painting.
Will Topley
Will has been a full-time artist the last 15 years and has enjoyed a shift to painting “quickly and often in public spaces” en plein air in the last two years. He has taken part in Pintar Rapido and loves visiting Norfolk, particularly the North Norfolk coast.
Candide Turner-Bridger
Candide is a Little Walsingham-based artist painting mainly in oils who enjoys the local landscapes and skyscapes of the dramatic north Norfolk coast line. Recent paintings have included Walsingham village, the Holy Mile and Slipper Chapel, Holkham bay, Stiffkey, Brancaster and Burnham Overy.