Paint Out‘s plein air art events and exhibitions in Suffolk, UK, including Southwold & Sudbury and other future Suffolk towns and locations.
Stop Press: We are back in Suffolk in 2024! Paint Out Suffolk will be in Southwold, 5-7 July Apply here.
Paint Out Suffolk, 5-7 July 2024
Three-day art event in Southwold including coast, town and Reydon marshes nr Old Hall Farm Cafe. [Info here…]
Paint Out Sudbury, 30 Jun 2018
One-day art event in Gainsborough’s hometown with options to paint the town, Gainsborough garden, old railway line walk, the Watermeadows, Mill, River Stour, and more. Great views and amazing local countryside on the Suffolk/Essex border. [Info here…]
Paint Out‘s plein air art events and exhibitions in Norfolk, UK, including Great Yarmouth, Holt, Ludham, Wells-next-the-Sea and other North Norfolk coastal towns, Norfolk Broads, seaports, market towns, country houses and gardens. We’ve stretched far and wide across the coast from Hunstanton to Wells and Mundesley down to Happisburgh, Waxham, Horsey and Winterton. Inland, we’ve explored Gooderstone Water Gardens, Gunton Park, Blickling Hall, Wolterton Park, Norwich and Whitlingham. Visit the online gallery of the events (2020, 2021,2022).
If you are a participating artist use the Logging, Location and Logistics pages for Event information and the password previously sent you (contact info@paintout.org or 07432 608015 if you have not received this).
Paint Out Norfolk, 13-22 July 2023
Our outdoor painting programme builds upon 9 years of plein air art events across of Norfolk and Norwich with an open-air exhibition that sees dozens of artwork sales. We expect to welcome over 100 artists from UK, Europe & USA, do sign up early to join the UK’s most innovative plein air art event – the July 2023 event is open for entries with over 100 artists entering via the early bird pricing (save up to £150). Come and capture the height of summer in county, city, coast and countryside locations including Norwich, Norfolk seaside, inland Broads, market towns, and historic houses, gardens and parks, allotments and cemeteries, and forays into Constable country in Suffolk!
This autumn, we are revisiting Norwich and its contrasting medieval streets and modern shops with a specific emphasis on a Nocturne painting festival running Thursday evening through to a Saturday Private View and Sunday exhibition in Cathedral Close, Tombland.
Paint Out has showcased Nocturne painting since we began in 2014. This year’s October event will be primarily focused on the plein air skill of painting as the sun disappears and evening lights appear, perhaps reflecting off damp cobbles the neon glows of shops and yellowed street lamps.
8-day tour of Norfolk saw some 75 artists attending, despite the cost of living crisis and hottest weather on record. Check out the painting locations Google map here. View the gallery of some of the finished artworks and Exhibition Catalogue. Well over 600 paintings were created and judged by: art critic and curator Hugh Pilkington, Dr Sally Anne Huxtable (National Trust Chief Curator) and artist Michael Richardson.
In June we painted 16 open gardens and a 14th-century church based in the beautiful Ludham, on the Norfolk Broads. Home to Edward Seago and Kieron Williamson, this event will also see classic cars, heritage boats, and the village life of a summer festival celebration in full swing.
This year sees two warm-up events ahead of July’s art festival and competition. In May we will paint a historic 1000-year-old church in order to help fund its preservation and also paint the sweeping views to the East Coast, lakes and arboretum belonging to James Colman nearby.
An 8-day tour of Norfolk and Norwich, coast and countryside which saw over 70 artists participate and paint from Hunstanton to Winterton, Gooderstone Water Gardens to Gunton Park, and across Norwich and the Norfolk Broads.
Judges included artists Maggi Hambling and Rob Adams, and curator/art historian Giorgia Bottinelli.
(See our 2020 Covid update for how we handled safety with a socially distant safe practice event and exhibition)
This year, Paint Out Norwich will provide a finale paintout in the Plantation Garden to the Paint Out Norfolk Gardens series which will have taken place May-October, through the year’s changing seasons, light, and colour. We are now painting Norwich Bishop’s Garden (14 Oct) as well as Plantation Garden (15 Oct) and hope to have sessions exploring other urban parks and gardens in and around Norwich.
