The opening of the 2025 American Watercolor Society’s International Exhibition was last night! Such an amazing display of watercolor paintings from around the world. I am so honored that my watercolor, Threads of Friendship, was included. The show is being held at the Salmagundi Club (47 5th Avenue, NYC), from April 7th – 25th. Gallery hours are 1-6 pm Tuesday – Friday, and 12-5 pm Saturday and Sunday.
I am incredibly thrilled to announce that my painting Nostalgia was accepted into the Transparent Watercolor Society of America’s 49th Annual Exhibition! Many thanks to the jurors, Matthew Bird and Brienne M. Brown, for this honor. The exhibition runs May 3rd through August 3rd at the Kenosha Public Museum in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, I finally completed my painting, Purple Kitsch, as part of my flowers in plastic series. This watercolor painting was an overly ambitious and frustrating painting to create. I had all sorts of difficulty with the kitschy purple plastic wrap, which is what drew me to the image initially. The image came from a photograph I took last year, at our local grocery store.
All watercolor paints have different transparency/opaqueness and some pigments leave gradated sediment in the texture of the paper. Even though I did multiple test swatches, and thought I found the perfect combinations of colors for the bright purple hearts, when I started working on my actual painting it was a disaster. I had to “erase” several areas of the painting multiple times, to try and get a smooth glaze of paint. As my frustration grew, I did everything possible to avoid painting for weeks. When I spend weeks or months on one painting, it’s not so easy to give up and throw it out, as much as I wanted to do with this one. This painting was a lesson in perseverance and humility, and I’m so glad it’s done!
Here is the final watercolor painting, followed by a short work in progress montage.
I’m very happy to announce that my painting, Nostalgia, was selected as a finalist in the Splash 26: The Best of Watercolor competition! My painting will be published in a special edition of Artists Magazine in July of 2025. Many thanks to juror Stephen Zhang and Artists Magazine for this wonderful honor!
Women in Watercolor is having its annual members’ online show. This year you can vote for your favorite paintings! My painting, Early Morning Color, is in the show. There are 306 different entries from women watercolor artists and you can vote for your favorite 10 paintings. Voting is open until February 28th. You can vote at https://woorise.com/womeninwatercolor/photo-voting-contest
The 2025 Annual Member Show at the Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council (LARAC), in Glens Falls, NY, will be having its opening reception tomorrow night, January 17th, 5-7 pm. My watercolor painting, Early Morning Color, will be on display along with many other wonderful local artisans. The show runs through February 19th. Gallery hours are Monday – Saturday, 10 am – 3 pm, 10 am – 6 pm on Thursday.
I’m so excited to announce that my watercolor painting, Threads of Friendship, has been accepted into the 2025 American Watercolor Society’s International Exhibition! This amazing watercolor show will be held at the famous Salmagundi Club in NYC from April 7th – 25th. Many thanks to the jury of selection, including Antonio Masi, Iain Stewart, Michael Holter, Thomas W. Schaller and Dot Ganek for accepting my work into the exhibition!
Tonight (December 12th at 5 pm) is the art opening of the 2024 Fine Arts Exhibit at the Crandall Gallery (251 Glen Street, Glens Falls, NY). My watercolor painting, Color Burst, will be in the show. The exhibit will be on display until December 28th, so be sure to check it out!
Here is my latest watercolor painting, entitled Threads of Friendship. My daughter has quite the large collection of embroidery floss from her years of making friendship bracelets for all her friends. The painting is based on one of many photographs I took of her collection.
I started the painting a little differently than usual. The painting has a wide range of colors, and since I use a small palette with only 8 wells and 8 mixing areas, I decided to paint areas by color. Starting with the greens, then purples, then yellows and neutrals. I then painted the background and finally the floss wrappers last. The wrappers were extremely challenging to paint, as most of the lettering is white and I don’t use white paint as a transparent watercolor artist. I tried a new masking fluid, Fineline Masking Fluid Pen Supernib – Fine Tip, which worked ok, once I got the hang of it. Not quite as good as I hoped, but better than what I’ve used in the past. I still had to do quite a lot of reverse painting to work around the letters. You may click on the following slide show to see my work in progress.
I’m so happy to announce that I have been awarded Signature Membership (WIW) from Women in Watercolor. In order to achieve signature status, you must be accepted into three Women in Watercolor international juried shows. Many thanks to Lynn Pratt and Women in Watercolor for this honor! Here are the three award winning paintings that got me my signature.
Cindi Handy 