President: Shirley Knollman
Treasurer: Carol Rekow
Program Chair: Joan Miley
Facilities Manager: Susan Grogan
Membership Chair: Mary Jane Noe
Recording Secretary: R.H. (Rhonda) Carpenter
Administration Reports
Sandy Maudlin opened the meeting. Carol Rekow (Treasurer) reported that our current balance is $7,345.66. She has received dues from only 58 members and needs the dues paid for by at least 50 more members. By delaying paying your dues on time, you delay the membership directory Mary Jane Noe has to prepare as Membership Chair. Please get your dues in to Carol ASAP.
Carol clarified a misunderstanding from last month. Although we have a balance of over $7,000, the amount she discussed was to let us know what the GCWS’ income versus expenses were for 2007 = $1,259.24. Since funds do carry over from year to year, the total amount in our account is now $7,345.66.
Rhonda Carpenter (Recording Secretary) noted that our blog is up and running and Sandy Maudlin will be taking information to post on the blog. She encouraged all members to please go to the blog to get the minutes (which will be posted there) and other information about the club. Sandy Maudlin noted that we have had over 100 visitors since the blog’s inception and requested members to please give her any information about their blogs/websites or any upcoming shows so she can post them online. The blog address is: http://GCWS.blogspot.com
Beginning in May, the minutes will be posted on the blog and will no longer be sent to each individual member through email. Rhonda will still have a few hard copies at each meeting to distribute to those who need them. 
Sandy Maudlin, in her last act as President, officially installed our new President, Shirley Knollman. Shirley was given a black beret from France J and a gavel with paint tubes on it for her official installation. We welcome Shirley as our new Madame President, and wish her a successful and enjoyable tenure.
Sandy also welcomed our new Facilities Manager, Susan Grogan. Susan will be taking over the position from Kay Worz, and we thank Kay for her service to the club. We also look forward to working with Susan throughout her two-year tenure.
At this time, Shirley asked members to stand and share any thoughts about Sandy. Many thanked Sandy for her constant encouragement, and for her promotion of art both in the club and as a teacher to many of the members. (When members were asked to stand if he/she was a present or past student of Sandy’s, about half of the members stood!) Sandy mentioned that she was fortunate to have been introduced to Don Dennis at the Cincinnati Art Club by Joan Abdon. She said it was wonderful that Joan Abdon had returned as a member of the GCWS.
Evergreen Spring Show
In preparation for Deb Ward’s report on the Evergreen show, Shirley read the description of what constitutes watercolor for the GCWS. Shirley said, “Based on the accepted mediums of the American Watercolor Society and National Watercolor Society, any water soluble paint is, technically, watercolor. This includes watercolor, acrylic, casein, gouache, inks, and watercolor with collage if the watercolor is the predominant characteristic. Surfaces acceptable are paper, yupo and canvas. We will NOT accept oil paintings for any of the shows.”
Deb Ward gave us an update on the show. She still needs a chairperson to organize sitting the show so she passed around a sheet for someone to volunteer. She asked Mary Jane Noe to chair the hanging committee. Deb stressed the need for help with all aspects of the show and hoped people would step up. It is, after all, your show!
Deb asked that all members pick up a registration form from the back table, crossing his/her name off the list as they did so. She will mail the remaining forms. The forms contain all the information you need about the show, including the date to hang the show, the reception date and time, and each day’s scheduled viewing time. The form also includes a map to Evergreen. Deb noted that she’s been asked if there are other places to drop off the paintings. You must deliver your paintings to Evergreen or have a friend do it for you. No paintings will be picked up at any other location so please make arrangements for delivery if you want to be in the show. And please remember, no saw tooth hooks for hanging, only wires.
Rhonda Carpenter is in charge of the postcards this year. She reported that the paintings have been chosen and everything is in place for the postcards to be ready for distribution at the next meeting. She passed around a mock-up copy to show how the postcard will look and thanked all the members who put their paintings in for the selection process. Working with the Evergreen staff, the paintings chosen for the postcard are those of Janet Vennemeyer and Joan Ammerman (top row), Deb Ward (middle), and Susan Grogan and Tamara Adams (bottom row). The paintings work well together and there is a definite spring theme.
