Our Annual Holiday Luncheon was held on December 13th at the Citrus Hills Golf and Country Club. Over 50 members enjoyed the food, friendship and lots of raffle prizes. Tom Jones a Club favorite once again shared his passion for art and love of nature while at the same time teaching us a thing or two. For those who couldn’t get enough he conducted a two day workshop on Saturday and Sunday.
Press Release by Dori Sullivan
December 2024
Citrus County Chronicle
Happy New Year! Fill 2025 with Color!! As Citrus Watercolor Society closes out 2024, we want to thank you for your support during a year of challenges. In spite of wild weather and of a multitude of changes, we hosted some amazing workshops and had great times together. We’re looking forward to starting the New Year with Sue Archer and her two day workshop entitled “Commanding Color” (a color theory workshop). Her demo will be held on Friday January 10th at the Art Center Education Building (2644 N. Annapolis Ave., Hernando). Light refreshments begin at 12:30 pm with the monthly CWS Business Meeting beginning at 1:00pm. The demo by Sue Archer will follow the business meeting. Guests are always welcome to attend; a $5 donation is appreciated.
The following weekend Sue’s workshop will be from 9:00 AM to 4:00 on both Sat. and Sun. January 11th & 12th also in the Education Building behind the Art Center of Citrus County theater facility. The cost for CWS members is $195 and for non-members $225. Checks payable CWS. Sue is a studio and plein air artist, national workshop instructor and national juror and judge for watercolor exhibitions. She showed her work in Art Festivals in Florida from 1985-2014 and still shows her work in national watercolor exhibitions. Since Sue began exhibiting her work in 1985, she has won over 200 state and national awards, has received a Florida State Individual Artist Fellowship grant for painting, and has a DVD “Commanding Color”.
“My goal as an instructor is to present you with as much design and color theory information as time allows and encourage you to take advantage of the inherent wet into wet qualities of watercolor. I believe in the power of planning and understanding the basics. The objective is not to change you, but to add to your core of knowledge. Then it is up to you to take this knowledge and apply it to the style and subject matter that suits you.” (Sue Archer)
We hope you will join us for this exciting weekend of design and color theory along with your friends and members of CWS. For more information about this event as well as CWS, please view our website: http://citruswatercolorsociety.org. Annual dues $35. To join, checks should be made payable to CWS and mailed to PO Box 2464, Inverness FL 34451-2464.
Our 2025 Calendar includes exciting artists such as Teresa Kirk, the return of Ann Abgott as well as Lynn Ferris. We hope to host our Annual “Art in the Wildlife Park (a benefit for the Homosassa Wildlife Park) in the Spring and have many fun activities such as our monthly Plein Air outings hosted by Vicki Pritchard. Come and meet us! We’d love to have you become part of our art group – beginners are welcome as are long time artists.
Until next time, stay healthy and be happy … we wish you peace and brilliant art in 2025.
Dori Sullivan. December, 2024
We have started the wind down of another successful year. Our new location at the Art Center of Citrus County is working out well. We had over 40 attendees at the November meeting and a record number of entries into our Painting of the Month competition. Congratulations to our winners. First place: SusanJane Donohoe. Second place: Lionel Sanchez. Thanks to all who entered.
When an unforeseen emergency prevented our scheduled artist from attending Joyce Cusick jumped in to handle the demo at the meeting. Joyce is a life time member of CWS and has had an extensive art and design career. She demonstrated some of the watercolor techniques she uses, especially in her Plein Air work. We are lucky to have her and everyone left a little smarter.
We will end the year in December with our Holiday Luncheon. Tom Jones will once again entertain us with a great, informative Demo. There’s always lots of fun and prizes too. There is still time to sign up. Check out the calendar for details.
We had over 20 entries for Founders Day and Show and Tell on September 13, 2024. The nice article in the Chronicle Newspaper on September 6th, written by Dori likely contributed to such a large turnout. It was all beautiful work. Several people brought items in for Show and Tell. There was a lot of engagement by the members and the table set ups encouraged conversation.
Barbara Kerr passed out some of Curt Bond’s paintings for review, Lionel Sanchez spoke about his painting and techniques, and Jeaninne Cole discussed her entries from Kim Shield’s workshop, and her own display of card sized paintings. Nearly all artists who participated addressed the group on their inspiration.
We were especially entertained by Theo’s presentation. Everyone was comfortable and really appeared to enjoy themselves. The environment is really a major change and huge improvement over our previous meeting location.
Marjorie Bannish, our Painting of the Month Coordinator, tallied the votes and made the awards.
