I received an Honorable Mention for my painting "Gone But Not Forgotten"". 
​I found out later that I also received the People's Choice Award for the painting.

The highlight of the day came as quite a surprise to me. Tony Armendariz had attended the
AWS award reception in New York. Unfortunately I was unable to be there.

Unbeknownst to me, Tony had a little chat with Mr. Antonio Masi, President of the AWS, and asked
if he would write a little congratulatory letter to present to me at the upcoming Dixon show,
along with my official AWS certificate. It was a generous, heartfelt gesture on Tony's part
​for which I will ever be grateful. 

"Hey, I got one too!" Tony proudly displaying his own AWS Signature certificate.
​

It was a great afternoon, though I hadn't been feeling well for a couple of days beforehand. I decided to go to Urgent Care the next morning, where I was diagnosed with pneumonia. It was definitely
​a weekend of surprises!

After 6 weeks offline, my website is back online except for the blog archives!
I spent over 50 hours researching and with phone calls and live chatting to get it back. Should not be this difficult.
I talked or chatted with tech support: Sameer, Archana, Preetham, Faraz, Jordyn, Ashitha, Ira, Nishanth, Gordon, Faraz again, Jordyn again, Ashitha again, Ira, Pranavanya, Pranavanya again, Adam, Pranavanya again, Daniel, Sumalatha, Shazneen, Daniel again, Usman, Hugo, and finally Shrii.
With each new support person, I had to answer the same questions to get help. You would think that assigning one person for the problem would be more helpful.
It will take me several more hours to recreate my blog entries which I fortunately backed up on my computer.
​Computers are a blessing and a curse!!!!

Election into the American Watercolor Society as a Signature Member is a sought-after distinction in the painting world. Back in January, I received the highly-anticipated email from the AWS: "We are pleased to inform you that your work has been accepted into the 157th Annual Exhibition of the American Watercolor Society".

While taking watercolor painting classes with Mr. Irving Shapiro, AWS, he encouraged all of his students to submit paintings to the AWS. I did that for a few years, but none were accepted. When I was hired by Mr. Shapiro to teach drawing and painting classes, I stopped submitting paintings for awhile to concentrate on teaching. When I retired from teaching full-time in 2000, I put my focus back into painting. In 2019 I submitted a piece I felt worthy for the AWS, but it was not accepted. The rejection letters came again in 2020 and 2021.

Finally in 2022, "Fishing on the Vermillion River" was juried in! In 2023-"Cataba Falls" was accepted. And most recently, "Blue Winter". As Tony said: "Never give up kids!"

The reception for the Annual Norris Gallery Watercolor 24 exhibit
was held on March 10, 2024, at the Norris Cultural Center in St. Charles, Illinois

I submitted two paintings for the show, and both were accepted. The judge for the show was Steve Puttrich. 

One of my current students in my Kaneville watercolor class, Pattie Linden Seifred, IWS, received
​an Award of Excellence for her painting, "Prelude to Spring". 

I received an Honorable Mention for "Winter Prelude". It looks like it was a "prelude" kind of season. 

The Winners Circle!

Almost finished with my latest painting.
​Painting soft edges in transparent watercolor is usually done by painting wet into wet. That works well when painting small. This painting is 16 x 23 inches, and keeping the painting wet and controlling the edges is a challenge.
So, I experimented with a different strategy.

Step 1

I started by spraying the entire paper with a solution of glycerin and water. Glycerin is the substance in the tube of paint that makes the pigment flow more easily. Adding more glycerin not only allows the pigment to flow more evenly, but as a bonus slows down the drying time.
The extra time allows me to paint more slowly to get the right color and value and keep the edges soft.

Step 2
Painting the middle ground with hills, a lake, trees and buildings needed to be painted while the sky was still wet because I wanted soft edges. Too wet and I would get no edge and too dry I would get a hard edge.

