The Santa Fe Plein Air Festival is on and I’m here. Although I’m number six on the reserve list I decided to come down anyway and take advantage of the painting opportunities. It’s an invitational painting festival and limited to 31 artists. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and get included. The event is sponsored by the Plein Air Painters of New Mexico, of which I am a member.

I swung up to Las Vegas, New Mexico to see what I could see, looking for a painting to do. Originally I was going to see about painting some of the old historic hotels and buildings on the old plaza. There’s a bar on the east side of the plaza and some of the local drunks were panhandling try to get enough for their morning first. They wouldn’t leave me a lone so I moved on finding a great spot on National Avenue leading off of the Plaza in the heart of the “old town” area. There was a great looking building and old sign on the front, Estella’s Cafe. Found a great spot in front of a vacant store front in the shade across the street and worked it up in watercolor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Painting these old store fronts and buildings isn’t what I usually do and I find it a real challenge but I really like doing it and found the result to be satisfactory. There’s is so much character in these old places. They all have a story and that’s what I’m painting, their story.

 

 

 

 

 

Several locals stopped and watched but nobody could tell me what the story was other than it is real famous and sadly closed at this time. Guess I’ll have to Google it.

Here’s a pic of the inside I stole off of the internet.

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like a really neat place. Not much else available other than it was handed down to the fourth generation in 2012.

I’ll be down here for about a week or more so I’ll keep posting if you stay tuned.