 out there in internet land. As everyone else catches up to all of you who are on time, I'm just going to go over how tonight's going to go. So you'll notice that you can see and hear all of us on screen, but we will not be able to see or hear you. But that doesn't mean you can't communicate with us. You'll see on the bottom of your Zoom window, there's a little icon called Chat. And if you open that up, you can type in comments or questions or just say hi. And we'll be able to know that you're here and you can chat with maybe other people who are watching or if you have questions about the sound or video, that's where you can leave those. And then later on, towards the end, if we have enough time, we'll be able to take some questions from you. And to do that, there's another icon on the bottom of your screen that says Q&A. So that's where you would type those questions for our wonderful panelists. And we'll remind you later on to do that if you do have any questions. So I suppose, yeah, I guess we can kick things off. So welcome. Thank you, everyone, for showing up. It's great that you're all here. We have a great night talking about art, plan, talking about plein air. And we'll talk a bit about what that means for those of you who maybe don't know. So before we get started, it's important that we recognize and be thankful that the lands on which we gather for cultural activities are part of the territories and unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples in West Vancouver. It's the Squamish and the Slewa Tooth peoples. And we are ever so grateful as guests to be able to be there on those beautiful lands, all those mountains, and trees, and seashore. We're going to be talking a little bit about those lands as well, because that factors into plein air painting. I will be your host this evening. My name is Stephen Snyder. I am the Gallery and Communications Coordinator for the West Vancouver Community Arts Council. We're a not-for-profit organization that advocates for and fosters and promotes the arts in West Vancouver. And our co-host this evening will be Taryn Erkhart from the West Vancouver Memorial Library. And Taryn will be monitoring the chat, so she'll be the one answering any of your questions or anything there. So now let's turn things over to Bryce Tupper from British Pacific Properties. Thanks, Stephen. Thanks a lot. Hi, everybody. Great afternoon to talk about art. I guess it could be true for most days. But yeah, my name is Bryce Tupper. I'm the Vice President of Planning and Development for Pacific Properties. And we're extremely happy to be back again this year in the face of all the adversity to help sponsor Pain on the Mountain again on the slopes of Holyburn Mountain, which is at the future site of our next mixed-use community, Cypress Village. And we wanted to capture the natural beauty of the area in art. And it's our fifth year doing it. And I took a look at all the art of the 12 artists on Monday and again today on Bellevue Avenue. And it's amazing. I think the bar keeps getting higher and higher. So it's amazing. I encourage everyone to take a look at it. Of course, the event couldn't be possible without the help of a lot of people. I want to first thank the artists for participating days out in the heat. It was a hot weekend, wasn't it? Last weekend. So they earned every stroke for sure. So thanks to the artists. We had some jurors that stepped up and helped us. Bobby Burgers, Laurie Goldberg, who I think is on the panel today, and Martin Kemble. So thanks to jurors. We couldn't have pulled it off without Ruth Payne, our art consultant. She keeps everyone in line, keeps us straight, gets things done. Thank you so much, Ruth. And of course, I mentioned that the art currently is along Bellevue Avenue between 15th and 14th Avenue, 14th and 15th Avenue, exhibited in the storefront. So Maureen O'Brien of the Ambleside Dundray Business Improvement Association helped pull that together with a lot of the shop owners there. And you can walk down there. 24 awesome plein air paintings exhibited there. You can purchase them some awesome deals, beautiful paintings. So I encourage you to, after the art talk, do a bit of an art walk and check that out. And again, thanks to Sil Perce for hosting our talks and talking and giving exposure to plein air. So I guess with that, it's my job to kick this off a bit with the announcement of the winners of this year's Paint on the Mountain Planner Art Competition. And I'll start with the second honorable mention is Sonora Singh with a piece of art that is titled BPP2. So dear to my heart, the name. I think it's the second of the first, second of the two paintings that he did. So thanks Sonora, a beautiful, beautiful piece. So congratulations on that. The first honorable mention goes to someone familiar with the competition. It's not this one, I don't believe. It is the other one. It is Shirley Williams, Enter the Light. So congratulations Shirley. I think she's been a participant for the last five years. So amazing work as always. It's beautiful. And the grand prize winner this year, 2020, Hang on the Mountain Planner Art Competition, Maria Joseph Hans for Shadow Play. So congratulations to Maria. Again, she's participated every