Dune Fence by Tim Lewis

June 12
BWS meeting offers opportunity
to show and share your watercolors

Bring your recent watermedia paintings to the June 12 meeting for the 2023 Show and Share Program. Following a brief business meeting and installation of officers, members will have a chance to talk about their most recent works. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. and will be at the First Christian Church 205 E. Kirkwood Ave. Enter through the Washington Street door; the door code will be sent by email. The meeting will be in-person only.
Th Show and Share program usually occurs in September, but a bit of shuffling has had to happen to accommodate the rescheduling of the Framemakers program. That was originally the May program but will now occur in September. Jo Weddle, program chair, has provided a list of upcoming programs:
July 10 – Four on the Floor – A portrait painting rotation observation program
Aug. 14 -To Be Determined
Sept. 14 – Framemakers Program
Oct. 9 – Painting with a live model in Halloween costume
Nov. 13 – Abstract program by Zain Mackey
Dec. 11 – Holiday Party at Meadowood
June through November meetings will be at the First Christian Church with none on Zoom.

Closing Reception
“We Paint … Historic Bloomington”
at the Monroe County History Center

“We Paint…Historic Bloomington” closes its encore exhibit with a reception at the Monroe County History Center Friday, July 7 from 5 to 7 p.m. You are invited to enjoy this very interesting, informative, and beautiful collection of paintings of historic homes, buildings and trailblazers. The History Center, 202 E. Sixth St., is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

May Paint-Out
Hilltop Garden and Nature Center

by Patty Uffman

Saturday, May 20, was a beautiful day for a paint-out!  Eight members drove out to Hilltop Garden and Nature Center on the east side of town for the occasion: Leslie Asher, Linda Branstetter, Barbara Coffman, Jeanne Dutton, Dan Goebbert, Charlotte Griffin, Patty Uffman (host), and Betty Wagoner. We walked around to get an overview, took pictures, chatted, sketched, and painted. I expected to see what I saw the last time I visited, but I was wrong.  Nature isn’t constant, and the view this year offered changes from our last paint-out there. The facilities provided indoor water and restrooms and the sunny and shady spots gave everyone a choice of where to set up. Whenever BWS has another paint-out there, I would encourage members to give it a try!  The following paintings are products of this paint-out.

Viridian Moon raises funds
for Ukrainian art students

by Irina Shishova

Our fundraiser for the Ukrainian Art Students in Kyiv has reached an important milestone: $1,500! So many BWS members have already shown their support. Thank you very much to everyone who came and participated in the fundraiser. It is inspiring to see our community come together and give back to others.
The fundraiser will be going on until June 24, so there are still many opportunities to participate. Please share this post with your art-loving friends to help us reach our goal of raising $3,000 for students in need.
P.S. We have added 4 new lovely still lives to the students’ prints collection.

Call for BWS Artists
to participate in a Gallery Show
We Paint…Out of the Box!
at the Waldron Arts Center Education Gallery
June 20 – August 5

This exhibit is for work by BWS members who go “out of the box” and paint with other mediums or create works that use watercolor in nontraditional ways.

 Have you created “orphan” pieces that don’t match specific medium or theme requirements of other exhibitions? Here is the place to show your stuff!  Mixed media, pastel, oil, acrylic – any medium is welcome!  Only two requirements:  describe the medium and able to hang on the wall

Entry specifications:

• Open to all current members of Bloomington Watercolor Society
• One work per artist.
• No entry fee, no commission. Work needn’t be for sale.
• All artwork should represent your original best effort. Pieces created in workshops are acceptable if the piece is original work and conceived and executed by the artist. (No pieces for which the artist copied an instructor step-by-step.)
• Art must hang on the wall and have attached wire with D shape hooks on the back. Every artwork must have a label (below) attached to the front and back.

Please notify Carol Rhodes that you will be submitting.

