Month: July 2023

June 2023 – Paint-Around

Note from President Dori Sullivan:

Thank you all for your participation and support of our Annual Paint Around in June. Our wonderful artists worked together in a quick competition with every painting definitely a winner. We really appreciate your time and talents – all of you – for making this event such a success. (You can see photos on the CWS website) Thank you again, Curt Bond, Deb Newman, Ellen Hines, Darla Goldberg, Polly Boston, Lionel Sanchez and Barbara Kerr. Signian McGeary and her volunteers also did a fine job having the tables ready for the Paint Around, helpers for the artists as well as ticket sales and a matting team ready to add the finishing touches for our raffle. It was an impressive lineup of fine paintings and volunteers! I also want to thank Dick Carlton for putting together the room layout according to our specific needs.
Here is the link to the video created by Kim Shields.

Additional photos of the event are below.

July 2023 News

CWS Takes a Short Summer Break!
News Release by Dori Sullivan
Summer is here! And along with many of you, the membership of Citrus Watercolor Society is taking a break. There will not be a meeting on the second Friday in July, however, look for us in August. We’ll be hosting a demonstration on how to “Get Ready to Show” (matting and framing) with Curt Bond and Kim Shields. This will be valuable to all of our artists who enter competitions or hang their art at various venues. It’s always stunning what a good mat and frame will do for your work

Generally, CWS meets the second Friday of the month in the Family Life Center of First Christian Church of Inverness for most of the year. We do have two social luncheons, one in May and the other at the December holidays and July is our “vacation”. After our regular meetings, we present a demonstration by well-known artists who may follow the demo with a one or two day workshop. Keep reading this column to learn more about our upcoming programs.
I started exploring fine arts around 2008 with basic drawing. CWS artists Ellen Hines and Kim Shields were my first “drawing instructors”. Ellen’s saying “the more you see, the more you draw” or better yet, “the more you draw, the more you see” certainly is a truism as you become an artist. I thoroughly enjoyed drawing and then moved on to watercolor painting. Whoa … what a difference. With drawing everything was “black and white” (pun intended) then layering watercolor, watching it ebb and flow on a wet surface and making startling colors and shapes … well, it was an eye opener. Not the control of drawing, but amazing results that made me fall in love with watercolor.

As part of my “what I’m doing this summer” is a project to go back and look at my old drawings – with a bit of a critical eye. What I see is that most drawings were a “#5” if you used a value scale with the lightest being white and “#10” as the darkest hue. That was not good; artwork without distinct values can be boring. I had lost something that I want to regain in order to add the needed “punch” to my watercolor paintings. As an exercise, I’m recruiting the help of fellow artists to play at taking a second look and maybe re-thinking a drawing and/or a painting. Maybe there will be a breakthrough for me that will help improve my artwork. At least I’ll have fun trying plus enjoying the company of friends and artists. If you’re new to painting or an old hand who’s been painting for years, sharing your work with others has many benefits. A suggestion or two here, or a different approach there, can brighten your work so it suddenly comes alive.

Talk about interacting with other artists, I hope you enjoyed our June “Paint Around” where seven Citrus Watercolor artists started with their individual drawing, painted for 10 minutes then passed the work on to the next artist who added his or her special techniques. The end results were truly beautiful! Lucky winners got to take home a unique painting. If you missed it this year – keep following CWS and be sure to put this event on your calendar next year.

We look forward to seeing all of our members again at the August meeting. Guests are always welcome at our meetings. If you’re not already a CWS member, consider joining us in August when we have a regular meeting and demonstration planned. Annual dues are $35 and the benefits of membership are many. Check us out on our website www.citruswatercolorsociety.org. You won’t be disappointed.

Until next time, stay cool and enjoy your art. Dori Sullivan