Witha Lacuesta – lacuesta-art.com
I have always been fascinated by watercolors. I love them for their transparent quality and brilliance. They offer such versatility, excitement, and discoveries while painting my favorite subjects: flowers, animals, and landscapes. The possibilities of watercolors intrigue me because one can either render the subject in a light and airy manner or paint glazes that have the intensity of oil paintings. At this time, my focus is to try to capture the beauty of the world around us and interpret it according to my feelings and sense of being. I would like my viewers to find a pleasant sanctuary in my paintings where they can quietly reflect and discover a sense of peace.
Susan Stone – jsusancolestone.com.com
Susan attended Paier School of Art in Hamden, Connecticut, majoring in illustration and fine art. She has also taken various classes at Rhode Island School of Design and has been a working artist since 1975. Her interest in rendering birds, particularly waterfowl, was sparked by her first art-related job illustrating a weekly column “Wings ‘N’ Things” for the Waterbury Republican newspaper in Connecticut. Soon to follow was Birds of Connecticut Salt Marshes, published by the Arboretum at Connecticut College. Since then she has illustrated many more books and scientific journals, worked as a graphic artist and illustrator and exhibited in galleries including the Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport, Noah’s Art at Noah’s Restaurant in Stonington, Connecticut, Hartford Fine Art and Framing in East Hartford, Connecticut and Picture This Gallery in Westport, Connecticut.
Susan relocated from Westerly RI to Florida in January 2010. Watercolor is her favorite medium followed closely by pen & ink. Upon entering her first show in Florida, The Titusville 46th Annual Spring Show 2010, she received a merit award for watercolor for “Rosemary’s Wool”, a piece which also received an Honorable Mention at the Mystic Art Center’s 51st Juried Regional Show in September 2009, Second Prize at the H2O Show of the Portsmouth Arts Guild in November 2007 for Taking Flight, the Ann Lewis Parker Award for Best Watercolor for Behind the Wall at South County Art Association’s Open Juried Show, as well as honorable mentions for On the Morgan I, and Light at Mystic. She also received an Honorable Mention for Barn Owl at The Wickford Art Association. A book she recently illustrated, Kid’s Easy-to-Create Wildlife Habitats, written by Emily Stetson, won a 2006 Teachers’ Choice Award and received critical acclaim in the School Library Journal. She was accepted into the prestigious 2006 International Show at the Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut.
In addition to natural history, Susan is an accomplished artist of architectural subjects and is able to render a detailed drawing from blueprints or from life. She accepts commissions for custom drawings and watercolors of homes and businesses and pets. She also teaches classes and workshops in perspective drawing, watercolor, and colored pencil as well as workshops in various aspects of these mediums and disciplines.
Susan is now an artist member of the Art & Antiques Studio and Gallery in the Eau Gallie Arts District (EGAD!) of Melbourne and the Art Gallery of Viera where she is the Director of Art Education, also in Melbourne, Florida, a longtime member of the Artists’ Cooperative Gallery of Westerly in Rhode Island, an Elected Artist member of the Mystic Art Center (formerly Mystic Art Association) in Connecticut, a member and Plein-Aire Chairperson for the Brevard Watercolor Society and a member of the Strawbridge Art League.
Lew Wallace – lewwallacewatercolors.com
I graduated from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill with a B.A. degree in Art. I grew up in North Carolina, spent most of my adult working life in Florida, and now, in retirement, have a home both in Florida and in the North Carolina mountains.
Most of my professional career has been spent as a technical illustrator with various aerospace companies at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, including Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. I worked as a free-lance artist for several years creating architectural renderings of schools, apartment complexes, homes, industrial plants, and magazine cover art. I am presently retired from the Boeing Company where I worked in a design visualization group. The job consisted of creating 3-D computer models of Space Station facilities and ground processing equipment from engineering drawings and field sketches in order to create a full scale virtual environment for real time simulation of payload ground operations.
Combining tools learned from years of discipline in technical art (such as perspective, light and shadow rendering, brush control) with my education and concepts in Fine Arts, I decided to try my hand at watercolors.
My first series of paintings consisted of European towns and castles based on my own experiences during an eighteen month tour of duty with the U. S. Army in France.
My challenge as an artist now is in developing my own watercolor techniques for painting nature, rocks and water. My current series of paintings feature the streams and waterfalls found in and around my new home in the North Carolina mountains.
Since I started exhibiting my work in 2001, I have earned signature membership in the National Watercolor Society, the Southern Watercolor Society, The Florida Watercolor Society, The North East Watercolor Society, and the Watercolor Society of North Carolina.