Eau en Couleurs Watercolor Biennial

Chateau de Bourgogne, Estaimbourg, Belgium

The International Watercolour Biennial organized by Eau en Couleurs, the Belgian Watercolour Centre, opened on August 15 at this castle in Belgium. We had excellent weather for the opening day and enjoyed a lovely reception and wonderful dinner with friends old and new. Catherine De Ryck, president of EeC, and exhibition co-organizer Marie-Paule Dupuis did a fantastic job with the show and made us feel most welcome.

I was very pleased to be one of the invited artists representing the National Watercolor Society. Also attending, and shown with me here, were Laura Mitchell, David Poxon, me (Chris Beck), Jill Witty, and Kris Preslan.

My husband Jim took several panoramic shots of the main exhibition hall, where the NWS invitational paintings were displayed. In the first one, NWS paintings are on the left and back walls -- my painting is next to last on the left wall (toward the middle of the photo). The second shot shows NWS works on the right wall and on the small panel near the window (middle of photo). Hanging on the other walls are paintings by members of the jury and some of the juried artists.

The exhibition was hung throughout the second floor, with additional artists from the US included among the juried artists from every part of the world. Here's one of the adjacent rooms.

And lastly, a few photos of the castle grounds -- the first looking out a window in the main hall (taken on a cloudy day later in the weekend) and the second from a room on the other side of the building. The castle is now the property of the City of Estaimpuis and is used for both cultural and private events -- here the grounds are set up for a wedding reception.

 Hope you enjoyed a small peek at the biennial. I spent about 10 days in Belgium and would return in a heartbeat, but that's material for another post!!

International Watercolour Biennial...

Mr. Burbank's Cactus

transparent watercolor, 20" x 18.5"

Chris Beck

Back in January, I received an invitation from Eau en Couleurs – Belgian Watercolour Centre and the National Watercolor Society here in the U.S. to exhibit a painting this summer in the 2014 International Watercolour Biennial in Estaimbourg, Belgium.  I've just completed a fairly large (for me) painting -- 20" x 18.5" -- based on an enormous old cactus that I saw in the Luther Burbank Gardens in Santa Rosa, California.

I want to give a shout-out to Katherine Taylor and John Cogley of Daniel Smith Inc. I met Katherine at a watercolor sampling event at a local art supply store and, a few months later, met John when I went to his fascinating talk on Primatek pigments at an artists' materials expo here in northern California. John is the owner of Daniel Smith Inc., the force behind the company's expansion into new product lines and the worldwide market, and someone who cares about and supports our artistic endeavors with quality materials. Katherine, the sales manager for the wholesale branch of the company, generously gave me watercolor dot cards and other materials so I could try out some new colors.

Cobalt Violet Dark turned out to be indispensable in this painting, along with Quinacridone Deep Gold. Quinacridone Sienna has been my go-to color for mixing darks since I first discovered it ten or twelve years ago, but the star of this particular show is undoubtedly my old favorite -- Green Gold. Thanks, John and Katherine!!

Catching up...

Morning Glorious

watercolor 15" x 18"

Chris Beck

I've been out of touch for a while, so have a bunch of things to share.  I'll start with today and work back.   I just received notice that my painting "Morning Glorious" made it through Round 1 of the Shanghai Zhujiajiao International Watercolor Biennial jurying. For anyone unfamiliar with this exhibition, it held its inaugural exhibition in 2010 and is the largest exhibition of watercolor in the world -- approximately 250 paintings will be displayed for a month in the Quanhua Watercolor Gallery. There were over 4000 international entries and only 127 paintings advanced to Round 2.  (There are another 5000+ Chinese entries, but jurying for the two sets of entries is done separately.)  The second round of jurying will take place in Shanghai from the actual paintings, so my next task is to unframe the painting and figure out how to mail it to Shanghai.  (If any of my readers has a suggestion for packaging a painting for mailing, I'd appreciate hearing from you.)

Heirlooms

watercolor, 10" x 10"

Chris Beck

The next bit of news is that I will be featured in The Artist's Magazine, September 2012 issue.  The article features a selection of my paintings of vintage salt shakers and ceramics and includes a sidebar on the techniques used to paint one of these fun little critters. There will also be an expanded online "demo" which will be more detailed than the sidebar in the article.  I'll post a link when I have more info on that.  The magazine should be on the newstands in the next couple of weeks.

Waiting in the Wings

watercolor, 12" x 12"

Chris Beck

To top off the past week's news, I was thrilled to be juried into the National Watercolor Society show for a second year in a row; the Fezmatics will be heading south in a couple of weeks. The show runs from September 29 to December 2 at the NWS Gallery, 915 South Pacific Ave., San Pedro, CA. And this year, I'm happy not to be faced with the stress of sending three additional paintings for signature jurying -- been there, done that!!

NWS signature!!!

I got word on Sunday morning that I'd been awarded signature status in the National Watercolor Society!! This is a biggie for me -- it's one of the top societies in the U.S. -- and a longtime dream. In addition to the painting I submitted to the show (starring Nosey Mouse), I had to send three more paintings for review -- two featured my little vintage salt shakers and the third featured one of my tin toys. If you're interested, you can see the three paintings here and here and here.

Now it's back to the studio for the next deadline!!