Paint Outis once again calling for volunteers to be a part of its multi-day art festival in Norwich and Norfolk. We are so appreciative of the many volunteers, interns, art students and supporters of the arts that have assisted the artists and exhibition visitors in previous years and we’re hoping that students, community, art and event lovers will want to get involved again this year.
Options include coming out for full days on location with us to a few hours stint staffing the gallery of 100s of artworks to being part of the entertainment in the early evenings if you have musical talent! Several evenings we have socials on site or on location.
Some of our volunteers become interns and go from having food & expenses covered to earning a small stipend whilst simultaneously being taught about art, social media, photography, web design, video, technology, data, curation, marketing, e-commerce and sales. Plus being immersed in a world of a 100 artists and a 1000 paintings for 1-10 days. Commute, camp or couchsurf with other team members.
Volunteers are needed to help guide members of the public and assist the artists on location, as well as support and staff the exhibition. Volunteers who excel may be invited back as interns or staff in subsequent years. We are particularly looking for skills in social media, photography, sales, hospitality, spreadsheets, gallery & exhibition.
The 2023 event takes place from 13-22 July in Norwich, and availability need only be for a day or half-day or couple of hours within that period.
“It was a wild ride and I’m so glad I took part. This team is glorious!” (2022 volunteer)
Volunteering opportunities exist for morning, afternoon, evening, or full-days. There will be a welcome event, thank you gifts, and a chance to interact with the art and artists. We are also looking for hosts who can put up an artist or fellow volunteer in Norwich 12-23 July, for a small nightly fee.
The Social Media and CV website LinkedIn allows you to add Volunteering Experience to your online curriculum, job and career history, citing the fact that:
“1 in 5 managers hired someone because of their volunteer experience”
Paint Out offers an enjoyable opportunity to assist and observe the dozens of artists and hundreds of artworks being made during the competition.
“We aim to provide easy opportunities for people to gain experience with the arts. It’s a great way to be involved, have a great day out, and learn about the history of the arts in Norfolk.”
Members of the public, who are interested in volunteering and would like further information on how to be involved, you can join the volunteers Facebook group, contact the team or fill in the form below:
Paint Out Norfolk took place 13-22 July. Up to 100 plein air artists touring city, coast and countryside, as well as historical Norwich School of Painters locations. Artists are exploring the Norfolk coasts, Norwich, Broads, County Halls & Estates, Gooderstone Water Gardens, boatyards, and much more. Nine painting days in the summer sun! 550 paintings were created!
Paintings will be added below during and after the physical art exhibition. If a painting you are interested in is not online yet and the exhibition is closed then please contact info@paintout.org 07432 608015 to enquire about availability and purchase. Alternatively, please view the online catalogue with its enquiry form.
Paint Out Norwich took place 27-30 October. 15 plein air artists explored Norwich’s medieval views by night and morning/late light.
More paintings will be added below ASAP. If a painting you are interested in is not online yet that you may have seen at the exhibition or being painted then please contact info@paintout.org 07432 608015 to enquire about availability and purchase. Alternatively, please view the online catalogue with its enquiry form.
Paint Out Norfolk took place 15-22 July. 70+ plein air artists touring city, coast and countryside, as well as historical Norwich School of Painters locations. The artists explored the North and East coasts, Norwich, Broads, Blickling & Wolterton Halls, Gooderstone Water Gardens, boatyards, and a life art model. Eight painting days in the summer sun!
Paintings will be added below during and after the event or visit the art exhibition in person until 24th July 2022. If a painting you are interested in is not online yet and the exhibition is closed then please contact info@paintout.org 07432 608015 to enquire about availability and purchase. Alternatively, please view the online catalogue with its enquiry form.
Paint Out 2020’s outdoor painting programme will be our biggest yet. An 8-day tour of Norfolk and Norwich (16-23 July). Some 40 artists have been accepted already from the UK and USA with more joining us from Russia and elsewhere. We are expecting around 50-70 plein air artists. Brush up alongside new and familiar faces of the outdoor art practice community. Challenge your creativity. Develop your skills. Win prizes. Sell your artwork.
For our 7th year leading the field in UK plein air innovation and inspiration and for the second year in East Anglia, we are making this our flagship event for 2020. As we enter the next decade, our founding event Paint Out Norwich (2014) will become a part of our broader Norfolk event and we are moving it up to high summer from its founding origins in autumnal October where it began as part of the Hostry Festival.
Paint Out is the first and consistently long-running event of its kind in the UK and with over 15 events in 3 counties under our belt, prides itself in its quest to innovate and set new challenges, year on year.