year and always delivers amazing art and always look forward to the product from all the artists this year. And so again, like I said, go take a look along Bellevue, it's pretty beautiful. But now I'll kick it back to you Stephen and I'm looking forward to the discussion. Thanks for that Bryson. Yes, congratulations, artists, that was wonderful. It's great to see your work. All right, so I guess it's probably a great time to introduce the rest of our panel. Let's start with our artists. So let's go with Maria if you wanna introduce yourself and say a little bit about you and your artistic past, I suppose, in career. Sure. So I have a studio here in North Vancouver. That's where I am right now. And I've been working in plein air for about 15 years. And before that, I've just been painting and photographing pretty much my whole life. So being outdoors and landscape is like my number one, my number one subject matter. It doesn't matter whether I'm painting or photographing, it's what I do. So it's very easy for me to make that jump to being like in this paint on the mountain event, which is exactly why I applied to be a part of it and wanna be a part of it again, hopefully in years to come. But yeah, it's just wonderful. And I paint in oil and not sure what else I can throw in there if you have any other questions that you think I could answer directly, that'd be great. That's great. Awesome. And then, well, Shirley, let's introduce yourself. Hi, my name is Shirley Williams. I came to painting through a career in interior design. I graduated from BCIT many minutes ago, 43 years to be specific, where I learned to draft and render. So I was able to hone my drawing skills in throughout my career. This was pre-computer aided drafting. So I really had to learn how to make the scene look believable. So I credit a lot of the ability that I've been able to draw from now on that experience. And as well as that, I've been working with kids and community programs for 30 years. I left interior design about 13 years ago and have been painting en plein air for maybe eight, nine, eight, nine years. And I'm loving it. It's a natural transition for me. I love to paint from life, whether I'm painting bouquets of flowers and from my garden in my studio or out in the field. I love to have that connection with the live, with the live object. Yeah, I love it. That's wonderful. Excellent. We gotta love it. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I'm sure if you could introduce yourself. Sure. So hi everyone. My name is Surnur Singh and I came here in Canada last September. I'm in my first year of college and I roughly saying, I kind of started drawing and painting in sixth grade. So I was fortunate to have like good mentors and people who guided me. So and I started doing live painting almost three to four years ago. And I'm still learning and still trying to improve my skills. And like it's so inspirational to me all these really amazing artists. So it's been a really great experience for me painting plein air. Awesome. That's great. And now let's move on to Lori Goldberg who's here as one of the jurors for the competition. And Lori is also an artist. Yeah, so welcome Lori if you could introduce yourself a bit. Well, thank you very much for inviting me to be part of all this and congratulations everyone. So I'm a visual artist painter and particularly been painting, I don't know, I guess since I was born. I think I ate the paint first and started moving it around. So I'm kind of known for my large semi-abstract that West Coast imagery but I usually just oppose it with stopping to disrupt it. So kind of take something that's beautiful and change it up. So my work is diverse and it also for the object and see all the different types of ways of exploring that with the landscape. I'm also an educator, I've been teaching as long as I've been painting and I guess I'm known mostly for teaching at Emily Carr for the last 20 odd years and continuing education. Cool. Well, thank you everyone for being here tonight. So let's talk to a little bit about it earlier. Paint on the Mountain is a plein air painting competition and for those of you who aren't familiar with what plein air is, it pretty much means just to paint outside, painting in your natural surroundings. And it's something that, what we know as plein air today is a fairly recent actually, kind of around the 1800s in Europe was one of the first times that painters were able to carry their work with them because paint was now available in tubes. They didn't have to stay in their studios. Big gallons of paint or blocks of paint, they could just take their affordable easel and some tubes and they could go out into the landscape around them and paint what they saw. And that's exactly what these amazing artists did this past weekend was they went up to Hollyburn Mountain and sat themselves down and painted away and painted what they saw. So that's what plein air is. And that kind of leads into our first question of the evening. Why do you paint plein air? What's the draw of it for you as artists? Let's start with Sonor. Okay, so for me, plein air painting is like, it's really different from being painting from an image. And when I'm painting outdoors, it's like