Drag racing with paint.
That’s how Doug Clarke describes one of the multiple competitive events during the Gloucester Arts Festival, a month-long celebration of visual and performing arts on the Middle Peninsula, including the village known as the daffodil capital of America.
The eighth edition of the annual festival opens the evening of May 31 with brews, brine and wine at Machicomoco State Park, a chance to mingle and watch the festival’s 30 invited plein air artists at work. The following morning at 10 a.m., “Paint Main” will bring those same artists together alongside community members for two hours of fast-paced painting on the Tabb House Lawn.
Each artist will start with a blank 9x12-inch canvas and has two hours to create something special that can be purchased before it’s dry.
“Think of it as visual mathematics at a high rate of speed,” said Clarke, the Virginia Beach artist whose “Care Free Afternoon,” a street scene from downtown Gloucester, took top honors last year. Clarke joined the more experienced artists at the last minute with barely enough time to set up his easel before a bell signaled painters to pick up their brushes.
“I just plop down and find a subject,” said Clarke, whose YouTube channel Liquid Method shares live timed speed paints. “It’s fun to share my art process and I usually put them in a time-lapse afterward.”
Like any plein air painter, Clarke comes prepared with essential gear — an umbrella, bug spray, sunblock and a hat that he totes along with brushes and oil paints. He wears a neutral color shirt and ditches the jeans for light trousers, having learned how heavy denim is in wet weather.
“I’ve painted in torrential rain, and I’ve painted in snow,” Clarke said. “If the snow hits the paint, it tends to bubblegum and not the good kind. It’s futile. That’s why I have an umbrella.”
Andras Bality took Best in Show at last year’s Plein Air Invitational, another of the festival’s competitions. That one gives the artists a full week to disperse around Gloucester County, painting countryside, waterways and whatever appeals to the eye.
The Richmonder embraces the camaraderie that painting in the elements brings.
“The great thing for me is the people that you meet,” Bality said. “There’s something disarming about a plein air paint. When someone sees an artist working outdoors, they gravitate toward them. I can’t tell you the amount of people I’ve met, from policemen pulling over with their lights on to ask if I could teach them to paint to homeless people telling me how nice my painting is without ever asking for money.”
Leslie Belvin, a longtime arts educator, collector and artist, will judge the Paint Main event.
She considers many criteria, she said, including creativity, originality and overall impression, as well as “how all of the elements of design come together as a whole, handling of the medium, capturing the light and so much more.”
Other events during the Gloucester Arts Festival include:
- Symphony Under the Stars, a June 1 concert by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra that starts at 6 p.m., at Main Street and Walter Reed Way;
- Mathews Paint Out, on June 4, one of several opportunities to meet the artists while they paint;
- Flat Iron Crossroads — Bobby Blackhat on June 22, Virginia’s blues ambassador in concert;
- Village Arts Day, an artisan market with live performances, on June 29 at Courthouse Circle.
The Gloucester Arts Festival begins May 31 with the Brews, Brine and Wine event. For a complete list of events, browse the full schedule.
