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Steamboat Springs — About 30 painters from across Colorado and the West are setting up their easels, brushes and palettes on Routt County roadsides this week.

As part of the fourth annual Art Event, a fundraiser for Steamboat Art Museum, the artists will create a series of works through the week to sell and auction at a Friday reception and Saturday barbecue.

Shirley Stocks, president/curator for Steamboat Art Museum and co-owner of Wild Horse Gallery, was among the artists working at Rehder Ranch Nature Preserve on Tuesday afternoon. Now in their fourth year, the plein air painting sessions - "plein air" artists create work in the field - include stops across the county. Participating artists will put their three best canvasses up for sale at the end of the week, Stocks said.

John Brassell, a Steamboat Springs native who is studying fine art in San Francisco, took a week vacation from school to participate in The Art Event.

"I had actually attended a few of these before when I lived here, just to watch the artists paint, and this is the first time they had invited me out," Brassell said.

Art Event paintings will be on display and for sale at a free public reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday at the museum. From 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, participating artists will gather at Wolf Run Ranch off Routt County Road 33 for a two-hour quick-draw competition. Paintings will be up for silent auction after the competition ends, and the Yampa Valley Boys will provide live music during a catered barbecue lunch. Tickets for the Saturday event are $25 for adults and $15 for children and are available in advance at the museum and at Wild Horse Gallery.

"It's one of the rare times that you can actually go out and watch a painting come together and see exactly how it's done," Stocks said. The Art Event paintings will be on display at the museum through Sunday.

Proceeds from Saturday's event and painting sales will go toward renovations including a meeting room and storage space at the Rehder Building at Eighth Street and Lincoln Avenue, Stocks said.

Tuesday's painting session at the Rehder Ranch ties into "The Rehder Legacy Project," a partnership with Yampa Valley Land Trust, and other local organizations the museum plans to start in the fall, Stocks said. The project focuses on improvements to the Rehder Building and the Rehder Ranch.

The 250-acre ranch was gifted to Yampa Valley Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy this spring, with Helen Rehder's will specifying the land as a nature preserve. Susan Dorsey, executive director of Yampa Valley Land Trust, said the group is assessing the property and recently started work cleaning the main house.