The two-hour timer ticks away as artists set up their easels among the vast variety of waterlilies waiting to be portrayed on canvases. Students file in the walkways of the exhibit to watch the paintings collect unexpected colors and immense details. 

San Angelo’s eighth annual EnPleinAirTexas competition was held the week of October 23-30, 2021 which invited professional artists from all over the country to compete for cash-prizes and gain recognition for their talent. Wall High School VASE students visited the competition held at the International Waterlily Collection Friday, October 29. 

“It was really neat to see the artists stand there and paint outside in the way they did,” High School Art Teacher Megan Timmermann said. “I’m glad the artists would stop and talk to students to break down what they were doing, so kids could get to meet them and maybe learn things they had never heard about art from an experienced painter.”

Art students participating in this year’s upcoming UIL VASE competition had the opportunity to explore the process of professional artwork while spectating the exhibit.

“What stood out to me the most in seeing all the different artists was seeing how each artist and their personalities showed on their canvases, and how starting a painting is different between each artist,” sophomore Paige Dickson said. “Seeing how the time process and how everything came together in the end looked really cool compared to what they started with.”

Final awards were posted at the Fort Concho Stables Building on Saturday, October 30. Returning artist Christine Lashley won the Grand Prize Elta Joyce Murphey Award with her “Night at the Museum ”. For more results on the winners, visit http://www.enpleinairtexas.com/.

“The end results were definitely my favorite part because seeing how the artists trusted the process is really inspirational to me in my paintings,” Dickson said. “We saw this guy who just started with a brown canvas, and he ended up painting this beautiful flower.”

While the end results of the displayed artwork were impressive according to students, the purpose of attending the field trip made a new impression on the Wall High School art program. 

“My intention was to maybe inspire art students to try something new and get them to see people doing [art] as a living,” Timmermann said. “I think seeing the artists’ work proved that students who wanted to do art later on could actually do it rather than dreaming or wishing they could.”