I'm looking at the subject or the landscape in the real life and I can see the colors and experience the environment and atmosphere more, I'd say more precisely or I can capture it in a better way. So I guess that's why I love plein air painting. And it's also like a good experience being out in the nature instead of, you know, like a square, just a room or a studio, I guess that, yeah. Shirley, why do you paint plein air? Oh yeah, all of the above for sure. It's definitely an excuse to get out. And there's almost always a little adventure attached to it, something happens or it's, it just, it's a fabulous excuse to be outside. But mainly I enjoy having the opportunity to connect on a deeper level than I would be able to with a photo reference. And it energizes me, I'm gonna say. I, having that direct connection, it goes straight to the heart. And I'm gonna say I'm the happiest running out there. I'm really and truly love it. And Maria, why do you do it? For all of the reasons they just didn't do, gotta say that. And it is certainly true, I, Shirley and I actually paint together quite a bit. And when she says she's the happiest outside, it is true, she's like crazy happy outside. So, but I would say, and one of my main reasons for going outdoors is like, is the idea of direct observation. Like as we all know, like painting from a photograph, like the photograph never seems to really replicate exactly what we see. Like if we were standing there looking into sunset, right? And we take a picture and like at that time it was like, that doesn't look like the sunset I'm looking at right now, right? So it's that idea that, you know, you're out there and you're directly observing those colors as your eye takes it in right then. And that's something that becomes really important when I come into the studio to make bigger paintings. So now I can actually take my photo reference and really turn them into paintings about really being back in that place. So I only ever really work from my own references for that reason, because I can't really relate to someone else's picture of a place. So yeah, it really for me is about that direct observation. And I am like, I just love nature, I love mountains in particular and the coast. So I actually live in the perfect place to do what I do. So yeah, and I'm pretty happy when I'm outdoors that just that whole, as Sunore really touched on that, you know, that sensory experience of being outdoors. It's, you know, I mean, there's all these distractions that suddenly come in that we don't get when we're in the studio, right? Like, you know, the wind is gonna knock everything over or it's boiling, boiling hot, like it was this past weekend, whatever it is, like, you know, those things affect, I believe those really affect what our overall painting turns out like. Whether it's something specific or not in the painting, it's really, it's probably gonna be related in some way to someone's response to the paintings that we make. So, so everyone probably feels really hot when they look at our paintings. It was boiling hot when we were painting them, but yeah. So, yes, love being outside, that's my thing. Thank you. It's also hard to appreciate how quickly light changes. That's right, yeah. When you're out there and you are faced with it, because I think technically it changes every 15 minutes. And especially if you're in a sunny environment, like we were on the weekend, thank heavens it was sunny, but it just makes for a more challenging situation and you naturally rise to the challenge and connect yourself to it and work with it. And you have to be fast and smart and make sketches. Yeah, it's like, it's quite the experience for you. That leads me to one of our next questions. Were there any obstacles that popped up on you this weekend that you were not prepared for, that you've had to sort of overcome? Anyone feel free to jump in? I'm gonna say that I was prepared because I brought the bear spray. Right, I thought that's what you mentioned. I brought the bear spray, but I didn't actually have the nerve to look at the bear that was right around the corner from us. Maria spotted him. She goes, oh, look, there's a bear. Shh, but I wouldn't work. I am a cheetah. She made me carry the bear spray. I did. Because I had to show her how to use it to click off the end cap and read the directions that are like tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, but yeah. The bears were definitely as interested in the berries as we were. So we did a lot of like berry eating as well. And I tend to trip a lot on the job. So I'm gonna say that there were rocks in the wrong place for me. So that was an unexpected issue, but I had to deal with. I just wanted to interrupt. I would just say something because when we were, I asked Ruth, I said, did they see any wildlife? And they said, well, I think that we saw some deer, but I don't know if they actually saw them, but they didn't know. She didn't know that you guys had seen a bear. That's really interesting. I think there were a lot, I think there were a lot. Oh yeah, yeah. So I know that, like, I think it was, oh shoot, well, I told Maureen about the bear because it was just up from where she was painting. And then a bunch of people, bunch