Lisa Faulkner Wright

Vermillion Sunset, 18" x 24"

Speaking of her choice of subject matter, Lisa Faulkner Wright comments, "Having grown up near the shores of Lake Tahoe, I am inspired by the vast pine forests, high mountain lakes, granite peaks and sandstone canyons of our western states. But I am equally inspired by the smaller details of nature. From the stunning vistas to the roadside wildflowers, I have been instilled with a reverence for the land, with its powerful geologic forces and the striking beauty of its flora and fauna."

Lisa primarily paints landscapes in a contemporary realist style, applying the concepts of pictorial geometry to create illusionary worlds that invite her viewers to step into the scenes psychologically. Painting both on location and in her studio, she has chosen watercolor for its luminosity and for its wide range of properties from transparent to opaque. She capitalizes on the special effects of granulating pigments, often flowing several washes down the paper to build up sedimenta-
tion and reticulation patterns which she then incorporates into rock features in the painting. Watercolors are usually applied in a traditional manner with traditional sable/blend brushes, but she also trims synthetic fan brushes to desired shapes and then uses them to apply thick paint to capture the details of grasses, trees, and stratified rock. She finds the Primatek paints from Daniel Smith especially well-suited to depicting the features of the desert southwest and the Colorado Plateau.

Flood of Color, 17" x 12"

Although academically trained in printmaking and ceramic sculpture -- she holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison -- Lisa came to a turning point in her career when she studied with Jack Beal and Sondra Freckelton during summer programs at their home studio. She has taught university classes in printmaking, papermaking, and painting and also maintained a successful studio and gallery displaying ceramic sculpture, porcelain pottery, and watercolors for many years. She has also exhibited widely, winning awards in regional and national shows, and her work is included in the collection of the Elvehjem Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, among others. Her work has been featured in Watercolor magazine and is included in Daily Life in Still Life, published by American Artist magazine. She now teaches painting and drawing at her private studio.

Blossoms of the Cholla, 17" x 12"

Yellow Blossoms and Raindrops, 12" x 17"

Trail to the Sandstone Bluffs, 18" x 24"

Please visit Lisa's blog to see more of her work.

Myrna Wacknov

Frenchman (muted cool palette), 15" x 22"
watercolor on gesso-textured paper

Myrna Wacknov has had a lifelong passion for painting figures and faces -- doing portrait commissions while she was still in high school and then working as a charcoal sketch artist at outdoor art shows for a number of years. Her focus of interest has changed over the years to capturing an expression and gesture rather than creation of an exact likeness, and recently she has been pushing the design potential of her subjects by working in series, keeping the image constant and changing the combination of elements from painting to painting. Her eagerness to experiment with processes and techniques provides endless opportunities for exploring her creativity.

Sketchbook portrait, 5" x 7"
collage with pen & ink wash

Myrna attended Washington University and the Kansas City Art Institute and later received her degree in Painting and Drawing at San Francisco State University. Her work has been included in many national watercolor competitions and she has won awards in exhibits with the Rocky Mountain Watercolor Society, the San Diego Watercolor Society, and the California Watercolor Association, to name a few. In 2008, she won the CFS Medal at the American Watercolor Society Exhibition. She is a signature member of the National Watercolor Society and the California Watercolor Association. Myrna's work has also been featured in several magazine articles -- a feature on her portrait process in Watercolor Magic (October 2007), an article on 20 artists over 60 in The Artist's Magazine (March 2008), and a 2nd place in the self-portrait competition in American Artist (October 2008). Her work was also featured on the cover of Palette Magazine in January 2009. Myrna teaches several portrait painting workshops from beginning to advanced levels.

Rose, 18" x 24"
watercolor on Tyvek

Advanced portrait class variations, 15" x 21"
watercolor with dilute matte medium

Bill Cook the Housepainter, 18" x 24"
watercolor

Go to Myrna's blog to see more of her work and to find links to her website and gallery.

Judy Welsh

Sunflowers, 26" x 20"
watercolor on Yupo

A fourth generation Californian, Judy Welsh grew up in the coastal town of Santa Barbara, and her love of the outdoors has been nurtured by the beauty of her state from the sea to the Sierras. Since her early childhood, painting has been a way of seeing and celebrating the Creator. She finds plein air painting especially inspiring because it brings forth an emotional response that is not readily accessible for her in the studio. Using rich, saturated color and interlocking shapes that hug the contours of her subject matter, she hopes her audience will be as excited by her finished paintings as she was when she painted them. Recently, she has been experimenting with alternative painting surfaces such as watercolor canvas and synthetic paper, both of which present new technical challenges and offer new avenues for creativity.