• In the email:
• Describe your work in a sentence or two.
• Send the following information:
• Name of artist
• Title of work
• Medium(s)
• Price, if applicable
• Email address
• A photograph of your piece is requested for marketing purposes.

Calendar:

• Drop off at Waldron Education Gallery: Tuesday, June 20, time to be announced
• Receptions: Gallery Walk, July 7 and Aug. 4. 5-8 pm
• Pick up: Saturday, Aug. 5 time to be announced

Member News

Christine Peterson is showing her work at the BWS Art Gallery in the Cancer Support Community office, 1719 W. Third St., Bloomington, through the end of June. The exhibit features about 35 paintings plus prints and cards. A reception for the exhibit, titled “Spice of Life,” will be Wednesday, June 21 from 4 to 6 p.m. The gallery is open daily to the public for viewing by appointment only. Arrange a visit by emailing Stephanie@cancersupportscin.org or call 812-233-3286.

Maura Stanton writes: I’m in France right now studying French at the Centre International d’Antibes. Here’s a watercolor sketch I did of the view from my window in the student “residence.” A bientot!

MarySue Schwab offers a little bit of history: My dad, Thomas A. Veerkamp, was a master watercolorist. He painted this as a very young man, a soldier in the army during WWII. This is one of the native’s huts on the island of Samoa. He has many paintings of giant trees and vegetation next to their tiny tents. Paper was scarce and he often painted on both sides of the paper. I have a whole album of these wonderful pieces, that I treasure.

Tim Lewis’s “Sunshine Came Softly” has been juried in to the Indiana Watercolor Society’s Juried Exhibition that will open at Newfield’s Aug. 4 through Sept. 30. Tim is also showing his work at the Watercolor Society of Indiana’s Annual Members Show through July 21 at the Second Presbyterian Church, 7700 N. Meridian St., Indianapolis; and at the Time Exhibition at The Beyond Gallery, 414 E. Main St., Lafayette.

“COLA WARS” by Stephen Edwards has also been juried in to the Watercolor Society of Indiana’s Juried Exhibition.

Mary Sue Schwab also has a painting, “Prickly Pear in Bloom,” in the WSI Annual Juried Exhibition.

Jerry Harste writes: I have spent the month playing around with a technique I developed to capture in paint marsh water seeing how far I could push it. I’m going to be putting “The Duck Pond” which I had initially titled “Stagnant Water,” into the upcoming Hoosier Salon Juried Show. “The Seagull” was my attempt to see if the technique would work capturing the surf. “A Landscape Study” was my attempt to see if I could use the technique to capture the foliage on trees. In my previous life as a literacy researcher we used to criticize researchers who discovered a new statistical procedure and then applied it willy-nilly to everything they encountered likening it to finding a hammer and then pounded the hell out of everything around them. In many ways I seem to be doing that same thing with this technique. But hey, in my defense, it has been fun!

Zain Mackey kicked off summer to a good start when her painting “Orca Rising” sold the last week of May. “I’m also having fun working on abstract nudes, my subject for the next few months,” she says.

Andy Roberts shares two paintings this month. The first one, “West Porch” is a pen and ink watercolor he did at the T.C. Steele State Site House of Singing Winds. This was painted at a BWS paint-out hosted by Betty Wagoner in April 22. He wrote that it’s one of his favorite places to visit and paint on a rather windy and winter-like day for spring but the redbuds and dogwoods were in bloom for beautiful scenes. The second painting, “Red Sky in the Morn,” is also a pen and ink watercolor. It is currently in the Climate Awareness display at Arts Alliance College Mall. 

Beyond BWS

The deadline to enter Kentucky Watercolor Society’s Aqueous juried show is July 1. For a full prospectus, click on https://www.kentuckywatercolorsociety.com/aqueous-2023. The entry process is on the KWS website: kentuckywatercolorsociety.com. If you have any questions you can email kentuckywatercolor@gmail.com or call Peggy Charmoli at 502-468-7906.