Plein Air Smackdown in Portland Oregon

[Music]
>> VICKI WILSON: We have a show for you today
and we're going to start it off right now
with the rock 'em sock 'em robots with a mash up by DJ Arson.
Alright, so welcome to Open Engagement.
Participants, teams, and fans, this is the Plein Air Smackdown,
a still-life painting grudge match held out of doors,
started out as a mediocre day and it has turned out
to be an absolutely beautiful day for this competition.
It's a perfect day to settle this completely fabricated rivalry
between Oregon College of Art and Craft, [Cheers]
Portland State University, [Cheers]
and Portland Community College. [Cheers]
Painters, take your places. [Cheers]
And they're off! [Cheers]
[Discussing painting choices in background]
>>JEFF JAHN: One of the OCAC people may actually
be eating paint a little bit, which for me, may actually be a bonus.
>>EVA LAKE: Actually, so far, they've been number one for me.
>>WILSON: We are halfway through the first quarter.
All of the teams have their entire canvas covered.
[Ambience]
>>MARK SMITH: When that's done, it starts to get organic later.
It's already gotten organic, but at some point,
you'll just go in there and start painting.
>>SUSAN HARLAN: A little higher, yeah. Oh good, good, good.
>>MICHELLE ROSS: Go ahead and cover that.
No, no, leave that down there and cover this right here.
That will be good.
[Painting discussion in background]
>>WILSON: PCC has been penalized for Mark Smith's haircut.
Mark Smith needs to grow his hair out again.
Oh no. I think we're going to have a little conversation
between the Ref and Mark Smith here, a little altercation.
>>JAHN: You need to grow your hair out again. [Laughs]
>>WILSON: Jeff Jahn is also being penalized anonymously
for his haircut.
>> HARLAN: We want to have a tree by the beautiful deer woman.
We're going to make sure you can see her breast
so we need to bring that out.
Let's put that tree right here, but don't get the antlers in the way.
>> ROSS: This is what I want.
I want the mattress: two thirds, one third. Alright?
And then shoulder pads. Paul, you're on the shoulder pads.
You're on the mattress.
>> SMITH: A little more organic unity,
a little more flow through this area here.
This is still really undescribed so we need
to start getting some movement, some visual movement.
Think about an arching connection of images and shapes
that bridge one side to the next. Alright?
[Background discussion of painting]
>> SMITH: We'll make everybody stand back once in a while
so we can get a look at it, okay?
I need somebody -- who hasn't painted yet? Who wants to paint?
[Background ambience and discussions about painting]
[Half-Time parade with drum-line]
>> WILSON: Alright, we are getting ready to go
into this third quarter of this showdown.
It's already the third quarter, this showdown between three schools:
PCC, OCAC, and PSU to see who can take home the cup.
[Buzzer sound]
We are back in play.
This is the third quarter of the Plein Air Smackdown.
[Background ambience]
>>PAINTING STUDENT: You're in my way. Move it!
[Background ambience]
>> SMITH: I'm talking about that antler right now.
See that antler above the red-orange poppy, right over here?
See the blacks there?
Well, we need to come back in and hide the black a little bit.
We want the black to fall back because the black is coming forward
and the antler is going back.
We want the antler to come forward and the black to go back.
You know what I'm talking about?
>> ROSS: I wouldn't mind this being a little more blended together.
>>OCAC STUDENT: Yeah, blended, or cut it off.
>> ROSS: No, we can't cut it off.
>>OCAC STUDENT: I mean go with a sharp edge.
Do something with that edge.
>> ROSS: Either the edge has to be like that
or it has to be more like this.
>>OCAC STUDENT: I feel ya. Definitely.
[Background ambience]
>>PSU STUDENT: You can see where my finger is
if I just put it like this.
[Background ambience]
>> ROSS: Can you go in and paint it more like the mattress?
Can you do it? Can you mix up the right color?

[Background ambience]
>> HARLAN: Then we come in and we can paint across this.
I'm thinking shadows and lines.
