NOTE (Tuesday, June 22, 2021): This story has been updated to correctly identify the hometown of artist Mark LaRiviere. Information initially provided for this story was incorrect.

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The Connecticut Plein Air Painters Society (CPAPS) is planning “Capturing Connecticut’s Beauty,” a two-day art show and sale planned in and around the barn behind the Budd House at 50 Main Street.

The exhibition will be presented Friday, June 18, from 1 to 5 pm, and Saturday, June 19, from noon to 4 pm.

CPAPS is a nonprofit organization of artists who gather regularly for paint-outs throughout the state. The group was founded in 1995 by four artists. A quarter of a century later, the group now has more than 100 members from Connecticut and surrounding states.

“It’s a great group, it’s wonderful,” CPAPS President Linda Marino said on June 4. “We have artists that range from beginners, who just want to get out and learn how to paint, to nationally known artists that are out in competitions throughout the United States.”

Twelve plein air painters will be participating in the show located in the historic barn behind the Budd House, opposite Edmond Town Hall. Free parking will be available on the street and behind the former town hall building.

Chuck Fulkerson of Newtown will be among those showing and creating new works, according to Marino. In addition to Marino, the local artist will be joined by Elizabeth Agresta of Cos Cob, Doug Anderson of Simsbury, Sarah Baskin of Colchester, Ellie Boyd of Southbury, Lorraine Chapin of Southbury, Diane Dubreil of New Milford, John Forgione of Easton, Ival Stratford Kovner of Bethel, Mark LaRiviere of Riverside (Greenwich), Jen O’Brien of New Fairfield, and Jane Zisk of Wethersfield.

The upcoming show was serendipitous in its creation.

As Marino recalled last week, CPAPS had members had decided to gather in Newtown earlier this year for their first paint-out of the year.

“We were walking around town — it was a very cold day,” she said, “and we were trying to decide on a place to paint.

“We were walking down East Street, and everybody was fascinated by the forsythia, and the magnolias, and this beautiful house with all this artistic detail on it, and its barn,” she said. They decided that would be the place to paint that day.

As the artists were beginning to pack up, Shane Miller emerged from the historic house she and her husband have owned for years. Miller was taking her dog for a walk, and stopped to speak with the artists.

“She started talking with us, and then she invited us to tour the barn,” Marino recalled. “It’s beautiful. It’s got the whitewall paneling in it, and she had some photographs on the walls.

“She invited us to come in and do a one- or two-day show,” Marino said. “It just fell right into place.”

En plein air is a French expression that means “in the open air.” It is used by artists to describe the art of outdoor painting, capturing the landscape and natural light.

“The biggest difference to being outside is you are engaging all your senses,” Marino said. “You smell the flowers, or you smell the mulch, or whatever is out there. You hear the birds, and you feel the weather, which you can’t really get from a photograph. You’ll never get that effect from a photograph.”

The added challenge to working en plein air, she said, is the light.

“The sun is always changing,” she explained. “On an overcast day, you’ll get the sun in and out of clouds.

“Sometimes it is only a two- or three-hour window because the light will totally shift on you, and the shadows will shift. The colors change dramatically through the day too, from morning to the golden hours.”

If she has not completed a plein air piece before packing up, Marino will occasionally finish from a photo.

“Sometimes I will go back in my studio and I’ll finish it there if I think I can,” she said. “Sometimes I’ll go back to the same spot, trying to catch the same light, but you can never really capture the exact scene again.”

Her medium of choice is mostly oils, she said, but she also works in acrylics.

It was the invention of the collapsible metal paint tube, in 1841 by the American artist John Goffe Rand, making oil paints transportable for artists, that led to the growth of plein air painting. Artists such as Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Monet — the French Impressionists — headed outdoors with their paints and easels to capture and record the effects of light in nature.

The Budd House (aka the Glover House) was built in 1869. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

The public is invited to enjoy an afternoon perusing the backyard barn with beautiful local scenes created in oils, acrylics, and watercolors. Guests will also be able to watch artists create new works on site. There is no charge to attend and view the exhibition.

All artwork will be for sale and can be purchased directly from each artist. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to a local charity. Marino said on June 4 that the decision had not yet been made concerning which group will benefit.

“We told Shane, after her kind invitation to host us for the exhibition, that we would be happy to do a donation to the charity of her choice,” Marino said.

For additional information, contact Marino at linda@cpaps.org. More information about CPAPS can be found at cpaps.org.

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Associate Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.