OC Fair 2018: Animals, fair-goers, rides serve as muses in plein air painting competition

They each began with a blank canvas, but within an hour, paintings had started to take shape depicting life at the Orange County Fair: brown and cream calves lounging in a livestock pen, a profusion of nodding sunflowers, red and white barns, a colorful carnival ride.

The plein air competition, in which artists set up their materials outdoors and paint scenes from real life, returned to the OC Fair for its third year on Thursday, Aug. 2, when more than a dozen people sought shady spots around the fairgrounds and created art.

Christina Segovia, of Orange, chose a tilting, twirling carousel-like swing ride and propped her canvas on a chair to sketch it out in pencil.

“I like the way it looks when it moves,” she said. “When you get it spinning you kind of get that motion feel to it, so I wanted to capture that here.”

Now 23 and studying fine art at UC Irvine, Segovia said she’s been working in oils since she was a teenager, but it was her first time in a plein air contest.

After penciling in the basics of the scene – Segovia starts with the main focus of the picture, then arranges other items around it – she squeezed out blobs of white, cobalt blue and a dash of yellow paint and began mixing.

When the mixture had become a pale cornflower blue, Segovia laid out several sizes of brushes and began filling in the sky.

Meanwhile, several artists had picked the Centennial Farm as their setting, including April Apodaca, 26, of Norwalk.

Her 8-by-10 canvas showed barns and animal pens with the Ferris wheel in the distance, all painted in gouache, a type of opaque, thickened watercolor.

Apodaca won third place in last year’s contest. Her advice on making a good plein air painting?

“Start early. Plan out what you’re painting.”

Anne Wilson, 59, of Santa Ana, also chose the farm as her muse. She did a watercolor of some goats relaxing.

She loves painting outside and doing art generally, she said, adding that though she’s busy with family, “I’m just trying to get more of it back into my life.”

Not everyone was in it to win it. John Snelling, 62, of Lomita, did two small oil paintings: a woman petting a long-haired goat, and a lemon-shaped drink stand.

He came to enjoy the atmosphere and the crowds.

“I work alone normally,” he said. “I’ve met people here that are amazing.”

Although Segovia’s spot was a bit chaotic – thumping dance music from a nearby ride, ringing bells and popping balloons from a carnival game – the noise didn’t bother her.

But the crowds were a bit much. A few hours in, a child bumped into her and spilled soda on her supplies, then she couldn’t find a new place to set up, so she packed it in before her painting was done.

Will she try again next year? “I think I will, now that I know what to expect,” she said.