Tag Archives: Plein Air

Grand Canyon Plein Air 2013

20130917_183536_HDRThis year’s Grand Canyon Celebration of Art, Plein Air on the Rim was somehow even more amazing than last years!! The organizers seem to have the midas touch on this show. It never seizes to amaze me how much support the GCA is able to create for this noblest of causes. Every year, this is the fifth, the Grand Canyon Association holds this show as a fundraiser in order to build a permanent venue for the Grand Canyon’s amazing art collection. They have accumulated a collection that can rival some of the best museums in the world of Grand Canyon art through donations, artists in residences, and acquisitions made by congress in the formation of the National Parks. They have Bierstadts, Thomas Morans, Edgar Payne, and countless others. This permanent venue will be a public museum for guests of the canyon to enjoy

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forever. Plein Air working for the public interest in the largest and most popular of all of the national parks. I just love being part of this “GRAND” idea and vision put together by the Grand Canyon Association. Plus the skies parted and the rain stopped for us the entire week!

20130915_164138This year the GCA had me and Robert Dalegowski go down to Phantom Ranch for a couple of days of the event. I hired the Mule cowboys to take a camping duffle down for me so I wouldn’t have to carry all of my painting and camping gear. Well, I had never been down to the Colorado River before then and was spellbound by its eternal beauty. I painted four paintings on the way down. ‘Zoroaster from the South

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 Kaibab,’ ‘Yaki From Skeleton Point,’ ‘The Bright Angel From Skeleton Point,’ and ‘Phantom Ranch’ can all be found in the body  of work gallery below. The other paintings where you can see the river closely were also done from the adventure down there. I had a blast getting to know the very talented and scrappy 68 years young, Robert. This guy had stories from the canyon and beyond that could captivate a room of A.D.D. teenagers, and has explored every nook and cranny of the canyon in his 50+ years of Grand Canyon exploration. He was painting in watercolors and I highly recommend checking out 20130914_171434some of his work by clicking HERE! I ran out of panels

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after two full days of painting around Phantom and hiked and painted on the way out too. The hike out was spectacular because just as I emerged from the basement rock and through the tapeats formation, the sun was setting on Zoroaster, my favorite monument out there (you’ll see painting after painting of it in my body of work). Then the moon rose and I continued up from skeleton point by the moonlight. Stellar. 

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For the rest of the week I spent my time on the rim painting into the blue abyss. As you will see with my body of work, I am continually captivated by the interesting interplay of light and dark shapes (click HERE to read my updated artist’s statement). The Grand Canyon creates the most stimulating light and dark shapes of any place I’ve ever been to. One of the days up on the Rim, Dave Santillanes (click HERE) was pointing to the stands in

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 expectation of cranking that painting out of the park!! Bill Cramer (click HERE) was doing his usual shenanigans, and we all wore ourselves out with our heavy intake of alcohol at night, and early rising to capture the sunrises each morning….artists are a different breed!! 

I’ve never witnessed a quickdraw that draws more attention or support than the one at El Tovar during this event. There were hundreds of people and the auctioneer did a phenomenal job of keeping people’s interest and getting those prices up. The GCA broke the previous year’s record with this quickdraw and the totals for 25 artists was 38,000 in sales!! The show opening of all of the work we’d done hadn’t even happened yet. The opening gala reception was another record breaker. I ended up selling 13 paintings including the quickdraw and got voted for the event’s top award, Artist’s Choice “Best Body of Work!!” I was very surprised because of the quality of work and artists in this show it could have gone to anyone. I am so honored by this and I will cherish this award for my life!! James McGrew (click HERE) also did very well in the awards department. He took the people’s choice at the quickdraw and the Plein Air magazine award also.

Enjoy the award winning body of work below (Artist’s Choice; Body of Work). And for availability use the navigation bar above and browse to my available paintings.


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Estes Park Adventure 2013

My family and I spent a week up in Estes Park at the end of August. The initial motivation of the trip was to do a book signing for the “Art of the National Parks” book I was honored to be invited to participate in.20130825_132727 The book turned out to be just outstanding. They featured around 100 of the top painters in the country including Scott Christensen, Curt Walters, Skip Whitcomb, and many others. I was featured in the book for Rocky Mountain National Park and the book signing was appropriately scheduled at the historic Stanley Hotel which was made uber famous by the movie The Shining.

