6 Months in....

[Plein Eire Administrator]

Yesterday the site welcomed Mary Quinn , our 181st member, just 6 months since Plein Eire was launched at the beginning of March 2010. That makes roughly one member per day since the site began - a very encouraging response. - Roll on 200!

The website has been bolstered by support from groups Plein Eire West, Dublin Sketchers and the newly-formed Dublin Plein Eire, as well as South East Plein Air and South Tipp Art Group in the south east. It will be interesting to see whether we maintain this growth throughout the year and into 2011. There are lots more painters in Ireland who are not yet members and several groups we know of, so the prospects are good to reach corners of the country not yet represented on Plein Eire.

During the summer, Art in the Open festival was an acclaimed success, a great opportunity for outdoor artists to meet and it introduced a number of artists from the north and from overseas to Plein Eire website, broadening horizons to what is happening on the plein air scene elsewhere.

As the days are now shortening, it is hoped to introduce some new 'challenges', perhaps build yourself a snazzy new pochade box, and plan for next spring. Hopefully, we will have a golden autumn as the landscape becomes more colourful and generally more interesting to paint. Winter can be the best time to paint trees. And in addition to the odd windswept shore, snow scene and nocturne, we hope we may have some postings from members able to take their paints on a seasonal break to sunnier climes - Keep 'em coming!

Of course, as is often the case with websites like this, many members join never to be heard of again. If you have yet to make a post or get involved in a discussion, please feel free to do so now - you will only get out of membership in proportion to your input and every contribution encourages others. If you have friends who are interested in painting outdoors, send the link or use the 'Invite' tab to help them to join.

We will shortly post some tips on revamping your personal pages with a short bio and link to a blog or website if you have one. The site has a fast link to Facebook for those who have an account there and it makes posting to and from Plein Eire easy to do. You can add a Plein Eire 'badge' (below right) as a handy link to Facebook or any other website of blog you use.

So, thanks and congratulations to you all from all at 'Plein Eire Towers' for making this site a success and please contact Plein Eire Administrator with any difficulties encountered in using the site or ideas for improvement.

Keep painting!

[Plein Eire Administrator]

Boring stuff but....
Can you see the slideshow at the top centre of the page when you log on to this site?
When you log onto the site you should now be seeing a slideshow of the latest uploaded plein air art. I have been using Mozilla's Firefox internet browser for some time and found it to my liking. However, after some problems in accessing parts of this site the Ning technical staff suggested I download an alternative browser to see if that would resolve the problem.
I have and it did.
I now have Google's 'Chrome' (a free download) and everything is working fine again.
Now when I open Plein Eire through Firefox, the slideshow takes several minutes to upload, whereas using Chrome, it is instantaneous.
Now I have no axe to grind for Google or any other product, but I am just pointing out that if you aren't seeing the slideshow (big images of all your latest paintings) at the head of the page, the browser you are using may be part of the problem - it was in my case.
If sufficient people cannot view the slideshow when logging on here, I can always revert to the 6 'Featured images' which were formerly at the head of the page. Perhaps you would let me know? I am mindful that internet coverage and speed is inconsistent across the country and don't want to make changes to Plein Eire which are beyond some members' current capacity to view easily.
Your feedback is required. Can you see the slideshow at the top of the page and do you like it better than the static 6 thumbnail images?
Thanks all.

[David Diaz]

Incredible job Tony---I had no idea that it was that young--it has the look and feel of an older, established site and organization