Paint Out Holt, 19-20 July 2019
The Holt Festival (21-27 July), now in its eleventh year, has invited Paint Out to open this year’s Festival with a two-day Paint Out and Private View (19-20 July) around the charming North Norfolk town. Robert Upstone a Tate curator will be judging at Paint Out Holt.
Home to 500-year-old Gresham’s School (alumni include WH Auden, Olivia Colman, Benjamin Britten, James Dyson, and the artist Ben Nicholson), this two-session Paint Out will be backed up by a ten-day exhibition in Picturecraft of Holt, a gallery and Art material supplier with the winners exhibiting alongside the now well established Holt Art Prize.
Paint Out Norfolk takes place in conjunction with The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts1-7 July (painting days 1st-5th, PV 5th, Exhibition 6th-7th) based around the Sainsbury Centre/UEA campus site and painting further afield including Wells-next-the-Sea, the Broads, and Houghton Hall park.
North Norfolk coast plein air painting competition. Since 2015 this event has seen workshops, demos, beach public paint outs at sunrise, Buttlands exhibition, day trips to neighbouring towns such as Blakeney, Burnham Market, Brancaster Staithe etc. Apply here or more information about our long-running Wells events.
Paint Out Great Yarmouth, 1 Sep 2018
A new one-day event is taking place – Paint Out Great Yarmouth on 1 September, from Seaside to Quayside, in collaboration with Norfolk Museums Service and particularly the Time and Tide Museum’s event ‘Drawn to the Coast: Turner, Constable, Cotman‘ which explores the identity of Great Yarmouth and its surrounding landscape through the artwork it has inspired. Apply here.
Paint Out at the RNS 28-29 June 2017
Paint Out 2017 featured a select group of invited artists painting the UK’s largest two-day agricultural fair – the Royal Norfolk Show. With up to 100,000 visitors it is the premier event of its kind.
Paint Out Great Yarmouth takes place on 1 September 2018, on the East Norfolk coast, during ‘Drawn to the Coast: Turner, Constable, Cotman‘ which explores the identity of Great Yarmouth and its surrounding landscape through the art work it has inspired. J.M.W Turner and John Constable, Norwich School of painters such as Joseph Stannard, John Sell Cotman and John Crome were all drawn to paint here. Now you can too!
Our one day, two sessions, open-air art event celebrates the practice of en plein air painting and ends with a PV of the artworks created on the day, and week-long exhibition.
Jetty, Great Yarmouth, G.S. Stevenson
Paint Out is thrilled to be working with the Norfolk Museums Service and particularly the Time and Tide Museum to bring artists the opportunity to paint some scenes from Great Yarmouth for this one day event and display of them in a museum setting for a week, at the same time as such renowned painters Turner, Constable and Cotman are being exhibited to the general public.
Paint Out Great Yarmouth gives artists the chance to retrace the steps of Turner, Constable and Cotman, taking inspiration from the artworks on display in the exhibition, allowing them to create their own contemporary scenes of Great Yarmouth life which will be displayed in the museum during the final week of the ‘Drawn to the Coast’ exhibition run.
Throughout the 19th century Great Yarmouth attracted artists to its shores. Its prosperity as a port meant that wealthy merchants collected and commissioned artworks. Some became patrons to artists and helped them to establish national reputations. This was also a time when the town’s popularity as a leisure resort was growing and the wealthier tourists provided additional sources of income for artists. These circumstances helped to support the development of a thriving artistic scene in Great Yarmouth.
Firing Rockets at Great Yarmouth, Possibly Related to ‘Life-Boat and Manby Apparatus Going Off’ c.1831 Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775-1851 Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/D35977
Artists ‘drawn to this coast’ include three of the UK’s most important landscape artists. JMW Turner (1775-1851), John Constable (1776-1837) and John Sell Cotman (1782-1842). This exhibition, co-curated by members of the Great Yarmouth community, explores some of the most dramatic local works created by these artists. It includes significant loans of their work from major national lenders including two loaned works by J.M.W Turner from Tate – a watercolour of Great Yarmouth, and, on display in the county for the first time since he sketched in it, his Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex sketchbook.
