PORT ANGELES — Out in the wild Pacific Northwest, you don’t have a lot of control.
As locals well know, the atmospheric conditions can change in a matter of minutes.
So painting plein air — outdoors — is a particular kind of thrill, said Susan Ogilvie, one of 26 artists coming to the North Olympic Peninsula this week.
“You’re so alive, you’re so in the moment when you’re out there,” she said, that “you can lose yourself in the subject that you’re painting.”
Ogilvie should know.
The winner of the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center’s inaugural Paint the Peninsula competition in 2013, the Port Ludlow artist is back for this year’s third annual contest.
The weeklong Paint the Peninsula event will have plein air artists from across the continent working in Olympic National Park, the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge and points west, from Sequim to Kalaloch — and showing their fresh work to the public.
It’s an uncommon experience: This Monday through Friday, anyone interested in art, nature and the intersection of the two can watch the painters in action, whether they’re at Hurricane Ridge, Marymere Falls, the Dungeness Spit or Port Angeles’ waterfront esplanade.
The public is also invited to free receptions Tuesday and Wednesday evening at the fine arts center at 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd., where the newly framed paintings will be on display, snacks will be laid out and Camaraderie Cellars’ Plein Air red wine will flow.
Monday is the day devoted to Olympic National Park. All 26 artists will take their easels out to its beaches, waterfalls, forests and mountainsides.
Those wanting to observe can phone the fine arts center at 360-457-3532 to find out which artist is where, said Paint the Peninsula chairwoman Anne Dalton.
“This is a different way to appreciate the beauty of our area,” she added.
“To actually watch a painter paint and see it through their eyes is a totally different experience.”
The flock will go to the Dungeness Wildlife Refuge and Dungeness Recreation Area on Tuesday, giving people another opportunity to see art in the making.
Wednesday and Thursday are wide open, so the painters can go to Sequim, Forks or the remote West End beaches and bays.
Finally on Friday, it’s a Quick Draw morning in Port Angeles, when the artists will scatter across the waterfront from the marina to City Pier to finish a piece between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.
What if it rains?
“It probably will,” deadpanned Paint the Peninsula contestant Robert Stem of Sequim.
“I’ll just find a place that’s sheltered,” he said, adding that if he has to paint in his truck, it won’t be the first time.
The ever-changing weather “is more like real life,” said Ogilvie, who lived in Southern California, where things stayed pretty much the same all the time, before moving to Port Ludlow.
Paint the Peninsula is also a chance for art-makers and -lovers to share enthusiasm, something Ogilvie finds plenty of.
“Last year, I was at the marina [in Port Angeles], and there were a lot of people congregating,” she said. The artist would pause, step back from her easel, look around — and realize she had an audience.
Fortunately, they didn’t interrupt or kibitz.
“I found people to be pretty polite,” Ogilvie said.
Beginning Tuesday, all of the plein air paintings will go on sale at the fine arts center. Prices in past years have ranged from $325 to $2,400, Dalton said.
She plans, however, to ask the artists to lower their prices.
“Our economy is not rich and robust,” said the chairwoman, so “we do encourage the artists to knock it down a bit if they can.”
Paint the Peninsula’s participants paid $40 to enter the competition, which offers a considerable slate of awards.
The best-in-show winner will receive $1,500 plus a quarter-page ad in PleinAir magazine, while some $4,000 in other prizes will be awarded in the form of gift certificates and cash.
A panel of judges — contemporary landscape painter Michael Ferguson, Howard/Mandville Gallery of Kirkland owner Pat Howard and Bainbridge Island Museum of Art chief Greg Robinson — selected this year’s contestants from a field of 66 applicants, Dalton said.
Washington state is well-represented with Catherine Mix of Sequim, Ned Mueller of Renton and Steven Hill of Lopez Island among the contestants.
Others come from farther afield, including Stephanie Gauvin of Rossland, B.C.; Jeremy Kraemer from Madison, Wis.; and Suzanne Morris from Nags Head, N.C.
A reunion of two artists from the People’s Republic of China also happens this week.
Wei Jason Situ and Clement Kwan, both originally from the Guangdong province city of Kaiping, are here to paint together.
Situ, who lives in El Monte, Calif., saw an advertisement for Paint the Peninsula in PleinAir magazine and encouraged his old friend Kwan, who makes his home in Victoria, to apply along with him.
“I’m looking forward to a whole week totally painting,” Kwan said. “Nothing else.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