Come and capture the height of summer in city, coast and countryside locations including Norwich, Norfolk seaside, seaport and market towns, and historic houses. Days and destinations are still being finalised but are set to include: King’s Lynn Festival, Cromer, Sheringham, North Walsham, and a couple of days and nights in Norwich.
There will be guest artists, painting demos, prestigious art talks, and daily prizes. Long summer days and evenings spent painting and socialising in stunning coastal, rural, market town and city environments.
Individual, weekend and multi-day choices available and transport options to county destinations. Priced from £15-£30/day – the early bird discount at £120 is sold out but the not-so-early bird discount of all 8 days at £135 till 29 February is open, rising to £150 in March.
Artists looking to hone their outdoor painting skills will be walking on the shoulders of plein air giants. Norfolk and Norwich can justifiably be called the crucible of plein air painting. The Castle Museum in Norwich has the largest collection of Cotmans and Cromes to name a couple of historic luminaries and has very recently acquired a magnificent JMW Turner (Walton Bridges, 1806) – his first open-air work, an analysis of which we hope will form part of our evening lecture programme. Looking to their masterly neighbours across the North Sea (Dutch Golden Age), the vast skies, watery dykes and unique cool filtered light are replicated in Norfolk and have inspired artists down the ages.
2020 will see us transport artists around the county to Georgian set-piece market towns, Victorian and art deco crumbling seaside splendour, replete with piers, funfairs, harbours and crab boats. The magnificent medieval architecture of Kings Lynn and Norwich will be supplemented with a return to our 2019 garden theme by taking in a Humphrey Repton red book garden or similar historic country house. A quick draw in front of one of the UK’s oldest and largest markets will provide more than a surge of adrenalin, draw crowds and create bonds with fellow artists.
Paint Out is your chance to make friends, exchange techniques and laugh too, it will be creative inspiration, life-changing and enhancing.
Ahead of our autumn exhibition 17-27 October in the Norwich Cathedral Hostry our last of seven paint outs in six gardens is on 15 Oct 2019 at Norwich’s Victorian-style gothic Plantation Garden.
The “Gothic” fountain is unique and fancy bricks from a local manufacturer were used to create medieval style walls, ruins and follies. Within less than 3 acres, Henry Trevor established a gentleman’s residence and garden that reflected in miniature the grand country houses of the Victorian period including terraces with balustrades, rockworks, a Palm House, and a rustic bridge.
“3-acre Victorian town garden created 1856-97 in former medieval chalk quarry. Remarkable architectural features include a 60ft Italianate terrace, unique 30ft Gothic fountain, newly re-built Gothic alcove, restored rustic bridge and summerhouse. Surrounded by mature trees. Beautifully tranquil atmosphere. The Plantation Garden is a grade II English Heritage registered garden established 143 years ago in an abandoned chalk quarry some 600 yards from the city centre. It comprises nearly 3 acres in all, and includes, a huge gothic fountain, flower beds, lawns, Italianate terrace, ‘Medieval’ terrace wall, woodland walkways and rustic bridge. There are many hidden and unique features to this idiosyncratic garden, making it a haven of peace and tranquility, and a glimpse into a bygone age.” – Head Gardener
The Bishop’s Garden is a historic private four-acre formal city centre garden that has belonged to the Bishops of Norwich for over 900 years and includes 14th-century ruins. The general form of the garden was laid down at least 300 years ago and includes many hidden and historic delights.
“The garden has many hidden delights for visitors such as the large traditional herbaceous borders, a small woodland walk, boxed rose beds, a long shade border with hostas, meconopsis and tree ferns. Also a large wild grass labyrinth, extensive shrubberies containing many rare and unusual plants, among these being a Hebe planted from a sprig taken from Queen Victoria’s wedding bouquet in 1840. There is an organic kitchen garden, bamboo walk…and the garden continues to evolve with new plants and features being introduced year by year.”
Paint Out Norfolk1-7 July 2019 visits Bishop’s Bridge & the Red Lion in Norwich, Wells-next-the-Sea, the Norfolk Broads at How Hill, Houghton Hall, and the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich for art talks, inspiration from Monet and Hockney, socials, judging by George Rowlett & Paul Greenhalgh, awards and private view, public paint out (6 July) and art exhibition (6-7th). Transport to all painting sites available from Norwich.