of painters were coming down from that viewpoint in the first route in. And they had definitely seen the bears and had, and we'll see, and Elizabeth Austin, I think they'd both seen the bear up a different bear because there was a lot of scat everywhere. So it was like, there's an awful lot here. Maybe I won't paint there, but yeah. Well, does that factor in when you're painting outdoors, like the fear factor, or what's behind you? Yeah, yeah, I tend to make, I take my paintbrush and like knock my tripod often, just to like make noise. Cause it's a really interesting thing how, you know, you forget, you know, you're into your painting and all of a sudden you realize that you're being like really, really quiet. And, you know, so if a bear comes around, they're not really interested in you, but they don't even know you're there. So, you know, it's good to just like make noise and so that they remember you're there, right? And go somewhere else to go eat and munch and whatever they do. That's the factor that people have to know what would take the courage to go out into the forest. So Nour, you're new to this country. I don't know if you knew that or not, but. That's right. Yeah, Maria told me about bears and surely we were talking about like the bears could come. I was like, yeah. But similar to that in India, like I'm from a place, a region like I'm from Punjab, which is a very hot region and we have snakes there. So when I used to go like out painting, so in fields or in like farms, so there was always a danger that I'm quiet. I'm painting that there could be a snake crawling around and if I step on it or something, that was pretty dangerous. And there are many other like poisonous creatures too, which are, which move like crawled around. So yeah, but still I never knew that there were bears around. I also saw a garter snake. That's the other thing. You did? I didn't know that. It's just a garter snake. So see, Sonora, you're quite lucky. Like we don't have the poisonous snakes that you have. So I would rather be in bear country than your snake country. Well, since you've all been sharing your experiences with each other while you're out in the competition, how much interaction while you were painting did you actually have with the other artists and what was sort of the atmosphere on site like between all of you? I would say it was great. I didn't get to see everyone, but luckily one painting I was doing was kind of out in a very like easily passable area. So I did get to talk to people because they were like going by sort of things. So that was really nice. Everyone, I find like in events like this, everyone's just always really helpful. Like how, you know, people are gonna say like, oh yeah, if you want, you know, a nice water view or whatever, you know, go over that way or whatever it is. So, so yeah, it was really nice. And I know that like Ann and I had a nice conversation just about how great this event was because both of us know about so many events that happen like this in the US that are like nice big events. And it's so good to have one that's feeling a little more similar to that up here because there really aren't many. So yeah, I had a nice time with people. I did as well. It's, I find it a really friendly environment. I'm encouraged by it. I think it's nice to know that there's people in, even though I can't, I don't have a visual connection to them or necessarily an auditory connection. I know they're out there. We're not the only ones, me and the bears. But it's, people are so generous. I think it's a lovely environment. It really is. And it's such a pleasure to meet new people, this guy in particular. Yeah, same here. Same here, like it was just wonderful. I mean, an event where it's like, you get the person to go out and it's not just like a gathering or it's like an organized event that there's paintings and then you submit them and then you hang them. And because I've not participated in many events like this and people were just amazing. And we were meeting new artists. And me, I was just around Shirley and Maria all the time. Like they were painting on the spot. And I was very close to them where I was painting. So once in a while I was checking like what's the progress there or talking nonsense and disturbing them. But it was sort of wonderful. Yeah. And even the organizers like who, people who were present there from British properties, they were really nice and courteous and pretty good. Yeah. Wonderful experience. So there's someone in your painting, Sonor. So who's that? So which painting? The one that we showed that one. That's Shirley. Ah, nice. That's Shirley. Excellent. She was painting ahead of me like on the same road. And I was a little behind on that road. So she were into the scene. And it's really great to have a subject matter who was sure. Excellent. So while you're out there painting with everyone and you're getting along, it's still a competition. So does that really factor in or how do you prepare for that? Sort of aspect of the day? Didn't really affect me, I guess. I mean, I was, like most of the time I was not thinking of that as a competition. Yeah, it was just like enjoying the outside. Nice. Yeah, I think that's true. You can't really, well, at