Donald Neff Weblog

The 2nd Annual Plein Air Convention was held in Monterey, CA this year. I missed the first convention last year in Las Vegas, but since Monterey is only 90 minutes from my home, certainly couldn’t miss this one! I registered for the convention quite awhile ago, but then a month ago they added me to [...]

We just returned from a two week cruise to New Zealand and Australia on the Diamond Princess. We flew into Auckland, NZ, then headed down the east coast of New Zealand visiting Tauranga, Picton, Wellington, Akaroa, and Dunedin. Our ship then circled around the southern end of the south island, and we spent a day [...]

Just returned from the Carmel Art Festival. The weather this year was great, and it was good to meet old artist friends and make new ones! Below is a brief day by day post on the experience… Wednesday Drove down to Monterey/Carmel to participate in the Carmet Art Festival. After checking into my motel, I [...]

My nephew, Jeff was spending a few nights in a tent cabin at Costanoa, so I decided to ride the Harley up the coast and paint, spend a night, then paint back down the coast. I left around noon Monday, and my first stop was Greyhound Rock. It was nice painting there as I could [...]

Several weeks ago I received an email from a new opening gallery in Carmel, CA, wanting to show my work. I had been showing in Carmel up until a year or so ago, but that gallery became a victim of the poor economy. To make a long story short, I drove the 90 minutes to [...]

California Art Club was having a paint out at Half Moon Bay today, so decided to go. I hadn’t painted with them in quite awhile, and it was a beautiful day. We actually met in Princeton by the Sea, several miles north of Half Moon Bay & site of the world famous Mavericks surfer contest. [...]

Today was the main event for the Carmel Art Festival. Judging was in the morning, a silent auction in the afternoon, awards ceremony at 5, and live auction at 6. After a leisurely brunch, I hung around the show while Josie went shopping in downtown Carmel. It was a good show. For the first time, [...]

Today was the second full day of painting for the festival, and two paintings had to be completed, framed and delivered by 8 o’clock this evening. I had two paintings from the day before, both good enough to put in the show. Today, I was going to concentrate on Point Lobos in the morning and [...]

Today was the first full day of painting for the Carmel Art Festival. During the competition, you have two days to paint and present two finished and framed paintings for auction. I headed out at the crack of dawn back to Point Soberanes, where I had been the evening before. It was a little foggy, [...]

We drove to Carmel this afternoon to participate in the Carmel Art Festival. I am writing this several days later as I did not have good internet access while at the hotel. My wife, Josie accompanied me for the entire festival this time and it was my fourth year participating. After checking into the Portola [...]