Step 3
Waiting until the surface was a bit dryer, I created the different colors and edges of the varied subjects i.e. hills, trees, lake and buildings.
Note that the bottom of the middle ground area is a hard edge. That will be softened when I next paint the foreground with darker values

Step 4
Finishing the first wash with the same colors and slightly darker values and a few highlights of the warm sky color connects the foreground to the rest of the composition. Because the values in the foreground are similar to the values in the middle ground, I was able to keep the edges soft.

Step 5
I let the first wash dry and then used a hair dryer to dry it throughly. The beauty of transparent watercolor is in the layering. Because I want soft edges, I painted this layer the same as the first. Very wet using the glycerin and water mixture, hoping that it will form a layer and not mix with the first layer.
Once this layer dried, I removed some of the pigment by scrubbing with a stiff brush which gave definition to the lake and the buildings and a few trees.

Once again I am using Khadi watercolor paper which is very different than all of the other papers that I use. It has very little internal sizing and a lot of external sizing. Because of that removing paint is very easy.

Step 6
More scrubbing in the foreground to define the ground planes.

Step 7
“Scrubbing back to the white of the paper flattens the space. Therefore, I had to add some color to some of the “lifted” areas.
Because there is almost no internal sizing in this paper, I had to add some, using a solution of gum arabic and water and sprayed that on the entire paper. Gum arabic is the sizing that is used in most papers.
If I didn’t resize the paper, the color would soak into the paper and end up as a dull less intense color

At this stage of the painting, I usually leave it as is for a time.
Slight adjustments to color, value, edges and detail will be added when I look at it with a fresh eye.

On the way to Starved Rock State park in Illinois, I noticed several cars parked along the road. I stopped to investigate and saw several people fishing along the Vermillion river.
I took several photographs and then continued to the State Park.
Several days later I decided to do a painting of the the river. The scene that I chose to paint was interesting but not as dramatic as I liked.

I decided to make it into an early Autumn scene.
To achieve the texture of the trees, I started with a very wet first wash. Even though I was using 300 pound paper, it “buckled” and the colors flowed towards the center of the composition.
This was not what I had planned, but as in many of my paintings, I took advantage of the situation and “encouraged” the pigment to create edges and textures near what I wanted as the center of interest.

Step 2
The raised river bank on the left is painted as well as the river that is reflecting all of the colors of the trees in the background. Some light washes in the trees gives them some form.

Finish
I did use some opaque watercolor to paint the youngsters fishing. Adding subtle washes for form and texture and some “lifting” in the water completed the painting.

1. Paint large to small
2. Paint light to dark
3. Paint background to foreground
4. Paint from intense to gray
In my classes at both the Palette and Chisel Academy in Chicago, and in my hometown, Kaneville, Illinois I often demonstrate these procedures in a step-by-step manner.
1. The first step, called the “block-in” deals with the large areas of light and dark values. The large areas are the most important. The second step creates the shape and form of individual objects, and the last step adds he details.
2. In transparent watercolor you can always make values darker but you can’t always make values lighter.
3. Transparent watercolor is best done in layers. Painting the background first enables you to add a layer for the middle ground and then the foreground.
4. You can always make a color less intense but you can’t always make a color more intense.
Thanks to one of my hard-working students for the photographs used in this demonstration of her small farm in southern Wisconsin

Shape and Form

Finish with detail.

Good compositions don’t just happen. Adjustments to value, color and arrangement of subject matter in your picture space will always improve your composition.

This original photograph below was taken as I was driving on a road close to where I live. Painting it as it is could make a good painting. However, I always want to find a better composition.

For many years I did small sketches with pencil and paper to explore different arraignments of objects, values and colors within my picture space to get the best composition. That process  not only helped me learn composition, but also my drawing skills. Today I use a photo editing software program on the computer to do the same thing.

With the computer I can do many sketches, changing value, color and moving, adding or eliminating objects within the composition.

One photograph can lead to many paintings if you explore other possibilities. I am including a few versions as an example.

Zoom in, Simplify, Less contrast.

More contrast, more intense color.

Cooler color, added water in the foreground.

Added grasses and shrubs in the foreground.

Eliminate objects to simplify.

These are just a few of the many possibilities.