ROCHESTER — If you’re downtown this summer, there’s a chance Willow Gentile could immortalize your visit there.

The Rochester artist is bringing her easel, paints and talent to downtown for plein air painting.

Plein air is a French term meaning outdoors.

For Gentile, plein air painting is part performance, part intuition and all in the moment.

Her works are vibrant and impressionist — literally. The impression she gets from the people, weather and light all influence what ends up on the canvas.

“The energy in the moment really dictates the pallet,” she said.

Moving outdoors was at first a necessity for the artist. Gentile, an artist and art instructor, began 2020 with a full-time load of private art classes. Each class was full, which meant a steady income, but also meant she had little time to create art on her own.

“I had no space for my own creativity,” she said.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic shut down her art classes. She turned to painting outside as one creative outlet. Support from Destination Medical Center Economic Development Authority and grants to paint outdoor jersey barriers made it lucrative to move her work outdoors.

She needed it too. In 2020, she lost 75% of her art class clientele. Last year, she had even fewer art students. April 2022 is the first time she has had a full art class since before the pandemic, she said.

That doesn’t mean she’s calling it quits painting outside.

On a gray April day, Gentile’s studio is bright with most of the 15 vibrant paintings she created painting outdoors last year.

The collection is like a colorful ode to Rochester’s skyline from various angles.

“I never really thought of myself as a city person,” she said. “But there’s an energy to it I really enjoy being a part of and trying to capture.”

Some artists might shy away from creating work in front of other people.

“Some people might call it pressure, I call it inspiration,” she said.

Often people would watch, say little or nothing and go about their day. Gentile said she was glad to see her presence painting the streetscapes tended to wake people from their routines.

For some work, she would take a vase of sunflowers, place them in a downtown parking lot and paint them.

“I think a lot of people were like, ‘what is this person doing,’” she said.

Some of the paintings would take up to three or four hours to complete. A few spectators would walk past her starting a piece, go about their errands and return to see the nearly finished work.

“Sometimes they couldn’t believe I did all that in that amount of time,” she said.

The lingering winter-like weather has kept Gentile from hitting the streets much so far this season. However, she did catch a musician playing in the 200 block of First Avenue Southwest earlier this month for an impromptu session.

This year, Gentile also received a Minnesota State Arts Board grant to continue to do the work.

She has yet to use her new, larger easel she bought with help from the state arts board grant for a spin. She said she’s looking forward to using it and that it will let her create larger, more involved pieces of work.

If you do see her out with it, Gentile says to feel free to watch the process and add a bit of inspiration with your presence.