The Thomas Cole National Historic Site and the Olana State Historic Site has launched the Hudson River School Art Trail contest featuring an artistic hiking trail that follows in the footsteps of America’s premier landscape painters, and ends with the chance to win a weekend getaway to the Catskill Mountains.
The Hudson River School Art Trail features over 20 locations spanning the Hudson River Valley Region and New England. At each of the first eight sites along the Hudson Valley section of the Art Trail, a special metal plaque with a rubbing medallion has been installed, allowing visitors to do a pencil rubbing as a keepsake.
The contest encourages visitors to complete all eight rubbings in either their own notebook or in the official Art Trail Passport, which is available for purchase at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and Olana State Historic Site. Upon completion, participants simply present the completed series of rubbings to representatives at the Visitor Center for either the Thomas Cole or Olana Historic Sites by November 3, 2013 to receive an official certificate of completion. The first 20 people to complete all eight rubbings and present them at one of the two visitor centers will receive a free copy of the newly released second edition of the Hudson River School Guidebook. Participants who complete the eight rubbings will also be entered in a special grand prize drawing for a chance to win a weekend getaway to the Catskills.
Each metal plaque features a QR code that can be scanned by smartphones for more information and a rubbing medallion with a drawing of the view in raised relief so that participants can easily capture the scene by placing a piece of paper over the design and rubbing it with pencil, crayon or charcoal. For more information about the Art Trail locations, directions, itinerary suggestions and more, visit www.hudsonriverschool.org. See offers.hudsonriverschool.org for complete contest information.
The Hudson River School Art Trail Contest is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Hudson River Art Trail:
The Hudson River Art Trail project maps the sites where America’s premier landscape painters stopped to capture the wild, untamed landscape of the young country’s vast wilderness. The views from these sites appear in famous landscape paintings, and the mobile website at www.hudsonriverschool.org enables people to compare the painted and actual views.
There are 18 sites in the Hudson Valley, two in New Hampshire and one in Massachusetts with sites planned as far away as Wyoming.
The Art Trail begins at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in the village of Catskill, which is fitting because Cole is credited as the father of the Hudson River School. Cole’s former home is now the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, located just two miles from Olana State Historic Site, the former home of Cole’s friend and fellow painter Frederic Church.
Olana is the second stop on the trail, and one of the partners in administering the 2013 art trail contest along with the Greene County Tourism Department and the Columbia County Tourism Department. For more information about the Hudson River Art School Trail, visit www.hudsonriverschool.org.
For more travel features, visit:
www.examiner.com/eclectic-travel-in-national/karen-rubin
http://www.examiner.com/international-travel-in-national/karen-rubin
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