At our Wednesday Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society meeting, we were inspired by the wonderful program given by a local Cincinnati artist, Beth Goldstein. Beth shared her journey as an artist, from her days as a student at the Cincinnati Art Academy, to the time she picked up watercolors and tried to learn all about them on her own. As she said, it took a while to learn the beauty of watercolor and how to use it to get that beauty to show. And then she took off.
What was most inspiring and delightful for me to hear was how a 4-day trip to Santa Fe created such a drive in her that she came home and painted a series of 75 watercolors from her impressions and thoughts and memories of that trip!!! WOW! And she shared many of those paintings with us. Some began in a fairly realistic and traditional watercolor style, which she said didn't really express what she felt when she was there. Then she moved to brighter colors and shapes, leaving the pure lines showing amidst the landscapes without filling in colors, using a lot of white space and moving to more abstracted shapes that still read as landscapes - but could be turned upside down and read just as well (the sign of a good abstract).
The members were very interested to hear about her journey and where it has taken her. And that she rarely draws before painting, allowing the brush to do the drawing for her and even when she does a few lines, she doesn't allow those lines to capture her and take away the fluidity of the watercolors.
From traditional drawing and painting to loose and abstract watercolors and on to creating tiles for homes and businesses (shown in the bottom photo), Beth continues to grow as an artist and has a wonderful portfolio of work to show for the years spent learning and exploring her chosen mediums.
For those in the Cincinnati area, Beth works out of a studio at the Essex and she has a website, if you want to visit and see more of her work and learn more about her artistic endeavors.
Thanks, Beth, for the great program!
We'll keep in touch :)
2 comments:
I can feel her excitement for what she does. Thank you for sharing her work, Rhonda!
A good program, Sherry :) I've been so lucky to get some really good people for the GCWS programs. I have until March 2014 and then someone else should take over the job (I hope).
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