least me, I can't really think about it as a competition because then I feel like I'm trying to make a painting to please someone other than myself, which some people are really good at, but that's why I initially was trained as an illustrator, but I left illustration early on because I'm not good at that. I'm not good at making the painting that someone else wants. So yeah, I basically need to just sort of forget that or try, which is really hard, but try and forget sort of the situation that you're in. And that's why I said it was really nice with all the people that I did, all the other artists that I did interact with because I felt like everyone was really asking about, like, so how is your painting going? Like, did you, you know, and sometimes you don't want to hear that the other person's already got like two done or I think Tatiana said the first day that she had like three starts on the go. And I'm like, three stars. Whoa. So, but it's really nice to know that other people are like, you know, they're out there just doing their thing too. So I have to say one of my favorite hashtags is just painting outside. That's like one of my Instagram hashtags because that's kind of how I feel is like you just got to take like what you do and put yourself outside and do it. So, I think. Nice. That's awesome. And just a reminder for everyone watching, if you have any questions for any of our panelists, you can type those into the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen. Lori, what was the jury looking for this event? Well, there were a few categories and I just want to first of all say that all the work that I saw and I would say that the other two jurors would say the same is that they were all in high level. I mean, it was very difficult to make choices with who would be the winners. But we were forced to do that. We did. So whoever did not get into the winning circle, we did not worry about that. And I'm sure you're not that you just carry on painting. Well, forget about that whole part, which they're already telling me that. You guys don't think about that when you're out there. It's your art and you just carry on anyways, whatever, winner, loser, doesn't have anything to do with it. But it was really, I quite a, I enjoy the process a lot to analyze and construct my answers. And I have my own method, but I guess I can speak for myself. It's probably the best, but overall, and I will in a sec, but overall, we're all looking for a sense of place, what that felt for all of us. And then the technical aspects of it and the composition and the uniqueness or the originality, which within that genre, it's not, there's a certain style that you can fall into. And I think that there was a lot of exploring that and everyone's own language, which I was really appreciative of. So by looking around, and I kind of worked, so for myself, I worked from, first of all, the intuitive, like what's my gut? What's my first, where do I go to? Where am I curious about? Then I would go to those pieces and look at them. And then I would turn my back on them. And then we would go and have a conversation because we really needed to be distracted because it's really overwhelming, room for a while. And then we'd come back again and then we'd have our method. I don't know, do you want me to share our method? But it doesn't matter. But anyways, we just had, there would have to be a consensus of three totally different art related jurors to come together to make that choice. So it was not, some of them came easy, some of them was whatever. It all flowed so nice. Actually, it all flowed so nicely. It was a wonderful experience. And yeah, and I just also wanted to say the images that you put up on the screen do not do justice to the work. The work is flat, looking the colors aren't as true. And also, you really don't see the vibrancy of the life force that's in the artwork. So anyone that's seen them on the screen, you got to go see them in real life to really appreciate what they look like. And then experience that, yeah, you know, and it's always surprising. And, you know, Sonora was a real treat because, you know, he's 19 years old from what I've been told, right? Yeah, that's right. So you're just at the beginning and there's something really exciting about that. And your work is all very, very, you know, highly skilled as a watercolorist in particular, you know, one of the hardest mediums to work at because it's a one-directed medium. You know, you capture things in a really fresh, alive way and, you know, and you keep up your curiosity and, you know, inquiring personality that you have. Your work will evolve and get stronger and I'm excited to see where it will go in your future. So you've got the whole future ahead of you. So that's exciting that that you've got. Thank you. Thank you so much. I mean, I could talk about the other two works too, though. I found really attractive to what, you know, attracted me with Shirley's work. I felt like I could, I really found Place was a huge one for me for your work. I felt like I could just be right where you were. You drew me in to where the artist would be sitting. And you were so immersed in the forest. That's how it felt like I felt like I could not get out. Like, you