Wet Medium/Wild Color, 20" x 26"
watercolor on Yupo

Judy holds a bachelor's degree in fine art and also did graduate work in art at San Jose State University. She has won many awards, including second place in a recent landscape competition in "International Artist Magazine," has had her work published in Splash 9, The Best of Watercolor (North Light Books, 2006), and is represented in both private and public collections. She is an award-winning signature member of the California Watercolor Association, and her paintings have been included in exhibitions at The Triton Museum of Art, The Art Museum of Los Gatos, and The de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University, as well as in Europe and Japan. Judy has owned and managed an art business for the last twenty years, doing freelance art, teaching art to all ages, and consulting for both business and private clients. Her most recent passion involves teaching both art-making and art appreciation to her three grand-daughters.

Rock Dwellers, 20" x 30"

Cinnabar Hill, 30" x 22"

Ahh Umunhum, 22" x 30"

Please visit Judy's website to see more of her work.

Sandy Maudlin

Past Images, 24" x 36"
watercolor with wax batik and sumi ink on rice paper

Like many artists, Sandy Maudlin enjoys the process of painting at least as much as the final result. She loves to explore the varied possibilities of what paint can do and how she can use it to express what she feels. Working in everything from transparent watercolor to oils, she is hard-pressed to identify either a favorite medium or subject, preferring to push forward to discover the next surprise. As a watercolorist, Sandy is equally adept with transparent watercolor and fluid acrylics, applying them to either traditional watercolor paper or Yupo synthetic paper, and presenting her subjects in styles ranging from traditional realism to experimental and abstract. She brings a willingness to experiment and a fondness for novel techniques to her painting, with exciting results. Sandy firmly believes that an artist's style is within and will be expressed no matter what, and her fervent hope is that people will be engaged by her paintings and feel an emotional response to them.

Golden Venice, 19" x 24"
fluid acrylics on Arches watercolor paper

Sandy earned a bachelor's degree in art from Indiana University and has furthered her education with workshops taught by many well-known artists such as John Salminen, Carla O'Conner, Jean Grastorf, and George James, among others. She is a signature member of both the Watercolor Society of Indiana and the Ohio Watercolor Society and has won numerous Best of Show awards in many annual juried shows. Her paintings are included in public and private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe. Finding it very fulfilling to encourage and watch as others grow creatively, she also teaches weekly classes in her home studio near Cincinnati, Ohio and gives workshops both nationally and internationally.

Junior's Advice, 26" x 20"
transparent watercolor on Yupo

Interlude, 26" x 18"
transparent watercolor on Yupo


Party, 40" x 26"
transparent watercolor on Yupo

Go to Sandy's blog to find out more about her work.

Pablo Villicaña Lara

Morning Offering, 18" x 24"

Although he was raised in both Mexican and American cultures, most of Pablo Villicaña Lara's paintings reflect his Mexican Native heritage. Depicting handmade objects such as pottery, baskets, blankets, and musical instruments in combination with flowers and other cultural objects, he creates paintings that speak of the heart of his people and the culture they are trying to preserve. With bold color and dramatic lighting, his paintings evoke a sense of ancient history and tradition, much like the stories passed down orally from generation to generation.

Artesenias Mexicanas, 18" x 24"

Speaking of his attraction to watercolor, Pablo observes, "I love everything about watercolor -- it's inherent luminous qualities, the vibrant colors, the beautiful granulating flowing textures -- though it took me several years to summon the courage to face the challenges I had heard about and it proved to be true for a few years before I discovered that there's absolutely nothing you cannot do with watercolors from the most expressionistic style to the most real and even hyper-realism. I think I fall somewhere in between: I love creating images that look real and have a presence, a sense of light, but also have hints of flowing washes and spatters."

Story Teller, 19" x 30"

Pablo was born in a small village thirty miles south of the California/Mexico border. He came to the U.S. when he was five to receive medical attention for the polio he had contracted at age two. Although he had always intended to return to Mexico, he was so far along in school by the time the medical treatments were completed that he decided to stay and finish school. He has an MFA in drawing from the California College of the Arts (formerly the California College of Arts and Crafts) and has won numerous awards for work exhibited in watercolor shows throughout the U.S. Most recently, he was invited to become a member of the International Guild of Realism and was the only watercolorist accepted into their annual exhibitions for the past two years.

Yellow Hammer, 16" x 12"

Mi Rebozo, 20" x 14"

Go to Pablo's blog to see more of his work.

A brief update...

Starting this coming week, I'll be posting a new feature every other week, rather than weekly. I'm thrilled with the interest that weekly posting has generated, but I've been spending so much time on curatorial and editorial tasks that I haven't had enough time for my own painting. Please continue to stop by -- I've got a wonderful bunch of artists lined up for you.