Scholarship
Bonnie Rupe asked members to give her more names of schools to contact for the scholarship award. She has only received two names so far.
At this time, Shirley introduced her assistant, Vickie Shepherd. Vickie volunteered to help Shirley with her duties throughout her two-year term.
Other Business
Shirley asked if there was other business. Rhonda Carpenter and Bonnie Rupe came to the front of the room and asked Sandy Maudlin to stand with them. 
They then presented Sandy with a personalized plaque for her three years’ service to the GCWS. The plaque had the new GCWS logo on it and was trimmed in Sandy’s favorite color, Ultramarine Turquoise:-) Bonnie provided an artfully decorated cake to be shared with Sandy after the program. We thank Sandy for her three year’s service as our President! Art Shows and Other Art News
The Taft Museum show of watercolor works of such masters as Homer, Sargent, and Hopper will continue until May 11. Do see it if you haven’t done so. Marilyn Bishop will be teaching a watercolor class at the Mt. Washington Recreation Center on Tuesdays, March 25 – April 29. The fee for the class is $48. Class size is limited to 12 people. Contact Marilyn at 513-528-2088 for more information.
Kay Worz will be participating in a show benefiting the Cathryn Hilker Cheetah Foundation. The show will be held in the Hidden Hill Gallery in Springboro, Ohio (about 20 minutes north of Mason), and there will be two live cheetahs at the opening reception on Wednesday, March 26th from 5-9 pm. A portion of the profits from sales will go to help preserve endangered cheetahs. You may call 937-748-2192 or email hiddenhillgallery@sbcglobal.net for more information.
Other News
John Howe’s painting, “Rust of Ages,” was chosen for the postcard for the upcoming Cincinnati Art Club associate show and sale. The reception is Friday, March 7, 6-9 pm and can also be seen March 8, 9, 15 and 16, 2-5 pm.
Mary Marxen had double hip replacements this spring and will be recuperating for a long time due to the severity of the surgery. She would enjoy hearing from you with a note or card to her Florida address.
DVD Program
Our first venture into having DVD programs instead of guest speakers/demos was hosted by Marilyn Bishop. She arranged for us to rent a DVD projector and large screen and purchased the DVD for the club. She had also prepared a handout for each of us outlining Tom Lynch’s DVD, “Water Color Techniques.”
Tom’s focus was exaggerating whatever catches your eye about the subject you’re painting, and creating a mood. Tom is well known for using spray bottles of paint he uses to spray over paintings. When he does this, he mixes up a color by taking about 1 ½ inches of paint and adding 1 inch of water in each spray bottle and then shakes it to blend it well. He has each color in his palette also represented in a spray bottle. In order to protect parts of the painting he doesn’t want sprayed, he blocks off areas by holding a piece of paper over that area. He sprays clean water with a larger, more forceful spray bottle whenever he wants to take paint off the painting in a streak (as he did for sunlight streaming through windows in this painting).
As he painted sunlight streaming into the room, he talked about the need to put cool colors around warm colors and how he wanted to exaggerate the warmth using the warmest and cleanest colors around the area of interest, while lightly spraying cobalt blue around the edges to make the edges less important.
An interesting thing he did (other than sprayed paint on the painting more than brushed it on) was, he painted with a mat on his painting after he was finished with the spray technique. He said if you do this while you’re painting, it gives you an idea of the finished look of the painting. This way you know what does and doesn’t need more work.
Tom said when trying to capture a mood, photos aren’t enough. You should look at other paintings that have that mood and use them to get the visual feeling you want.
He doesn’t use the terms “Center of Interest” or “Focal Point,” preferring to call it the “Area of Emphasis” or the “Impact Area.” In the impact area, he always uses pure colors - what he calls his “Juice colors” - Permanent Green No. 1, Opera, Permanent Yellow Lemon, and Peacock Blue (these are all Holbein colors). During a pause for questions, there was some discussion about the use of Opera and how it is a fugitive color – it will fade. You may use Permanent Rose, Quinacridone Rose or Rhodonite Genuine in place of Opera.