know, I love the story of people that come from another part of the world and they go into the forest and they go for a nice happy hike and realize that, you know, you don't do happy hikes in the West Coast forest. You get lost really easily. True. Oh, I think maybe we've lost Lori temporarily. That's okay, I'm sure she'll pop back in. So we can move on to maybe some of these. We've got a few questions from the audience already. Let's go to one. You've got Jan wants to know, what do you take with you when you head out to paint? What are your supplies? What are your materials? Who wants to answer that one? Well, I mean, it depends on your medium, but if you're doing oil, so I paint in oil, so that's gonna probably be different. But yeah, if I paint in oil, I've got a tripod set up with actually a paint box that attached, it's built to attach to that tripod. And so there's a gazillion different kinds of setups out there. And I think the most important thing is to find the one that you feel comfortable with. Because honestly, as we talked about, like painting outdoors, anything can happen. And so, and you can end up being like crazy uncomfortable, which is not going to make you want to go out and paint. So basically coming up with, just I'd search it out online, like all the different setups that you can get, but I personally have a strata easel. That's my main go-to easel. So you can just go to stradeazle.com and take a look at theirs. I love it. It's pretty indestructible because it's metal, but I've got everything I need, my paints, my brushes, my easel and my tripod. I'm sure I'll forget something because I always do. And all my paper towel and bear spray, don't forget your bear spray and maybe your bug spray, big hat, if you like to sit down. But whatever you do, make sure it's really transportable because if you want to go into a different place to paint, it makes it really hard to drag all of your stuff in. So I hope that helps a little bit. I say, Senor, do you want to tell them about your setup since you did watercolor? Sure, I can tell a little about watercolors, I guess. But I won't talk about my setup because it's not really good. I would talk about good setup. So like when you're doing watercolors, so you need like easel, which is like the surface of the easel could be tapered to your requirement because watercolor is good when the water is flowing down. And if it's really, really steep, so water will flow down really easily and your color will not stand like, right. So you need that to be adjustable really quickly. So when you need it to be adjusted. And another thing is that you can, well, I like to set sometimes because I get tired and I cannot focus on my painting. So I like my easel, I lower it down and sit on my stool which is foldable and I carry it all the time. So, and that is also it. Another thing is I like to carry and there's, I can show you, yeah, I have right here. So I have this thing, I don't know what to call it. It's like a spray pump and you can spray water on your paper which will keep the color alive. So, and when we are painting outdoors, it dries really quickly. So you need to keep the surface wet until you're done your work or wet on bed, whatever you're doing. So, yeah, and always like being comfortable with where you're sitting or standing is really important. Your surface must be always in the shade. That's what I think. I always want it to be in shade. Hmm, sounds like a bit of a workout. Yeah, that's right. Do you bring a little table with you to set up supplies as well like a folding table? A stool, it's fairly handy but if you want to see, this is a safe. And away he goes. A little show and tell. Like this tool. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do. Sometimes I keep my supplies on it. It's accessible, right? Thanks for that. You're welcome. Totally. We've got another question from the audience. This is pretty interesting. Does your color palette change depending on if you're indoors or outdoors or do you still gravitate towards familiar colors that you would normally use in other paintings? I'll answer that one and then I'm gonna pass it over to Maria who's the color expert. I tend to use a pretty limited palette, meaning I don't put that many colors out onto my mixing palette. And I tend to use the same ones in the studio as well. If I'm painting outside of the traditional landscape hue family, I will introduce colors that I wouldn't bother taking out into the field like bright pinks or unusual oranges. But for the most part, I've got maybe six or seven colors that I take with me. Maria. Yeah, she knows I'm a bit of a color crazier. But probably I should preface this by saying I'm quite fickle about color. Things go in and out of fashion with me like really fast as far as the color goes. But I mean, I generally have my standard palette which is a set of about a warming cool of each primary basically if that makes sense to people. For example, cadmium red light would be a warm red and alizarin permanent would be a cool red. So anyway, we can talk more about that later when we have like the five hour zoom session. But yeah, so it depends on where I'm at, what I think I'm gonna paint, but I'll have like that basic set and then maybe