Join our mailing list to register interest in future Paint Out events and a return to Great Yarmouth and other East Anglian locations if you can’t make this one.
Paint Out, which began life in Norwich five years ago, takes to the road and will bring a dozen or more plein air artists to Sudbury, Suffolk, on 30 June 2018. This will be followed by a same-day pop-up art exhibition at St Peter’s of fresh artworks, straight off the easel.
The wool (and now silk) town was home to Thomas Gainsborough, founding member of the Royal Academy, who inspired fellow notable artist, John Constable. Modern outdoor artists follow in their tradition, painting in situ, and in Paint Out’s case with curious public onlookers as we invite passers-by to ‘experience art, live’.
The picturesque scenery including the Water Meadows trail and River Stour, the bridges and old railway line, Mill, the market town itself, St Peter’s Church, Gainsborough’s house and period-planted garden, will all serve as landscape inspiration for our experienced outdoor painters and illustrators.
The artists will spend one day, across two intense open air painting sessions, 10-1pm and 2-5pm, recording local views on canvas, and then displaying and selling them in a pop-up one-hour art exhibition in St Peter’s Church, 6-7pm, which also hosts the Sudbury Summer Art Fair, 2-8 July.
The artworks will all have been painted in under three-hours and many will still be wet, even with the sunny forecast! Just like the weather, they will be hot off the easel, and sold unframed, ‘painting-to-go’ so to speak, in carry away boxes, not unlike pizza boxes!
This is a process Paint Out first tried at the Royal Norfolk Show, last year, and has since continued, enabling art lovers to take away a fresh artwork, moments after it is painted, and then to frame it at their leisure and according to their preferred style.
Paint Out began in Norwich in 2014 and has since run a dozen events in Wells-next-the-Sea, other North Norfolk towns, and five large scale multi-day events in Norwich itself, during the annual Hostry Festival (October 2018). Sudbury, is the first of many planned wider East Anglian events.
Stop Press: We are back in Suffolk in 2024! Paint Out Suffolk will be in Southwold, 5-7 July Apply here.
Paint Out Sudbury took place on 30 June 2018, on the Essex/Suffolk border, home to Thomas Gainsborough who inspired John Constable, with picturesque scenery including the Water Meadows and River Stour, an old railway line, the market town itself, St Peter’s Church and Gainsborough’s house. One day, two sessions, en plein air!
A baker’s dozen of plein air artists took to the historic wool town of Sudbury, birthplace of Gainsborough with its snaking River Stour, Suffolk countryside and some 247 Heritage Listed buildings in the town itself. It was a veritable treasure trove of idyllic painting locations on one of the hottest days of the year.
Participating artists included: Eleanor Alison, John Behm, Sarah Berbank Green, Mary Blue Brady, James Colman (non-competing), Tom Cringle, Robin Drury, Jack Godfrey, Julie Hodgson, Andrew Horrod, Robert Nelmes, Eloise O’Hare, Sue Willmer.
Join our mailing list to register interest in future Paint Out events and a return to Sudbury and other towns in Suffolk.
Paint Out plein air art competition event dates go live early each year but additional events may still be announced throughout. You can lodge a registration of interest in our various events – this is not an entry to an event, it just gets you on the Call to Artists announcement mailing list. The buttons below will also take you to live entry forms within the event entry-date windows.
You can register your interest below to be kept up to date when submission forms for each event are live and to be a part of future Paint Outeventsas well as other locations, and even suggest your own.
Our events offer everything from mass public plein air paint outs, to one-day pop-up explorations of East Anglian towns and countryside, intense weekend events painting dawn to dusk, and our premier fully-juried and selected 8-day event in Norwich & Norfolk. Click the links below to view the historic eventgalleries or scroll down for the most recent events. Paint Out Norfolk 2023 online galleries is seeing daily updates/uploads – partial previews showing now – or visit the physical exhibition. Contact us if interested in any paintings for up-to-date availability.