I'll send some people in for details
because we want to paint on the chair, right?
We can't see the bottom here. So we need some details here.
Come in with some white, like really thick white paint now for details.
Think Vermeer when he would just touch things up or Rembrandt.
>>MARIE SIVAK: We're officially in Round 4
of the Plein Air Smackdown.
[Background ambience and spray paint can rattling]
>>PSU STUDENT: We're kind of taking a traditional still-life
and breaking the tradition of incorporating 3-d
and using the life model as a part of the element in the painting.
So yeah, it's pretty fun.
[Background ambience]
>>PSU STUDENT: Aaaaaah! Aaaaaah!
[Background ambience]
>> SMITH: Get a graduated red.
Get a red to graduate to between the highlight and that purple color.
Wherever red is, graduate those two tones, okay?
[Background ambience and discussions about painting]
>>PCC STUDENT: We're PCC: Portland Community College.
>>PCC STUDENT: We're Mark Smith's students in painting class
so we're out here chipping in to make a great painting.
>>PCC STUDENT: We're trying to out-paint the other colleges in the area
to win the big gold cup you see up there.
>>OCAC STUDENT: I am here with the OCAC team.
We were really going for a minimalist thing
so we have a really busy side on the right side
and then we're going off to, on the left, a more simple, more spare.
That's what we were trying to get at.
>>PSU STUDENT: Here at the PSU team, we are putting emphasis
on sculpture, I guess, as well as a liberal view of our still-life.
[Background ambience and discussions about painting]
>> HARLAN: Just dab it in. No realism; just marks. [Laughs]
>>SPECTATOR: This is incredible.
>> HARLAN: I'm exhausted.
More red! It's too brown over there on the right.
[Background ambience]
>> SMITH: We're just sharpening up.
We're just trying to figure ground, pushing the space back,
pulling the objects forward,
creating some in-between, some atmospheric areas of haze.
We're trying to get that all over organic unity.
I think we're there; we're just about there.
>> ROSS: I'm proud of my team, whether we win or not.
I think we've done an awesome job. Yay, team! [Cheeers]
>>OCAC STUDENT: Yay, Coach. [Cheers]
[Clapping in background]
>> SMITH: Just go in and make a highlight
on the red area somewhere, okay?
We need a solid there.
>> WILSON: Here we are drawing down, drawing down to the big thrill.
[Background ambience]
[Buzzer goes off]
>> WILSON: That is the end of play.
Painters, put down your brushes. You are done.
[Cheering.]
>> WILSON: What an incredible game.
I've never seen anything like it.
[Background ambience]
>> WILSON: Momentarily, we will have our judges come up here
and give us their final tally.
[Background ambience]
>> WILSON: The Grand Prize Winner;
the team that gets to take home the trophy is OCAC.
[Lots of cheering and screaming]
>> HARLAN: We planned this.
Mark called me and we're just very excited
that we got to do some teamwork.
These are all fabulous painters
and we came together a couple of nights and just brainstormed
and came up with our idea
to do the foreground, middle ground, background.
We're very, very excited about it and it was great.
We think that, you know, we should have won, but . . . [Laughs]
how many think we should have won?
>>PSU STUDENTS: Yes!
>> HARLAN: [Laughing.] But that's always the case. It was great.
>> ROSS: My final thoughts are that we teach people
how to do stuff really well at OCAC so . . .
and really, the coup d'etat was the mattress
and we figured that out first.
>>OCAC STUDENT: Sam.
>> ROSS: That's Sam right there and she brought the mattress.
It's a magic mattress and we knew if we had that,
we would pull it off. Anyway, thanks.
>> SMITH: Well, I'm real proud of my painters.
They really hung in. They really fought a tough match.
You know, we're underdogs; we're a two year school.
These are four year schools.
They're up against students with two more years of experience.
I don't think it shows here.
I think we hung with them right there, right 'til the end.
In the end, those are fine other teams, fine coaches;
they did a great job,
but boy I feel awful good about what our painters did here today.
[Cheers]
[Music]