Recently my students wanted to participate in the Great Outdoor Art Contest at the T.C. Steele state park in Brown County Indiana. I had gone there many times and didn’t feel like painting at that place again. It is a nice place with lots of trees and flowers. It is where the home and studio of the late T.C. Steele is. He was a famous painter.
I told my students we could go there and paint, but I would just stay in the parking lot and do paintings of the cars. That’s just what I did. There were around a hundred artists there. We all painted for a few hours, then our paintings were judged. Guess what? I got third place. That’s kind of funny, considering I was being stubborn and didn’t want to paint what everybody else did. Here is the photo of me from the newspaper article as I painted:
I used the technique I always use. Instead of thinking about painting cars, I looked for shapes. I saw shapes of light blue, of dark green, of brown, etc. I drew the shapes on the canvas, then filled them in with the colors. It worked again like putting together a puzzle. Keep in mind I only worked on this for about two hours.
![parked-cars[1].jpg](/wp-content/uploads/image/parked-cars[1].jpg)
Maybe I was stubborn, but at least I had fun.
Comments on Great Outdoor Art Contest
This is what I love about you as an artist, you are always looking for art in whatever you see. You are different, and different is obviously very good!
I love how cars are always a theme, even when your painting buildings, etc. After all, I just found out how much you loved cars with that big album you kept from growing up that had all the info about cars. I think it is fun that you decided to paint something different than everybody else.
Isn’t this what art is all about? Seeing beauty and interest in the everyday?
If this is being stubborn, keep it up 🙂 Who would have thought that a painting of parked cars could be so full of personality and color? Obviously, the news photographer found you a more interesting subject than all of the others painting the usual landscape. You stand out from the rest. No wonder people love your paintings!
It is great that during a paint out where landscape is such a theme, you are looking at a different type of landscape.