I'll replace one or another. For example, like if you went to the desert Southwest and the skies there are definitely different blue than we get here in DC. So sometimes it's nice to have to know that, oh yeah, I wanna bring, you know, Magany's blue key with me because that's gonna really help me get to that sky color like that blue that they have better than having to try and to mix it just for my standard palette or something like that. But generally speaking, it's nice to keep a plein air palette of colors the same because then if you bring that painting back and you're using it to make a bigger painting, you know exactly what you use to make those colors. So it can really help you out. So as soon as you start adding those weird things, it can really mess you up later, but you gotta make notes. I'm a rather copious note taker sometimes, so. So yeah, I like to make notes about all my colors and I love color, so yeah. That notion of making notes is interesting, Maria. Do you artists find that when you're painting on plein air, that's kind of it. You know, you've been out in the wilderness, you've painted your piece and it's done or do you find that that's more of a warmup for maybe a larger painting that you would then move into the studio? Do you ever use it that way? Well, all I answer that one real quick is just that for me, like plein air painting has two purposes and they aren't mutually exclusive. However, like when I go out a lot of times I'm thinking I just wanna go out to get reference. So I don't worry about making a painting and then there are other times when I know like, you know, we're doing this event and I need to come out with like actually making a painting and so those are kind of like two different things. However, the first one sometimes turns into a really good little painting, right? So yeah, so I hope that isn't too confusing. Not at all. That's a great question, by the way. Yeah. Right. That's awesome. So do any of you have any tips for aspiring plein air artists? Do it. Yeah, for sure. Do a little bit of homework up front. Talk to people that work in the field, the medium. That's probably your first go-to would be to connect with someone that can take you along with them. And there's a lot of information out there, particularly some of the border. There's materials to be had that are beyond what we can get here in Canada. But having said that, I think we're catching up, which is great. It's definitely the plein air movement is a lot stronger in the US than it is here, which means that there are more options for materials and Prashad boxes, which are what those little units are technically called. But I highly recommend just doing it as Maria says, but if you're feeling nervous, I think it helps to spend a little bit of time in the backyard getting to know your equipment. Even if you're a seasoned in-studio painter, I think it's helpful to just give yourself a couple of hours a day and get used to the scenario, get used to how it feels to be outside in the elements. And the number one tip that I would have once you're out there is to not rush in. I find that most people like to do sketches beforehand. And I, for some reason, I just don't work that way, but I do take my time when I'm in the field. I take my time connecting to the scenes that appeal to me and the chosen scene really has to connect on a very deep level before I go in with it. But it can take me an hour and I've in the past spent too much time looking for the right thing and have not taken it as seriously as maybe I could have. And now I just, I allow it to infuse me, I guess, is a good way of describing it. That connection is really important to me. So don't rush it. And if that means you need to do multiple sketches to feel like you're composing a scene that makes sense for you, that's phenomenal. I have great admiration for you pre-paint sketches. But spending the time and connecting yourself is primary. Nice. So, Noor, what do you do to prepare? Prepare? Yeah, find yourself some buddies. I'm sorry, I didn't get like, to prepare a painting? No, the planar experience, what do you do to prepare? How do you find your chosen site or your chosen subject matter? You were very careful at it. I watched you. I am, but I kind of don't want to be because like there's artists that I admire, Joseph Zavukvich, who's a watercolor artist. He says like, there are no bad subject matters, only bad paintings. So I wanna paint any scene and I want it to be good. But yeah, I'm kind of picking sometimes. All right. Yeah. Awesome. So I just wanted to remind everyone, Bryce had mentioned it earlier, but you can see all of the paintings that were created this past weekend in some shop windows along Delview Avenue in West Vancouver. So it's pretty cool. So let me just see. So that is, so you can see it. It'll be on from today until August 31st in the windows of Crema, Stitigen Jewelers, Oxygen Yoga, Jones and Company Bespoke Framers and Phoenix. So yes, we're taking a walk. Don't check it out and they're for sale. You can also go and vote. There's a people's choice for all of the paintings. So you can, if you can't make it out on the street or if you're on the street and then wanna go vote, check out paintonthemountain.com. And