Saturday, January 10, 2009

FIRST CELEBRATION OF THE NEW YEAR!


Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society has their annual holiday party in January. Instead of trying to work it into a very busy month, we have this great celebration of art and friendship in January when everything has quieted down. It is always a very special event. An amazing pot luck luncheon, painting exchange, exhibit of pleine air work and a wonderful speaker. This year there was a fun addition....several "group" paintings. Two easels were set up and everyone who wanted could paint on a sheet of watercolor paper. The final paintings came out amazingly well. We had two artists assigned to pull it all together and finish them off. They were raffled off and the lucky winners took them home matted, glazed and framed and ready to hang!

The fantastic centerpieces, courtesy of the imagination and hard work of Karen Druker, were bags of art supplies being donated to women's shelters for the kids and adults to work with. Everything was colorful, festive and definitly in the spirit of reaching out to each other and the community at large.

The unique entertainment was a guest appearance by Paul Cezanne who regailed us with his background, fellow painters of the Impressionist era and explanations of what he was exploring with his art. While everyone was in rapt attention, I had a chance to do a little sketching. I had better results because I slowed down, knowing that people wouldn't be moving much. I was able to absorb all that Mr. Cezanne had to say and draw at the same time. Lest you fear I have given up my camera for my pen, I downloaded 94 photos from the afternoon. Here is a little slide show for everyone's enjoyment. Forgive the sideways view of the beautiful table decorations. I downloaded them right side up and can't figure out how to fix it in the slide show.

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