Tallahassee Watercolor Society Newsletter January/February 2025

The Tallahassee Watercolor Society will hold its annual Tri-State Juried Water Media Exhibition May 15 - June 28, 2025 at LeMoyne Arts in Tallahassee, Florida. All members are encouraged to apply!

Go to www.tallahasseewatercolorsociety.org (TaWS website) to find the Prospectus. The link to the online application will be available on the TaWS website on January 18, 2025. Detailed instructions will be provided, and you may enter your images and pay your membership and entry fee through PayPal.

Application Deadline:

March 12, 2025

Nina Freeman to talk at the February 16th meeting.

www.ninaallenfreeman.net

Artists Statement: Nina’s mixed media paintings include collaged letters, notes and lists layered with acrylic paint. Hidden messages give the viewer a feeling of voices within the landscape.

Nina has a BA in Fine Art (1966) and a Masters in Social Work (1984) from Florida State University. Her paintings have been published by North Light Books in Splash 5 – The Glory of Color 1998, Splash 13 – Alternative Approaches 2012 and Art Journey – Animals 2016.

She has signature memberships in Tallahassee Watercolor Society, Florida Watercolor Society, and the International Society of Experimental Artists. She has exhibited nationally with these organizations and others. Locally, her paintings can be seen at Eye Associates - 2020 Fleschman Rd., and Hair Options - 1620 Riggins Rd. Nina has taught painting for 24 years and currently teaches watercolor classes at LeMoyne Center for the Visual Arts in Tallahassee.

nina.freemanart@comcast.net

www.ninaallenfreeman.net

Robin Lee Makowski, NWS, FWS, NMWS-MP, WFWS

Robin Lee Makowski was thrilled to receive news of her second consecutive acceptance to the American Watercolor Society's Annual International Exhibition! Her painting, Pinkies Up!, will be traveling to NYC for this prestigious show which runs April 7th - 25th, 2025. This is the 158th Annual AWS Exhibition! 150 paintings were selected from more than 1000 entries from all over the world. It will be a fabulous show!

www.rlmartist.com

Natalia Andreeva

The past year has been filled with both work and travel, and I’m honored to have received so much recognition. One of my most memorable experiences was participating in the Schilderfestival Plein Air Invitational in Noordwijk, Netherlands. Winning the top prize was incredible, and having the festival purchase my winning painting, Intersection / De punt, for its collection was truly special to me.

I was also recognized by Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for my artistic contributions to conservation, and my painting Fall’s Colors was featured on the label for Proof Brewing Company.

I am having a one day workshop in Tallahassee through Natalia Andreava's Studio. February 22, Saturday.

Practice to Get Better with Direction and Planning

One-Day Watercolor Plein Air Workshop with Mary O Smith

Saturday, February 22, 2025, 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Often referred to as ‘true blue’, the brilliant deep-blue Ultramarine pigment is beloved by artists on its own or as a valuable mixing color. Its name derives from the combination of Latin for ‘ultra’, meaning beyond, and ‘mare’, meaning sea, referring to Europeans having imported the stone over the seas from Asia.

Because it was so costly to produce, Ultramarine was once worth more than gold. Yet it was so revered among Renaissance artists that Vermeer drove his family into debt because of his frequent Ultramarine use. We follow the journey from its source – a vibrant blue semi-precious stone – to today’s widespread synthetic alternative.

Ultramarine: History and origins of the ancient blue pigment

Ultramarine is extracted from the earth – it is made from a semi-precious stone known as lapis lazuli (‘the blue stone’ in Latin) from Afghanistan. It is one of the oldest blue pigments, and early evidence of Ultramarine as a decorative stone in the cave temples of Bamiyan dates back to the 6th and 7th centuries AD.

Lapis lazuli is made up of the minerals lazurite, silicate and pyrite. The mined stone was used further afield in Ancient Egypt and Sumer, to decorate items such as jewellery, headdresses and even, reportedly, makeup in the form of Cleopatra’s eyeshadow. But the blue pigment was not extracted until much later. There is evidence of it having been used in Chinese paintings from the 10th and 11th centuries, in Indian mural paintings from the 11th, 12th and 17th centuries, and Anglo-Saxon and Norman illuminated manuscripts from circa 1100. In the 15th century, the artist Cennino Cennini described Ultramarine in his Il Libro dell’Arte as a ‘glorious, lovely and absolutely perfect pigment beyond all the pigments’. Lapis lazuli was later traded on the Silk Road. It was loaded onto ships in Syria sailing to Venice, from where it was traded throughout other parts of Europe.

The expensive legacy of natural Ultramarine

The time-consuming process of extracting Ultramarine from lapis lazuli, combined with the distances it had to travel from its source, made natural Ultramarine a supremely expensive pigment. So much so that it was once considered more precious than gold when weighed gram by gram. To produce genuine Ultramarine pigment from lapis lazuli was a complex, lengthy process. The mineral mined was ground and mixed with resin, linseed oil or wax, and then heated to form a dough-like mixture. This was kneaded like bread and placed in a lye solution, allowing blue flakes to separate, sink and dry, with the result being a fine blue powder pigment. The process would then be repeated to produce a finer grade of pigment each time, meaning that a comparatively small amount of Ultramarine pigment could be extracted from the stone. Nonetheless, it created a high-quality blue pigment free from the invisible impurities which lay in the rock and damaged the paint colour.