Judi Miller – Founders Day Award for Coconuts
Yvonne Brunelle – 1st place for Goose and Duckling
Jeannine Cole Chesnul – 2nd place for Nightime Landscape
Judith Snow – 3rd place for Iris
The raffle of Kim Shields painting from the workshop raised $115. Gingi will send a thank you to Kim. Our lucky winner was Jan Clark, a guest.
Congratulations to all!
Press Release by Dori Sullivan
September 2024
Citrus County Chronicle
Hello September!! It’s time for our annual “Show and Tell” with Viewer’s Choice Awards including our prestigious Founder’s Award. Citrus Watercolor Society members bring their latest and favorite paintings to share with the viewer’s how they achieve such amazing results. Is it a new technique? Or a “happy mistake” that really worked? We can’t wait to hear your story.
Our meeting will be held at the Art Center of Citrus County Education Building located at 2644 N. Annapolis Ave in Hernando on Friday, September 13th. Light refreshments, “Meet and Greet” and a short business meeting will be held at 11:45 with the competition following. All are welcome to come and enjoy the time together.
We will have CWS member’s paintings on display and our viewer’s will vote for their favorite. The Founder’s Award will be presented to the overall winner. Other small cash awards include 1st, 2nd and 3rd, again by popular vote. Past recipients of the Founder’s Award include (but not limited to) Darla Goldberg, Peg LeFevbre, Chuck Chesnul and Mel Rustom. Will this year’s award be presented to you?? Come and see.
The Florida Watercolor Society annual convention is being held this September in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. Three CWS artists had entries that were accepted for the convention exhibits. They are Pauline Boston and Kim Shields who are part of the top 100 entries and Heather Doherty who was accepted in the “Online Competition”. Well done!
Signian McGeary, our first Vice President and Program Coordinator, has lined up some very exciting workshop thru 2024 and well in to 2025. New brochures were printed and available at our next meeting. Our members receive a significant discount on the cost of the workshops. Details are available on our website https://citruswatercolorsociety.org . All artist skill levels are welcome.
Volunteer opportunities are always available to our members. You might like to sign-up to be an “assistant” to our guest demonstrator where you will have the chance to be a helper for the artist during his/her workshop. You can help with our refreshments and clean-up after our “Meet and Greet” social hour. Are you a fan of plein air outings? Arranging these day trips might be just the thing for you. Helping to introduce new people to our membership is a fun way to get to know people who, like you, share the love of art. Talk to any CWS board member about your particular area of interest. We’d love to have you be a part of our team.
Thank you all for your continued support of Citrus Watercolor Society. We look forward to seeing you at our September “Show and Tell” program as well as at some of our future workshops and show. In the meantime, add color to your life thru art. Stay well – Dori Sullivan
Award winning artist Kim Shields delivered on his promise of a fun-filled workshop, “Wet & Wild/Fast & Loose” It was the first venture at our new location in the Art Center. All agreed it was a worthwhile event and the new facility is perfect for us.
We had another successful show at the Homosassa wildlife park. Attendance was good and we had a great response from our participating members. Congratulations to our winning artists.
What a day it was. We started out horror stricken when we arrived at the church and it wasn’t set up, no lights, no tables, nothing that had been scheduled was laid out. A terrible miscommunication and so instead of a board meeting, we started setting up for our Paint Around and we got things ready just in time. I have so many to thank for putting the event together – I haven’t been at the top of my speed lately and I’m so grateful to all of you for making the job easier.
C. J. Westrick started in the kitchen and laid out the goodies and then even took time to join Marjorie Bannish to review and audit our finances as requested by Aileen Croly. Aileen and Ang McMurray ended up being our super salesmen selling the raffle tickets during the Paint Around until just before we picked the winners. Jill van Eldik (Theo’s wife) volunteered to be timer and using her “teacher’s voice” kept the artists moving. Jeanniene Cole stepped up to help with matting the completed paintings. Gingi Martin welcomed our members and guests at the door and assisted with getting people signed up for Kim Shield’s workshop in August as well as Anne Abgott’s workshop in October. (More about these workshops later!) Donna Swisher and Loretta Bell took pictures and Loretta had them posted on our Facebook page that same day! Wow! Jan Kuukari donated paper for the artists and the mats, backing and sleeves were also donated. Signian kept things rolling and provided the “daisy bags” for our tickets. I had a wonderful opportunity to mingle and talk with our guests, new members and longtime members. Since the atmosphere was casual, everyone seemed to be enjoying the opportunity of looking over the artist’s shoulders as their work progressed. It was the best meet and greet ever!
