For 2010, the Delaware Celebration of Jazz has choosen Michele Byrne to provide this year's festival poster.

Just get out there and paint, that is artist Michele Byrne’s answer to how do you do your paintings.  Whether it is outside in on a summer day, huddled under the canopy in the middle of a rainstorm, or quietly in the back corner of a jazz club, Michele goes there and does the painting.  Michele says: “You just cannot get the mood if you paint from photographs.”  In the art community this is a person who is a Plein Air Painter.  Plein air is a French word simply meaning painting in the open air, or on location.  The paintings for this year’s poster and T-Shirt were painted during the 2009 Rehoboth Jazz Festival.

Michele has a BFA from Kutztown University in PA and has studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.  She has published two books: The Art of Conversation and The Art of Conversation: Manhattan.  She has also published 3 monographs called Painting the Light in 18 Steps. She has won numerous awards for her plein air paintings, and has participated in painting events in Rehoboth, MD, Annapolis, MD, Philadelphia, PA  and Telluride, CO.

You can view more of her work on her website at www.michelebyrne.com.