June’s Program was presented by Carol Carter. She has done several programs and a Workshop
for GCWS. Carol is a well-known
International Artist. She was named Best
St. Louis Artist in 2000. She started
the North American Artists Group – 5 artists from North America that go to other countries to
represent North
America . Her list of accomplishments is totally
amazing.
The title of
this program was “The Watercolor Life”.
She says what she likes is the “process” of making a painting. A lot of her paintings have psychological
titles, describing the feeling of the painting, or about something she is, or
was, going through at the time. She told
that most of her figurative paintings are of people she knows and loves. She does do self-portraits, fewer now than
earlier in her career; usually doing a self-portrait every 10 years.
Carol
started by showing her collection of swimmers – paintings done over the
years. Her show Good Girl/Bad Girl, was
all about swimmers. It was one show –
two openings. She wanted to show that
all good girls aren’t all good, and all bad girls aren’t all bad. The show was a success.
When the
recession hit, she went to selling smaller paintings and bumped up her
Marketing. While she once sold a lot of
big paintings; now she sells more the size of a ¼ sheet. Florals have become a big seller for her,
even though when she first started, she hardly ever painted them. As a professional she has learned to bring
her style to the subject rather than let the subject dictate her style.
Carol does
use photo references and draws on the watercolor paper. For small paintings, she uses 140 lb.; for
large, 300 lb., Arches paper. A lot of
her shows are painting groups with a theme, such as Everglades , Bubbles (fish), and she is now
working on an Asian-Influence series.
Her Everglades show was right after the BP oil
spill. She had paintings of the pristine
water and wildlife at the everglades, and some of the effects of the oil spill.
Carol has
been commissioned by St. Mary’s Hospital in Jeffersonville , MO for 15 paintings to be hung in the
new hospital. Crate & Barrel have
bought the rights for a couple of her paintings. They print them and frame them for the
store. It has become a huge marketing
opportunity because they attach a profile of her and her Blog on each
painting. Carol said that Social
Media, such as Facebook also helps get her name out to many, many people, and
it is so very important in this day and age.
As we
listened to Carol, we realized the amount of work, both in the actual painting,
and the necessary Marketing it takes, to become a successful professional painter. Amazing!
Notes taken
by Kathy Kuyper,
Written and
submitted by Joyce Grothaus, June, 2014