you'll see all of the paintings by all 12 artists there. So you can vote for your favorite that way. It's a nice interactive way and a great way to see all the artwork. Something else to mention is that well, these three amazing artists were part of it. There was a whole bunch of people out painting on the mountain. So we're just gonna give a shout out to all those other great talented artists that we couldn't fit everyone in today. There's gonna be a lot of people talking. So everyone else who was painting on Paint on the Mountain, we had Elizabeth Austin, Maureen Conley, Mo Gosh, Tatiana Mirkov Popoviki, Jan Pointer, Nigel Sutcliffe, Alfonso Tejada, Shannon Thiessen and Ann Willsie. So you'll be able to see all of their work at paintonthemountain.com where you can vote and in the shops along Bellevue Avenue. I think now we'll get Taryn back on because there's another opportunity that we have in West Vancouver to see some planar sketches. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for just including me in this event. And Stephen, we just had a question from an audience member about how to view the images during this COVID time if we can't get out and walk around the neighborhood. I know we have a lot of people that are a little more isolated. So I'm just gonna share my screen to just show people exactly how to get to the website. Excellent. Yes, so just bear with me here. So I hope everyone, I'm gonna see if I can get my spancy dancey cursor which I've never used before. Ooh, can you see my cursor? Yeah. And you can see plate on the mountain, paint on the mountain, the screen? Yeah. Great. So everyone, if you go to Cypressvillage.com event slash POTM, paint on the mountain, you can also go to paintonthemountain.com. And you'll notice over in the right, it'll say vote for people's choice but it also has, yes, I believe if we click on that and then click here to vote, you will see all of the paintings listed and you can view them. So that is the easiest way if you aren't able to get out and about. And I'm just gonna shut that down. And just an aside, this gives me an opportunity to mention a few things going on at the library. We do have an art gallery, a virtual exhibition on called Hand-Drawn West Vancouver. It links slightly with the Plain Air initiative in the sense that Emma Fitzgerald, who was the artist, she is a sketcher and did everything out of doors and in plain air, just not with oils or watercolors but with just a pen and ink. So on our art gallery page, you can see here Hand-Drawn West Vancouver, it's a little virtual flip book that you're welcome to visit and flip through. Emma is also commentating on all of the places she sketched in and Emma's, she did a reading with us and you can view that on our YouTube page called Hand-Drawn Vancouver. And another shout out, we're recording today's event and both Stephen and I will be posting the video on both the Silt Purse YouTube. Is that correct, Stephen? Or? West Bend Arts Council. Thank you. It will be also on the West Vancouver Memorial Library YouTube page so you can share it with friends and family and it will be there for a time in Memorial to watch again and again. So thank you for just letting me be part of this. That's awful. Thank you for sharing all of that. Taryn, yeah. So I guess we're coming to a close. So thanks everyone for showing up tonight and sharing your words of wisdom and sharing your artwork with us. Where can people who are watching, where can they find more about you or more of your work? I'm on Instagram, ShirleyClaireWilliams and also my website is ShirleyClaireWilliams.com. Maria? And my website is just my full name, mariajosenhans.com. And I also am on Instagram and Facebook and there's links to my Instagram and Facebook page on my website as well. For me, you can go to Instagram. Sunur is my first name and it'll pop up for sure but you can write my last name as well which is S-E-M-B-H-I-S-M-B and that's my Instagram where I post my artworks. I also have a behance that I don't post frequently there but after a couple of, like a while I do post my works over there as well. So yeah, check them out. Hey. Awesome, that's wonderful. Yeah, and go check out the paint on the mountain site like Taryn just showed you. Vote for your favorite and if you are able, check them out in person along Bellevue on the art walk. That's pretty exciting stuff. So thank you to all of our wonderful panelists and to British Pacific Properties and to everyone who helped put this amazing event together. It was pretty wonderful to have this experience this evening with you all. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you and thank you so much for hosting. Thank you so much. And thanks to British Pacific Properties for having this event. Even though they didn't have harmony arts and everything it's still wonderful that they were able to get this together and do this this way. It's really nice. Yeah, thank you all. And thank you for everyone who showed up tonight to listen and to see examples of this work. That's what art is here for is for you guys. Yeah, so thank you. Enjoy the rest of your evening and please stay safe and stay creative and we will connect with you later. Take care everybody. Thank you. Bye. Bye.