Artists Paint the Town in Suwanee -- Again

Vickie Johnson needs her "old lady eyes" to paint, so she whipped out her glasses Saturday morning in the Old Town area of Suwanee as she and other artists began the Plein Air Event.

Johnson, chairman of the North Gwinnett Arts Association and a Central Gwinnett High teacher, had some younger company. Students Grace Kim and Gabriel Campoy-Gonzalez were nearby to record the structures and landscape with oils and acrylics.

Others artists such as Adrienne Kinsey of Buford and Linda Tilden of Hoschton set up in Town Center Park. And NGAA set up in a storefront at Town Center to offer information to patrons, including locations of artists. A similar event was held earlier this year.

It's another facet of Suwanee's arts community, and like the others, there's also a business angle. The works were for sale at the conclusion of the two-day event, and Johnson pointed out that she sold a couple of paintings she did last year for $300. That's about $100 per hour for her work, not a bad wage.

This year Johnson took aim at the Creative ClayHouse on Main Street in Old Town on Saturday. On Sunday she was planning to paint trees -- "my favorite." Last year she painted some dogwoods at White Street Park, as well as a couple of houses in the Old Town area.

Tilden, an "empty nester," was participating in the event for the first time. She normally uses oils, but was experimenting with acrylics for the first time. "You gotta live outside your comfort zone," she explained. "Performance kills creativity."

The chief difference is that acrylics dry faster, so artists can manipulate oil paintings longer after the initial strokes.

Kinsey has been painting for about 20 years, mostly oil pastels. She'd "like to get into" painting commercially, and she has her own studio.

At a reception Sunday evening, Johnson won first place, Carol Van Dyck won second place, and Victor Kennedy won third place.