The Town Green during the Quick Draw is a crowd of easels, each painter facing a different direction. Two hours earlier those surfaces were blank and stamped at the Alpharetta Arts Center on Canton Street. By late morning they are views of City Hall, a magnolia or a house on Haynes Bridge Road, laid out on the grass for judging. In 2025 that scene happened in May. In 2026 it happens on Friday, October 23.
Five Mays, Then an October
Arts Alpharetta started its plein air competition, Paint the Town, in partnership with the City of Alpharetta and the Alpharetta Convention and Visitors Bureau. For its first five years it was a spring event. The 2024 edition ran May 7–11, with the exhibition up through June 8. The 2025 edition ran May 6–10 and closed with a May 10 reception at the Arts Center, where more than $4,000 in awards were handed out.
The 6th annual Paint the Town 2026 runs Tuesday through Saturday, October 20–24. The city put the move on its official schedule early. The 2026 gallery calendar for the Alpharetta Arts Center, updated in February, lists the competition for October 20–24 and the exhibition for October 24 through November 14.
That changes what the paintings show. Every award-winning piece from the first five years shows Alpharetta in spring. The 2025 entry "Sundrenched Morning" was painted during a May week. The work going up on the Arts Center walls on October 24 will be the first full set of Alpharetta painted in late October, outdoors, in a single week.
What the Week Looks Like From the Sidewalk
Painters register and get their canvases or panels stamped at the Alpharetta Arts Center, 238 Canton Street. Only stamped surfaces can be entered, and competition pieces have to be made on site during the event. After that, painters spread out. The Convention and Visitors Bureau's event page says artists from across the Southeast will paint at City Center, local parks, gardens and other spots. It also says painting times and locations change through the week, and Arts Alpharetta posts where artists are working.
Arts Alpharetta still calls the published schedule tentative. As currently posted, it runs:
- Tuesday, October 20: Painting begins. Registered artists meet that evening at Smokejack for a welcome and networking dinner.
- Tuesday through Friday evenings, October 20–23: Art in the Dark, 6 p.m. to sundown. This separate competition is the one most likely to be underway when people are walking downtown after work.
- Friday, October 23, 9 to 11 a.m.: The Quick Draw, with judging at 11:30 a.m. on the Town Green at City Center.
- Saturday, October 24, 10:30 a.m.: Finished, framed work is due at the Arts Center.
- Saturday, October 24, 5 to 7 p.m.: Awards ceremony and exhibition reception at the Arts Center.
- October 24 through November 14: The exhibition stays up.
The event runs rain or shine. The call for artists offers more than $3,000 in cash awards across Professional, Intermediate and Novice categories, with separate Quick Draw and Art in the Dark competitions. No 2026 judge or map of painting zones had been published as of early October.
The Places Painters Have Already Claimed
There is no 2026 map, but past results show what draws painters here. The 2024 artist guide let entrants paint anywhere inside the city limits. Its suggested Quick Draw spots were City Center, Brooke Street Park, Avalon and the Alpha Loop. The titles of winning work go further, and they read like a list of local places:
| Where | Award-winning titles |
|---|---|
| City Hall and the Town Green | "City Hall Tranquility," "View from the Town Green," two separate paintings titled "Alpharetta City Hall" |
| Historic homes | "The Upshaw House," "White Bench at Mansell House" |
| Parks and water | "Rock Mill Park," "Wills Park," "Greenway Creek," "Little Bridge at Mill Creek," "Lake Winward" |
| Streets and storefronts | "House on Haynes Bridge," "Corner of Alpharetta," "Regal Cinema," "Sidewalk Sale" |
| Avalon and beyond | "Lunch at Avalon," "Sunny Morning on Hunter's Lane," "Claudia's Barn" |
The 2024 and 2025 titles come from the 2024 awards page and the 2025 awards page. Most of these subjects sit within walking distance of the Arts Center. The rest are places Alpharetta residents use every week, like Wills Park, Rock Mill Park and the Big Creek Greenway. The 2025 Quick Draw shows how quickly a scene gets taken. Painters had a two-hour window and brought their work to the City Center Green for judging. One winner was a single magnolia, titled simply "Alpharetta Magnolia."
Alpharetta has a short list of places it already treats as landmarks. This year those same places will be painted in October for the first time.
Buying a Painting of Your Own Street
The paintings are for sale, and the rules are specific. Under the 2026 call for artists, Arts Alpharetta handles every sale, collects and remits Georgia sales tax, and keeps a 30% commission. Each artist can hang two competition pieces and two more for exhibition and sale, up to 40 inches including the frame. Artists can also mark a piece as not for sale. The 2024 rules also barred artists from selling on location. That year, sales went through the exhibition and a Wet Paint Tent Sale.
Timing matters for buyers. Work goes on sale once the exhibition opens, and buyers can take purchases home after the October 24 awards ceremony. Unsold work comes down by November 16. The reception on the evening of the 24th is the first chance to see every entry and the award results together. The weeks after it give a quieter look at the same walls.
The money stays local. According to Arts Alpharetta and the city, proceeds fund Take Out Art, which gives free art kits to children in the community, and the public art program run with the City of Alpharetta. The city's schedule also names Art in Parks.
The Canton Street Calendar Around It
The October move also places Paint the Town in the middle of the Arts Center's busiest stretch of the year, from early October into January.
The season starts downtown with the free Wire & Wood Alpharetta Songwriters Festival on October 9–10. It has more than 30 performances on seven-plus stages, a new music-themed market, and headliners Corey Smith on Friday and Sister Hazel on Saturday. In the main gallery, "Voces del Corazón – Art from the Soul" is up through October 17. It is a juried exhibition centered on the Hispanic and Latino experience. The visitors bureau listing gives hours of 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. That gallery then sits empty for a week while the painters work outside.
| Dates | What | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Oct. 9–10 | Wire & Wood Songwriters Festival | Throughout downtown |
| Through Oct. 17 | "Voces del Corazón" exhibition | Alpharetta Arts Center |
| Oct. 20–24 | Paint the Town painting week | City Center, parks, gardens |
| Oct. 24, 5–7 p.m. | Awards ceremony and reception | Alpharetta Arts Center |
| Oct. 24–Nov. 14 | Paint the Town exhibition | Alpharetta Arts Center |
| Nov. 14, 8:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. | Final scheduled Alpharetta Farmers Market of 2026 | Town Green, 2 Park Plaza |
| Nov. 21, 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m. | Artists' Holiday Market, public day | Alpharetta Arts Center |
| Nov. 24–Jan. 9 | "Wonder" exhibition, reception Dec. 4, 5–7 p.m. | Alpharetta Arts Center |
The last day of the Paint the Town exhibition is November 14, which is also the date listed for the last Alpharetta Farmers Market of the season, on the Town Green. That is the same lawn where the October 23 Quick Draw is judged. A week later the gallery reopens for the Artists' Holiday Market. Artists there sell original small works no larger than 16 inches in any direction, on a cash-or-card, carry-it-home basis. Then "Wonder" follows. It is a seasonal exhibition about light and winter, and it runs into January 2027.
Before the October move, Paint the Town's paintings went up in May and came down in June, separate from all of this. In 2026 they share the Arts Center calendar with the festival, the market and the holiday season. Anyone who wants a painting of the Mansell House bench or a Haynes Bridge porch for their own wall has three weeks, from October 24 to November 14, to buy one.
At Mark Shoda, we pay close attention to the places in Alpharetta that people treat as landmarks, and Paint the Town picks out those same places every year. If you're curious how the corners and historic homes painted this October relate to the way Alpharetta property is valued and positioned, let's connect.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
