4/1-3: Spring Paint Out Sale at DBG

Every Saturday in March, while camera-carrying visitors snapped digital images of the

Desert Botanical Garden's blossoming cactuses, spiky agave and yellow-budded

paloverdes, dozens of Scottsdale Artists League members sat at foldout easels,

capturing the desert's beauty in watercolors, oils, acrylics and pastels.

The 16th annual Spring Paint Out, a plein air-partnership between the artists league

and the garden, culminates this weekend during the league's showcase and sale of some

of the best works created over the past month.

Guests can meet the artists Friday from 4 to 6 p.m. at the garden's Stardust

Foundation Plaza.

"There are paintings of plants and architecture, and some include people," said

Ericka Cero Wood, painter and league spokeswoman. "It's a challenge to paint

outdoors, with the sun movement and the changing shadows, but it's fun to interact

with visitors and hear people get excited."

On a balmy morning in March, painter Linda Phillips sat across a walkway from a bed

of barrel cactuses near the garden's entrance.

Sitting in a lawn chair at her ad hoc studio - a wooden briefcase-shaped box with

compartments on top of a metal tripod - she tried to match the cactuses' color by

mixing a grassy green shade with a lime green.

An almost constant steam of visitors passed between Phillips and her subjects.

Some craned their necks in curiosity as they passed. Others stopped to watch

Phillips, admiring the piece and asking about materials or the league.

Phillips paused to reply, "Thank you," "Oil paint," and "Here's my card."

A first-time Spring Paint Out participant, Phillips said it took her a long time to

decide what to paint.

"I like to zero in on one small thing rather than paint the whole vista," she said.

"I'm excited because there's so much (to paint) here."

Along the Quail Path Run, a less busy part of the garden, Carol Jeffryes balanced a

box of pastels on one knee and a cloth to wipe her hands on the other.

She worked near saguaros and organ pipe cactuses, which were soon transferred from

the trails to her canvas.

From time to time, the scratch of pastel meeting canvas was met with the crunch of

the dirt trail under a sneaker.

Katrina Sapakie, a 5-year-old who had just visited the garden's spring butterfly

exhibit, ran up behind Jeffryes, exclaiming "I like to paint with chalk, too!"

The little girl from Gilbert then launched into a story about her adventures in

sidewalk art.

Jeffryes grinned and listened, agreeing that drawing and making things was fun.

"As a kid, I was told I didn't have artistic talent," said Jeffryes, who has painted

at the garden for the last decade. "As an old lady, I decided I didn't care, I was

going to do it anyway."

Katrina and her family thanked the artist and continued to another trail. Jeffryes

went back to putting pigment on paper.