Haidee-Jo Summers describes her work as a celebration of sea, wind, sky, light and life revealed in rich and vibrant oil paint, using personal visual language of fresh and direct brushmarks. Painting en plein air is central to her practice, and she travels to seek new experiences and fresh inspiration to feed back into her studio work. She strives for simplicity and economy and to make every mark count, walking a fine line between shape and suggestion.
Haidee-Jo was one of the few artists chosen to record the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee River Pageant with an en plein air painting. Ken Howard RA gave her an award saying that her paintings “really make you see and very often reflections aren’t seen, her work makes you see them.”
From her four-times winning of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI)Young Artist Award, Haidee-Jo has emerged as a multi-award winning sought after artist and was Paint Out‘s first ever winner in 2014. She followed this up with sharing the Spirit of Plein Air Prize at the Royal Norfolk Show Paint Out for her “Waiting to be Judged” painting.
Paint Out Awards
Paint Out Royal Norfolk Show – Spirit of Plein Air Prize (2017)
Paint Out Norwich – selected and participated (2015), First Prize (2014)
Haidee-Jo Summers painting chickens at Royal Norfolk Show
Other Awards
Great Art Award (2016, 2015)
The Artist, ExhibitionAward (2016, 2014)
Buxton Spa prize, First Prize (2014)
Pro Arte Award (2014,2012)
Rosemary Brushes Prize, ABWTB (2014)
Royal Talens Award (2013)
ROI portrait evening, First Prize (2012)
SAA, Artist of the Year award (2012)
ROI, Young Artist Award (2007, 2005, 1998, 1997)
Sample Gallery & Works for Sale
Haidee-Jo Summers, 'Best of Breed', Norfolk Showground, Oil, 12x13in, FOR SALE
Haidee-Jo Summers, 'Championship Row', Norfolk Showground, Oil, 10x11in, FOR SALE
Haidee-Jo Summers, 'A First and Two Seconds', Norfolk Showground, Oil, 10x11in, FOR SALE
Haidee-Jo Summers, 'Waiting to be Judged', Norfolk Showground, Oil, 12x14in, FOR SALE
Haidee-Jo Summers, 'Whites and Darks', , Oil, 8x10in, FOR SALE
Haidee-Jo Summers, 'Cow Tent', Norfolk Showground, Oil, 11x14in, FOR SALE
Haidee-Jo Summers, 'Sunbathers', , Oil, 9.5x13.5in, FOR SALE
After obtaining a degree in Graphic Design, Jennifer Sendall trained atelier-style in “classical” studio painting techniques under Nicholas Beer. She has a special interest in the practice and techniques and practices of painters from the Renaissance to today.
Since then she has also developed skills in painting landscapes en plein air (in the open), and is an award-winning participant in many plein air festivals and competitions.
Jennifer now focusses on the countryside close to home in Suffolk and Norfolk, with a small proportion of still life, figure and commissioned portraiture. She is currently working towards a Masters at UCS Ipswich.
Her work has been exhibited in the Mall Galleries, Chelsea Old Town Hall, Maryland Hall, Annapolis, USA, De Posthoornkerk, Amsterdam, Netherlands and Greenacres Gallery, Wexford Eire as well as throughout East Anglia.
Paint Out Awards
Paint Out Norwich – selected and participated (2015)
Paint Out Wells – selected and participated (2016), Commended (2015)
Paint Out Royal Norfolk Show – selected and participated (2017)
Sample Gallery & Works for Sale
Jennifer Sendall, 'Applejack', Norfolk Showground, Oil, 9x11in, FOR SALE
Jennifer Sendall, 'The Grand Ring', Norfolk Showground, Oil, 9x11in, FOR SALE
Jennifer Sendall, 'Ready to Show', Norfolk Showground, Oil, 9x11in, FOR SALE
Paint Out Norfolk 13-22 July 2023 expects 900+ paintings to be created by 100+ plein air artists at a dozen Norwich and Norfolk locations around coast and countryside with a week-long rolling exhibition at Whitlingham Country Park, Thursday Awards and Private View with prestigious judges, and Weekend Final View
Paint Out Norfolk 2022
Paint Out Norfolk 15-24 July 2022 saw 700+ paintings created by 75+ plein air artists at a dozen Norwich and Norfolk locations around coast and countryside with a week-long rolling exhibition at Whitlingham Country Park, Friday Awards and Private View with prestigious judges, and Weekend Final View. See the winners and other selected paintings gallery.
