For plein air groups
Write the place down once.
Every outing starts as the same email retyped from scratch — the directions, the parking, the walk, the gate, the waiver. Paintouts keeps the place on file. The next paint-out there takes five minutes, because the app already knows everything but the date.
Free while it’s new. No app to install. Painters RSVP without an account.
Harker Bluff Preserve
Harker County · coastal bluff, oaks, estuary
- Getting there
- Two routes — Highway 1 to Gate Road, or Canyon Road from the east.
- Parking
- Roadside, free, room for about 8 cars.
- The walk
- 0.3 mi from the cars, gentle grade, easel-friendly.
- Restrooms
- None on site.
- Access
- Private — escorted. Coast Ridge Land Trust. Waiver required. Group cap 12.
- Hazards
- Ticks, poison oak near the lower path.
12 painters coming · 2 awaiting your approval
The idea
Most of the work isn’t the day. It’s the place.
The directions, the parking, the walk, the restrooms, the gate, the waiver — none of it changes between visits, but it gets retyped every time. Put the place on file once and every future outing there inherits all of it.
How it goes now
- An email written from scratch, every outing
- A venue sheet rebuilt in Word for each place
- Photos and maps loose in a Drive folder
- RSVPs counted by hand out of your inbox
- Paper waivers, remembered at the gate
- The rest of it in your head
How it goes on Paintouts
- The place is written down once
- Each outing borrows it and adds a date
- The announcement writes itself and goes out
- Painters answer in one tap, no password
- Waivers are signed before anyone drives out
- You know the headcount the night before
The whole claim, in one sentence
The first paint-out at a new place takes about half an hour to set up. Every one after that takes about five minutes.
The loop
Three moves, then it repeats
Build the venue once
Directions both ways, parking, the walk, restrooms, hazards, the landowner’s access rules and the group cap. Add scene photos and a hand-drawn map. You do this once per place — about half an hour.
Pick a venue, set a date
Six fields: venue, date, start and end time, host, guest policy. The forecast, sunrise and sunset, drive time and past-visit history all come along on their own.
The announcement sends itself
It goes to your roster and links to a page where painters RSVP in one tap. Reminders go out on their own; “rain — move to the rain date” is one tap.
A season, already filling in
- Fri · Mar 27Harker Bluff Preserve8:15am – 12:00pmMembers see the meet point
- Fri · Apr 10Vasquez Ranch8:15am – 12:00pmMembers see the meet point
- Fri · Apr 24Two Mile Beach2:00pm – 5:00pmOpen to visitors
- Fri · May 8Alder Creek Overlook11:00am – 2:00pmOpen to visitors
In the field
What it does for the organizer
The venue library
The durable record. Fill a place in once; every later visit inherits it, and the history — who came, the weather that day — builds itself.
Weather that types itself
The forecast for the venue’s coordinates, from the National Weather Service, refreshed until start time. “Mostly sunny, high near 62. Rain likely after 2pm.”
One tap, no account
Going, Maybe, or Can’t — plus a guest. Your painters are on AOL and Comcast addresses; a login wall loses them on day one.
Waivers before the gate
Escorted properties need a signed waiver. Painters e-sign from the confirmation screen; the host sees who’s covered, and it exports for the landowner.
Gate day, offline
Half these sites have no signal. The host’s roster, waiver flags and running headcount are cached before anyone leaves the pavement.
Public page, private details
The schedule and the painters are public. Meet points, gate codes and phone numbers stay behind the members-only line — or switch the public page off entirely.
Also in the first version: batch-schedule a whole season · import a roster from a pasted address line · carpooling sign-up · demo artists with a bio · scheduled critiques · per-event and season calendar feeds.
Who it’s for
A nine-painter Friday list, or a hundred-and-fifty-member association
Same app for both. The median painter is sixty-something, standing in the sun with a phone in one hand and a brush in the other — so the whole thing is big type, high contrast, and one thumb. It works the day you have nine people; it holds when you have three hundred.
Get going
Set your next season up in an afternoon.
Then never rebuild a venue sheet again.