Weekend in a white tent

I spent the weekend perched on a director’s chair in my vendor booth in Barrington, Illinois. This is renowned horse country, but I was not selling horse paintings. Rather, I was basking in the soft light of Sky Pads. Most of the time. When it wasn’t raining. Here’s a little corner of my booth.

My Trimline booth has a skylight feature that makes it perfect for art even on an overcast day.

It was alternately rainy, windy, and delightfully sunny. You can see my tablecloth trying to lift off in the photo. Both days it rained from about 10 till noon, then was patchy sun the rest of the time. During the rainy periods there were a few brave souls out with umbrellas and raincoats, but as soon as the sun appeared it seemed like everyone had been hiding in the stores that lined the street where the art booths were. All of a sudden the streets were swarming with people.

Looking north.

Looking south. It was really a lot more jammed than this, but I didn’t feel like climbing up on my chair to get a more overhead view.

Surprise! I won something!

Award for overall achievement in oil painting

The award came with more than just a ribbon–a free booth at an upcoming show thankfully a lot closer to home than Barrington. That’s $350 worth of booth space! I’ll take it!

I had many, many conversations with festival-goers. Mainly I wanted to know what attracted them to my booth; that way I could find out if what I was trying to convey in my paintings was having the intended effect. The first comment from a visitor was almost always “the colors”, emphasized with a definitive nod of the head. The second most popular comment was a feeling of peace, relaxation, calmness. Several people also noted a bit more complex observation which surprised me with the consistency among commenters–they noticed the white misty quality of some of the paintings and felt that it helped separate them from the intensity of the painting, or kept the strong colors from hitting them in the face, or a combination of these two elements created a transparent depth that made their eyes explore the entire painting. Wow!