On April 12th & 13th Anne Abgott held a two-day workshop at the Art Center that was varyingly called informative and intense. No-one, however, said it wasn’t well worth the time and money. Anne is an award winning artist and all agreed at this workshop she delivered.
Congratulations to the winners of our Artist of the Month in March. Susanjane Donohoe came in first with her painting of the lonely boy fetching water on a street in India and Aileen Croly came in second with her adorable painting of her dog “Clark”. This Viewer’s Choice competition is held monthly during our business meeting.
Congrats to the winners at the Art in the Park show at the Homosassa Wildlife Park. We had a good turnout of artists and Im sure it was a difficult choice to select the favorites.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Punta Gorda, Florida
Several members of CWS attended the FWS convention in Punta Gorda. Aileen Croly sent a few pictures that she took of our members at the Paint Around. Aileen commented: “And great job, Lionel!! We love watching you paint — like a maestro conducting an orchestra!!” We all agree!!!!
Next year… FWS comes to Ocala!!!!!