In order to get a copy of this amazing book contact me, they are $85.00 plus $10.00 to ship: josh@joshuabeen.com, 719-221-8964artofthenationalparksbook

So I gathered the troops and set sail for Estes Park’s own kid friendly Jellystone Park RV park. We had the best time and slotted into a narrow and lucky great weather window. As you fellow Colorado dwellers know, the weather this year was rainy, rainy, and more rainy..so we lucked out. Maddie did her first 5.5 mile hike all by herself which was fantastic!! We also overlapped the Plein Air Rockies show so I was able to reconnect with some of my favorite artist friends who participate. Also friends Dave Santillanes, John Taft, and Amery Bohling came up for some hiking and painting. I hiked to Alberta Falls, Mills Lake, The Loch, Lake of Glass, Sky Pond, Dream Lake, and Fern Falls while I was there so look for those paintings below:

 

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Green River Float 2013

_MG_2246Toward the end of July, _MG_2245I took the family on a 6 day adventure with Dvorak’s Expeditions. It started with a short drive over to Grand Junction where we stayed in the Grand Vista Hotel looking out at the Colorado National Monument at sunset. The next day we were up at the crack _MG_2319of dawn to board a small passenger cessna aircraft which flew us 45 minutes to the north and west of Grand Junction. We landed on a small plateau overlooking the put in at Sandy Wash on the Green River in Desolation Canyon.
We first strapped all of the rafts together into a giant floatzilla and motored for about 15 river miles on the first day. The _MG_2478weather was absolutely perfect the entire trip and a light haze in the air kept the heat from being sweltering! I thought the first day was interesting and could see the reason for the namesake of the canyon, Desolation. We were in the middle of NOWHERE and there wasn’t much vegetation outside of the watercourse. The canyon walls looked to be a crumbly kind of sundried limestone. We did spot a small herd of wild horses on the Ute Indian Reservation side of the river.
The second day of rafting I found the canyon to be a bit more sculptural. The rock turned from limestone to sandstone and I thought this to be more aesthetically pleasing from a painting standpoint. I ended up doing both a painting at our stopping point that night and one in the morning. The morning one was right in the direction of the Groover which I did not know and probably embarrassed a couple _MG_2359of river rats.  This one is called “Groover View” in the painting gallery below._MG_2441
On the second night of the trip and after a few on river water battles, the group was forever bonded in our floating adventure. The food on the trip was absolutely stellar. We had five guides for the almost 20 of us so everything was taken care of and we ate like kings and queens. I snapped pictures while floating during the day and tried to paint like a madman as soon as we stopped for the evening and as everyone loaded the rafts in the morning.
_MG_2332By the third day everyone knew the drills and was on task. My mom and I took duckies out on this day and had a blast running some of the whitewater in the canyon. A few of the other river rats got a hold of my camera one night and had a little fun!!IMG_2483
Some of the haziness in the weather created a flat light on some of the evenings, so I painted trees and other subjects on those days. While the sun set over the canyon walls, a few of us got into a pretty impressive bocce ball tournament. Not a moment later while listening to one of the guides, Nathan, strumming away on the “guit-fiddle” an adolescent bear thought he would like what we were eating at camp…happened to be salmon on this night!! We jumped up and made a lot of noise like a bunch of savages, and the bear took for the hills!
_MG_2460The 4th 5th and 6th days were the best of the Desolation and Gray Canyons I thought. Along the float we stopped a couple of times to see petroglyphs, old homestead cabins and farms and a really refreshing tributary called rock creek.  I think it’s so intriguing to think about the recent history (last 100+ years) and the ancient history of the watershed. Native Americans must have found the place bountiful and probably wandered and traded goods up and down the canyon and beyond. Not to mention the formation of the area in the super ancient geologic history of this river.
If you ever get a chance to do this float, I highly recommend it! Artist or not, you will enjoy yourself very much. I would calle Dvorak’s Expeditions to book a trip as soon as possible and especially if you have young ones in your group. There are sandy beaches the entire way, the water temperature was about 70 degrees, and the area is stunning. Please also enjoy the body of work below from the trip. Check the availability of the paintings by using the navigation bar above.

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