Trip Report: Rosebud Fall Paint-Out 2022

Sept 16-18, 2022

This was my second time going to the annual Fall Paint-Out in Rosebud, AB. This year, there was also an FCA-Calgary workshop happing in Rosebud at the same time, which meant there were about 70 Artists in town for the two events.

I arrived on Friday afternoon with a plan to paint a particular swather in a barn on the road into town that I had spotted on my two prior visits to Rosebud. As luck would have it, the swather was out swathing in a field someplace. I found another spot and completed one warm up painting in acrylic. In the evening, there was an excellent gouache demo given by the workshop instructor, Dale Roberts. I hadn’t had any instruction on gouache previously, so I was especially excited to attend.

For Saturday, the organizers had arranged access to two different areas of private land for us to work at. This opened up a pile of new paint spots and also meant the artists were a bit more concentrated. At one point, there was a big line of artists set-up up at the edge of the riverbank; this was really exciting to be a part of. I completed two acrylic and three gouache paintings at four locations. In the evening, there was social event where many participants met and compared notes from the day.

On Sunday, I got out reasonably early and did a neat scene of reflections on a creek. The owner of the house was out walking her dog and stopped for a chat while I worked. later, I ventured out of town to Redland and stopped to paint a couple more gouache paintings at an interesting old house that was vacant. This spot had been discussed at the previous nights social event, and sure enough, there were already three artists set-up when I arrived. In the afternoon, I got back to the town hall a bit early and helped set-up for the wet-paint show. With so many artists in town, the hall was packed with paintings and the quality of all of the work was really high. One of my gouache paintings from the morning sold, which was nice.

What a great event. I met many new people and got to paint with some excellent artists. The whole atmosphere was friendly, non-competitive, and very supportive.

~JW