Paint Out Norfolk 2021
Paint Out Norfolk 16-24 July 2021 saw 600+ paintings created by 70+ plein air artists at a dozen Norwich and Norfolk locations around coast and countryside with a week-long rolling exhibition at Whitlingham Country Park, Friday Awards and Private View with prestigious judges, and Saturday all-day Final View. See the winners and other selected paintings gallery.
Paint Out Norfolk 2020
Paint Out Norfolk 16-23 July 2020 saw 400+ paintings created by 50+ plein air artists at a dozen Norwich and Norfolk locations around coast and countryside with a week long rolling exhibition at Whitlingham Country Park and last day Final View. View the winners and other selected paintings gallery.
Paint Out Gardens Series 2019
Paint Out Gardens in Norfolk ran May-October 2019 and saw 130 paintings created by 36 plein air artists across the seasons and 6 hidden or historic gardens. Prizes were awarded by Norfolk-based Art Historian, Charlotte Crawley – a former curator and past Director of the East Anglia Art Fund, as well as Tom Humphrey and Sophie Barratt of the Fairhurst Gallery, Norwich. View the winners and other selected paintings gallery.
Paint Out Holt 2019
Paint Out Holt 19-20 July 2019 saw 55 paintings created by 22 plein air artists across 3 sessions from Friday to Saturday morning ahead of opening the Holt Festival at Picturecraft Gallery in Holt. Prizes were awarded by Robert Upstone, former Senior Curator of 20th Century Art at Tate and Norfolk-based Art Historian, Charlotte Crawley – a former curator and past Director of the East Anglia Art Fund. View the winners and other selected paintings gallery.
Paint Out Norfolk 2019
Paint Out Norfolk 1-5 July 2019 saw 100 paintings created by 27 plein air artists at 5 Norwich and Norfolk locations from coast to county ending at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art for a last day paint out and Private View. View the winners and other selected paintings gallery.
Paint Out Cambridge 2019
Paint Out Cambridge 13-15 May 2019 saw 135 artworks made by 28 plein air artists at this inaugural Cambridgeshire event with Cheffins Fine Art. View the winners and other selected paintings gallery.
Karen Adams, Paul Alcock, John Behm, Mary Blue Brady, Shaun Carey, James Colman (guest artist), Tom Cringle, Sheila Cunningham, Jan Dingle, Jan Gaska, Jack Godfrey, Audrey Hay, Julie Hodgson, Mary Kallagher, Susanna MacInnes, Aggie Matyjaszek, Eloise O’Hare, Georgina Potter, Sam Robbins, Lesley Williams
Paint Out Great Yarmouth 2018
Paint Out Great Yarmouth took place in the historic Norfolk coastal town on 1 September 2018. Yarmouth has featured in historic paintings and its history in art was portrayed during ‘Drawn to the Coast: Turner, Constable, Cotman‘ which explored the identity of Great Yarmouth and its surrounding landscape through the artwork it has inspired. J.M.W Turner and John Constable, Norwich School of painters such as Joseph Stannard, John Sell Cotman and John Crome were all drawn to paint here.
Paint Out Sudbury took place in the historic wool and silk town on 30 June 2018, on the Essex/Suffolk border, home to Thomas Gainsborough who inspired John Constable, with picturesque scenery including the Water Meadows, Valley Trail and River Stour, the old railway line, market town itself, St Peter’s Church, and Gainsborough’s house and garden, among the 247 Heritage Listed buildings. One day, two sessions, en plein air! View the gallery of artworks online.
Paint Out 2017 saw an en plein air invitational event at the Royal Norfolk Show. Fifteen hardy artists painted all the colour and character of the UK’s largest two-day agricultural event amidst torrential downpours and mud to rival Glastonbury! From fairground to farriers, and pigs to poultry, there was plenty to paint. Our artists were positioned around the Norfolk Showground site, returning their wet artworks every few hours to our tent for a live art auction on the first day, and continually refreshed rolling exhibition over both days. View the gallery of artworks online.