The preciousness of the pigment dictated how it was used in painting. Artists employed it sparingly and had to account for the hefty cost, which was sold at the best quality and price in Venice. Where Michelangelo purportedly couldn’t afford to use Ultramarine for his works, Vermeer was so taken by the pigment he refused to paint without it, his frequent use eventually resulting in his family falling into debt. From the year 1400, Ultramarine was often used to paint the robes of the Virgin Mary, to illustrate her divinity. However, artists were still financially conflicted when using the pigment, so it was reserved for significant works of art, such as Sassoferrato’s Praying Madonna (circa 1660), and it remained a privilege to use the color until a synthetic version came onto the scene.

The invention of French Ultramarine

In 1817, the London Royal College of Art offered a prize to anyone who could produce a synthetic version of Ultramarine. The French Government’s Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale followed this by offering a larger reward of 6,000 francs for the invention. Just over a decade later in 1828, French chemist Jean-Baptiste Guimet was successful. His pigment, French Ultramarine, was made from a mix of clay, soda, charcoal, quartz and sulphur, heated to produce a green Ultramarine substance which was then ground, washed and re-heated to convert it to a blue pigment. Chemically speaking, French Ultramarine was identical to the prohibitively expensive original, and this changed everything.

French Ultramarine: a revolution in blue pigments

French Ultramarine quickly became an essential addition to the artist’s palette. J. M. W. Turner was the first accredited artist to use synthetic Ultramarine, in 1834. Turner turned to oil colors in his early twenties to gain more professional standing and recognition, and exhibited his first oil painting, Fishermen at Sea, at the Royal Academy when he was 21.

By the 1870s French Ultramarine had become the standard pigment for Ultramarine. Later artists would rejoice in its clean vibrancy, such as Monet, who used a mix of French Ultramarine and Cobalt Blue in his 1906 Water Lilies painting. In 1957, Yves Klein developed a version of Ultramarine called IKB (International Klein Blue) which he registered as a trademark color and used to make 200 monochrome paintings. Klein saw the color as especially pure and felt that it represented a sense of freedom and infinite spaces.

Today, Winsor & Newton produces a rich, transparent French Ultramarine with a reddish pigment, and in contrast a cooler Ultramarine (Green Shade), a deep transparent blue with green undertones. Both have superb blending properties to make purples, greens and even neutrals, but are also suited to working with a limited palette.

Once a rare and precious pigment, Ultramarine is now a favorite among artists.

What’s important to know when featuring a building or other structure in a painting?

Artists Network

5 accomplished contemporary watercolorists share some tried-and-tested advice.

Iain Stewart

“Try to see the big shapes first and define them. Getting caught up in counting windows or spacing corbels is about as boring as reading this sentence. So, my first question is always: How can I simplify this? My second is: What do I need to add to make it read the way I want it to? Typically, quick marks and confident brushstrokes win out. One last thing: A building can be defined using only light and shadow. Remember that one.” —Iain Stewart

John Salminen

“I approach my urban landscapes as abstractions, designing the scene with composition as my foremost consideration. The shapes I use, given the nature of architecture, tend to be geometric. This provides a perfect opportunity to add a figure as a center of interest, adding both scale and contrast. The organic human form can both complement and reinforce the bold monumentality of an urban scene.” —John Salminen

Thomas W Schaller

“A building isn’t just a solid object; it’s a container of spaces—spaces filled with memories, dreams and stories. So, when you’re painting elements of a built environment, remember that architecture is only as memorable as the people who live, work or interact with it. Whether in the city or countryside, including some context—a bit of urban energy or the rural calm— helps provide a narrative that will enliven your work.” —Thomas W Schaller

Brenda Swenson

“Let light do the heavy lifting. Light reveals form, color and texture. I’ve always been drawn to strong light. It’s usually the reason I choose to paint a scene in the first place. When sketching or painting architecture, I look for strong directional light (not mid-day). I utilize cast and form shadows to link buildings together. Too many small shadows will look busy, like a checkerboard, so I often “grow” the shadows (making them longer or larger) to link multiple buildings together and unify the scene.” —Brenda Swenson

Peter Jablokow

“Architecture has so many clean, sharp edges and contrasting shapes that I tend to look at all of them, one by one, quickly becoming overwhelmed. I know I can focus on only one spot, so my solution is to detail one area and suggest or discard the rest. Sometimes, a basic lighting pattern or overall shape can be all that’s needed. In a landscape, the overall value pattern with a couple of hard edges is often enough, or even a hard-edged shape with no other detail at all. In an urban scene, the overall pattern or rhythm overrides details except in areas of interest. I push myself to eliminate as much as possible, and the result tends to be more pleasing and less cluttered. In the watercolor below, the cityscape is a backdrop for the people and cars, so the overall pattern of building shapes is all that I needed to set the stage.” —Peter Jablokow