The Village of Bjorkdale, population 202, sits quietly at the junction of Highways 23, 679, and 776, about 78 kilometres east of Melfort. It is the kind of place where the grain elevators once stood as sentinels and the surrounding landscape rolls gently into prairie fields, poplar bluffs, and the kind of big sky that Saskatchewan artists have chased for generations. This September, that landscape will become the canvas for what organizers believe will be the largest gathering of plein air painters in the province's history.
From Sept. 10 to Sept. 13, more than 50 artists from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, and even Oregon will set up their easels across the Bjorkdale area for the fifth annual Plein Air Saskatchewan event. The gathering, which celebrates the French tradition of painting outdoors, will conclude with a public art show and sale on Sunday, Sept. 13, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Tisdale Golden Age Centre. Admission is free.
"This will be our fifth event, and by far the largest," said Lana Cowell, event co-ordinator for Plein Air Saskatchewan. Cowell, who grew up near Archerwill and has fond family memories of visiting her great-aunt in Bjorkdale, said the choice of location was both strategic and personal. "The owner of Hues Art Supply has long had an affinity for the Tisdale area," she explained, "while I grew up near Archerwill and have fond family memories of visiting my great-aunt in Bjorkdale. As soon as we began talking about Bjorkdale as a destination, we both knew it had everything we were looking for."
The event's origins trace back to 2022, when Paul Trottier, owner of Hues Art Supply in Saskatoon, and a collective of artists known as The Men Who Paint, decided to turn a long-held dream into reality. Trottier, a former director of the University of Saskatchewan's Kenderdine campus at Emma Lake, had spent much of his life painting outdoors. "Pretty much my whole life, my father and another art teacher would take us out to the riverbank to paint," he recalled in an interview with WestCentralOnline. "I was already familiar with being outside and painting outside." That familiarity, combined with his experience leading the Emma Lake campus, fueled his desire to create a provincial plein air event. "This really came about because my experience with the Men Who Paint and the work that I was doing up at Kenderdine," he said. "That really kind of fueled my juices to get more people involved in plein air."
The first Plein Air Saskatchewan Paint Out was held in Waskesiu, in Prince Albert National Park, from Sept. 9 to 11, 2022. It drew about 18 participants. From there, the event has grown steadily, moving to Lumsden in 2023, Narrow Hills Provincial Park and the Gem Lakes area in 2024, and Eston in 2025, where local painter Christine Code invited the group to host the event in her hometown. By 2025, attendance had nearly doubled to close to 40 artists. Now, in its fifth year, the event is expected to draw between 50 and 58 participants, making it the largest yet.
Plein air painting, a French expression meaning "open air," is a demanding and immediate practice. Rather than working from photographs in a studio, artists paint directly from the landscape, racing against shifting light, moving clouds, and changing weather. "Plein air is a very immediate way of painting," Trottier said. "You have to be there and you have to respond to the surface within a couple of hours to get the work done." The result is work that captures not just a place, but a moment — the character and mood of a landscape at a particular hour on a particular day.
This year's event will feature optional educational seminars led by two professional artists. Christine Code, a Saskatchewan-born painter who grew up in Eston and now works full-time as an artist, is known for her atmospheric oil paintings of prairie landscapes. Her work has been featured in PleinAir Magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine, and Modern Impressionist Magazine, and she has won awards from the Federation of Canadian Artists, the National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society, and the Oil Painters of America. Her seminar, titled "Making Sense of the Landscape," will share techniques for translating the vastness of the prairie onto canvas.
Michael King, a Vancouver-based painter and instructor, brings a different perspective. A former industrial designer, King is the founder of PleinAirBC.com and the artful:minds artist community, and he has served as past president of the Fraser Valley Chapter of the Federation of Canadian Artists. His seminar, "From Overwhelmed to Clarity: Painting What Matters," reflects his philosophy of simplifying the visual chaos of the outdoors into clear, compelling compositions. King's work has won numerous awards, including the Grand Prize Cup at the 2024 Steveston Grand Prix Plein Air in British Columbia.
But Plein Air Saskatchewan is not a workshop, and it is not a competition. It is, as Trottier put it, "an opportunity for anybody who wants to learn about plein air or who's already engaged in plein air to come out and work with a group of other plein air artists." Beginners are explicitly welcome. "Everyone is welcome," Cowell said. "While many participants are experienced plein air painters, we also encourage beginners who want to learn and experience painting outdoors. One of the best parts of the weekend is the willingness of artists to share ideas, techniques and encouragement with one another."
The weekend follows a familiar rhythm. On the first evening, participants gather for a social event, often with wine and cheese, to meet one another and talk. The next two days are devoted to painting from dawn until dusk, with maps provided to painting spots throughout the Bjorkdale area. On the final day, the work is displayed for the public in a show and sale, where visitors can purchase original paintings directly from the artists. "It's more intimate when you're buying work like that," Trottier said. "You can talk about their experience of painting that painting."
For the host community, the event is about more than art. "This event has always been about more than painting," Cowell said. "It is about inviting artists from across Western Canada and beyond to spend time in Saskatchewan communities they might not otherwise visit. It is about giving communities an opportunity to showcase the places they call home to visiting artists." Local volunteers play a vital role, helping to identify painting locations, organize gathering spaces, connect with local businesses, and welcome artists to the area. "None of this happens without the support of local volunteers and community champions," Cowell said.
The choice of Bjorkdale is part of a larger vision. When Plein Air Saskatchewan was created, organizers divided the province into six geographic regions, with the goal of eventually hosting events in every corner of Saskatchewan. "When we created Plein Air Saskatchewan, we divided the province into six geographic regions so that, over time, artists would have the opportunity to paint in every corner of Saskatchewan," Cowell said. The northeast, with its rolling farmland, aspen forests, and quiet rural roads, was the natural next stop.
For the artists who return year after year, the appeal is simple. "We've found that once someone joins us for their first event, they're often hooked," Cowell said. "They come back year after year to reconnect with friends, discover another beautiful corner of Saskatchewan and enjoy the simple pleasure of painting outdoors together." That pleasure — the simple act of standing before a landscape, brush in hand, watching the light change — is at the heart of Plein Air Saskatchewan. And this September, it will unfold in a village of 202 people, where the prairie meets the sky and the only thing more expansive than the view is the community that welcomes the artists in.