A special “Thank you” goes to our artists; Curt Bond, Kim Shields, Polly Boston, Vicki Prichard, Jackii Molsick and Loretta Bell. You are the greatest! Your shared time and talents are a great gift to CWS and we love and appreciate you all!!
The following winners of the paintings were; Sherry Bundy for Kim Shields’ plein air scene, Jeanne Conrad won Curt’s painting, Paula Green was a double winner – she walked away with both Polly Boston and Loretta Bell’ paintings, I won Jackii Molsick’s Zen garden and Chris McKinney won Vicki Prichard’s sunset at Fort Island. A total of $370 was made from the drawing for these unique works of art.
Thank you, all our members and friends, for participating and being a part of the 2024 Paint Around.
Remember, we are not meeting in July. Enjoy your days in the sun (or shade) and we’ll see you on August 9th for Kim’s demo, followed by his workshop on the 10th and 11th . I believe we are at the limit with registrations for the workshop, but check our web-site and emails to be sure. Stay well – Dori
Our 2024 Spring luncheon gala was held at the Citrus Hills Golf and Country Club. It kicked off with Installation of our 2024-25 CWS Board which includes Angela McMurray; Facilities, Gingi Martin; Corresponding Secretary, Deborah Newman; Recording Secretary, Aileen Croly; Treasurer, Jan Kuukari; Second Vice President and Membership, Signian Mcgeary; First Vice President and Programs; and Dori Sullivan; President.
Following lunch we were treated a demo on how to use watercolors on masa paper by Jackie Molsick. She is a well known Florida artist and instructor. The unique results she achieves are sure to inspire our members to try their hand at the creative techniques she demonstrated.
Press Release by Dori Sullivan
May 2024
Citrus County Chronicle
Citrus Watercolor Society Plans Spring Luncheon and Installation of Officers
This month the members of Citrus Watercolor Society are celebrating the start of our calendar year. Our dues are being paid and the schedule of activities and workshops is lined up thru the end of 2024 and into 2025. Most importantly is the installation of our Board of Directors on Friday May 10th at our annual Spring Luncheon. We (especially me) are thrilled with the fact that our 2023-24 Board members have all signed on for another year! The board has been a super supportive team and we’re so excited about the coming months. Apparently so is our membership – we were all voted in unanimously!
Our 2024-25 CWS Board includes Angela McMurray; Facilities, Gingi Martin; Corresponding Secretary, Deborah Newman; Recording Secretary, Aileen Croly; Treasurer, Jan Kuukari; Second Vice President and Membership, Signian Mcgeary; First Vice President and Programs; and Dori Sullivan; President. The luncheon gala will be held at the Citrus Hills Golf and Country Club. There may still be spaces left and if you can join us, contact Jan Kuukari at [email protected].
We’ve invited artist Jackii Molsick to present a demonstration for our luncheon guests. Jackii will show us how to use watercolors on masa papers creating unique results. As a well-known Florida artist and instructor, Jackii served as President of the Florida Watercolor Society in 2023 and we’re delighted she found the time to show us the “how to” of painting on a different base.
Summer is now showing its sunny face and many of our members and friends are taking vacations or traveling to their homes “up North”. We want to wish you safe travels but have a thought we’d like to send with you. Along the routes from Florida across our country there are some exciting art museums and galleries. I’ve been fortunate to have visited many and urge you to take a break and visit those special places in the big cities or the galleries in the smaller towns along your way. I can’t think of a better “break” than to get off the busy main highways and visit a gallery or museum. Take a bit of time to immerse the artist in you into the beautiful art created by the Masters or local artists like you and me.
When visiting St. Louis a couple of years ago I was stunned by the magnificent exhibit of Monet paintings at their wonderful art museum. You come out of the time spent contemplating the paintings both refreshed and inspired. Off the beaten path is always an adventure and thru your eyes, who knows what wonders you’ll see to paint when you reach your destination. Don’t forget your sketch book!
Citrus Watercolor Society welcomes new water medium painters as well as long time artists. Guests are always welcome to view the demonstrations (we ask a $5 donation). We meet once a month on the second Friday in the Fellowship Hall of the First Christian Church, 2018 Colonade Street in Inverness. Our workshops are held at Whispering Pines Park, in Inverness. Annual dues are $35 that entitles you to free demos and significant discounts on our workshops and all our other activities. We have a website that keeps our members informed. Check it out: www.citruswatercolorsociety.org . Come and see what we’re all about.