Paint Out continues its 2019 programme that has included the inaugural Paint Out Cambridge and an ongoing series of five garden paint-outs with a multi-day premier juried painting event that takes in beach and Broads, countryside and campus, and historical buildings from the 1640s through to 1960s brutalism and 1970s modernism. The loan of a Monet and two Hockney paintings are set to inspire, as well as an art talk by Sainsbury Centre director Professor Paul Greenhalgh. A public paint out on the Saturday during the exhibition weekend (6-7 July) will make this open to artists of all abilities alongside the juried entry event 1-5 July being judged by among others, the eminent plein air artist George Rowlett.
Paint Out is thrilled to have been given the opportunity to host Paint Out Norfolk at the Sainsbury Centre – the preeminent Visual Arts Centre in the region housing an incredible collection of art spanning 5000 years of human creativity. Based at the campus of the University of East Anglia, Norman Foster’s vast 1978 hangar – the size of several football pitches, the Sainsbury Centre provides the backdrop to this year’s flagship Paint Out. It will also be the source of inspiration via an art talk and a special opportunity to view an amazing Monet painting ‘Allée de sapins à Varengeville‘ depicting the Normandy coast and two David Hockney artworks upon which artists can reflect as they head out to paint three classic locations around the county.
The mission of this Paint Out will be to raise the critical agenda of en plein air art practice, whatever form that may take, and continue to bring the genre to a wide and increasingly knowing audience. We’ve been working closely with the Director of Exhibitions, Paul Greenhalgh, who will also be a judge at the event, on how best this can be achieved.
First and most importantly, we feel that it’s vital to not only contextualise the relevance of what’s gone before and recognise that this is often the vital starting point for many outdoor artists but also to allow for contemporary interpretation to flood the artist’s consciousness too. In fact, we have espoused experimentation from the outset of Paint Out, since 2014, and actively encourage artists to work outside their comfort zones.
To that end, the Sainsbury Centre has secured the loans of two notorious exponents of plein air: Claude Monet and David Hockney. The 1882 Varengeville coastal scene by Monet has all the hallmark of the Master’s swirling brushmark notation and clear colour.
The two Hockneys, by contrast, are monumental iPad drawings of Yosemite, fizzing with intense Californian reds and greens and varied mark making. Both may seem out of place in the relatively muted English light but this will be the height of the summer and with luck, the opportunity for artists to gorge on fabulous coastal and Broadland sweeps, as well as be let loose within the grounds of one of England’s finest early eighteenth century houses.
In addition to Paul Greenhalgh acting as a competition judge, we are pleased to announce that the well-established plein air artist George Rowlett will be with us acting as a further arbiter of the artworks created. Born on the West Coast of Scotland in 1941, George attended the Camberwell School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools. He has work in public and private collections worldwide and is renowned for balancing both large bold impasto paintings and intimate up-close subjects. A description of Rowlett from a 2009 exhibition catalogue may give you an insight into the character who will be viewing your artistic impressions of Norfolk.
“When George Rowlett paints in the open air he is like a man wrestling with his subject. But what looks like a struggle is really an intimate dance. He stands back from the easel, a blade loaded with oil paint in one hand, and begins to shuffle as a boxer might, or an inexpert devotee of tai chi. His eyes and hands seem to be feeling the landscape, his shoulders move with its contours, both arms embrace its forms. Then, with a sudden stab and twist, another glistening slice of paint has been added to the thickening layers of rich impasto on the board before him.” – Robert Hewison
For those able to arrive Monday afternoon 1 July we will have a short welcome and induction in the Paint Out tent at the Sainsbury Centre site followed by an informal paint out at a pub on the river in the city of Norwich, the Red Lion by historic Bishop’s Bridge.
On Tuesday 2 July, we return to our favourite haunt on the Norfolk coast, Wells-next-the-sea which we’ve painted since 2015. Inspired by Monet’s depiction of the 1880s Normandy coast through the trees we’ll be visiting the timeless beach, dunes and pines there.
Wednesday’s trip will be to the beautiful setting of How Hill, the epicentre of The Norfolk Broads with its wide vistas across river and reed fen, plenty of opportunity to capture boats weaving their way up the river, original reed cutting practice, as well as the beautiful setting of How Hill’s Edwardian Garden with its terracing and eccentric layout. We will return for an art talk at the Sainsbury Centre and social.
On the third day, we have secured access to Houghton Hall and its surrounding deer park. This is an opportunity to capture one of the great houses of England and the original seat of the first Prime minister Horace Walpole.
Culminating on Friday morning, a final paint out around the campus and grounds of UEA and the Sainsbury Centre taking in 1640s Earlham Hall, 1960s Denys Lasdun’s Ziggurats, sculptures and lake, before a Private View and awards on Friday night followed by a weekend art exhibition with public paint out on the Saturday.
Transport to all locations available at a subsidised rate of £5/day.