When working in the impact area, Tom makes sure he paints that area using more white paper, the best color, the best contrast, and the best edges.
He says he “suggests” elements in the painting and likes to challenge himself, seeing how few brush strokes he can use to suggest things and retain the mood rather than being detailed and painting everything. He likes to let the viewer fill in the spaces he doesn’t paint in detail.
Another thing he does is stay with the same color throughout an area. In other words, if you put down a warm yellow first (like he did with the spray bottle technique), and then want to add detail in that area, just put a darker yellow tone down (unless it’s in the impact area). He did this with the yellow and with a violet area, just darkening using the same hues.
Tom calls painting by suggesting, “seems like” painting. He makes something “seem like” a pot or a table or a chair, suggesting elements without detailing everything and losing the impact area (where you do put in more detail). Don’t paint too dark too soon and don’t detail too much throughout the painting but save that for the impact area.
To finish, Tom wanted to soften areas where the liquid frisket he removed had left too many hard edges. He softened those areas by spraying clean water and then using his fingers to smudge the edges. He also lightly brushed on some pale color in the same areas and smudged with his fingers to blend and blur the edges.
Finally, Tom took a spray bottle filled with a mix of clean water and the warm yellow paint (the same color with which he began the painting), and sprayed around areas of the painting to re-emphasize the glow.
Some major points he mentioned in the DVD:
Decide upon the mood of the painting before you start.
Use paintings in that mood as visual guides, not just photographs.
Exaggerate the mood.
Leave your major whites in the impact area so they stand out.
Keep the outer areas away from the area of emphasis softer and less detailed.
Use pure colors, darker colors, and more contrast in the area of emphasis to draw our eye there.
Play with an old painting and try this! Take something that is a pretty painting but doesn’t have a mood and rework it by spraying color off, blending and re-emphasizing the area of emphasis. I think everyone would agree this DVD program held our interest. Thanks again to Marilyn Bishop for all her work in getting this set up for us (after a weather cancellation) and for creating the handouts for us, too. This will be the first in many DVDs we will watch and learn from in the coming years.
The DVDs we purchase will be available to members to check out. A sign-up sheet and the DVDs will be kept in a cabinet in the kitchen. You may sign out a DVD for only a month so others have a chance to borrow them, too. Make sure you sign the DVD out and also sign it back in so you are not responsible for it after you’re returned it. If everyone keeps track of the DVDs, this system of loaning them out should be a great asset.
Upcoming Meetings and Guest Artist/Speakers
Joan Miley (Program Chair) announced that our guest artist/speaker in April will be artist and teacher, Sam Hollingsworth. Sam teaches at Baker-Hunt in Covington, KY. His paintings are bold and rich, and he has a wealth of information you will benefit from hearing. Sam will stay after his program to lead the paint-along lesson. These after-program lessons are only $10 per member, whether you paint or just watch and take notes. Don’t miss it!
Critique Session
Sharon Roeder led the critique session of six paintings, The various critiques were lively and led to discussions of how to paint reflections and cast shadows in a painting; how to add values for added drama; and how to make sure you started your painting with an accurate drawing.
For future critique sessions, members are asked to bring only one painting each month, and to have the paintings unframed. A framed painting is a finished painting and the critique session should be used for those paintings you are still working on and can change based on the help you’re given at the session. Also, glass changes the way a painting looks, and members don’t get an accurate view of the painting when it is already framed. We hope you continue to get the most out of these sessions and bring a painting in each month to participate. It is a valuable learning tool for all of us.
Composed and submitted by R.H. (Rhonda) Carpenter. Thank you, Rhonda, for such a good report of our meeting!
GCWS member and former program director, Deb Ward has recently received an Honorable Mention Award for her casein painting titled, Grandpa's Shaving Mug With Roses, from Creative Catalyst Productions in California. The judge, Janie Gildow, commented on her beautiful painting, stating, "The balance of white, the intricacy of the lace, the glowing color of the roses, and the artist's wonderful understanding and use of the rich darks all contribute to the success of this piece." There were 115 entries judged in this winter show, entitled, TREASURERS. 
