SANTA CLARA VALLEY WATERCOLOR SOCIETY ANNUAL SHOW RECEPTION

As you can see from the photos we had a glorious sunny day yesterday for the reception and awards ceremony for the SCVWS annual show. This is an amazing group of painters so the show is always very competitive and exciting. I will post a link when the photos of the winning paintings are up on their website. In the meantime, I was privileged to win a sponsor award so i get to go shopping at my favorite art supply store, Accent Arts in Palo Alto! I just received the new winter sale catalog from Daniel Smith with an exciting article on painting Japanese papers with watercolor and then creating a collage painting with them. I think I will get some Japanese papers and try this idea. I loved the article and it was step by step and very clear...so easy to follow. Naturally, I will be doing my version of the Frenchman in this technique.

Preston Metcalf, the assistant curator of the Triton Museum in Santa Clara, was the judge of the show. It is unusual to have a judge of such impressive credentials. I have a painting I did of him that I considered entering in the show but I didn't want to "surprise" him, not to mention eliminate any chance of winning an award. You can't really give your own face a prize without looking biased. His portrait is one of three slides I submitted for the annual CWA show. You never know. Preston could be on display in the Bay Area, after all. He is a very charming gentleman and has a very expressive face. The last set of photos I took of him were indoors with no real strong shadow pattern. They displayed such a wide range of expressions that I use them for my Advanced Watercolor Portrait Workshop when we work on expressions. Yesterday I took some additional photos out in the sunshine. Now I have a great shadow pattern to compliment the first set of photos.