
On July first, I was invited to jury the watermedia show called ‘Creative Independence’ at the prestigious San Diego Watercolor Society. The show runs from July 3 to 27, 2013 at their headquarters in San Diego, California.
If you have a chance I would urge you to check it out! SDWC is a big society and has a lot of incredibly talented watermedia artists!
Being a juror is a big honor and I don’t take it lightly! It is never easy to select certain paintings to go in and reject others. As artists, we don’t take rejections well because there’s so much of our personality that goes into our work, so when a juror doesn’t pick our work, well…let’s just say it doesn’t feel good. Jurors can usually only select around 90 paintings for any given exhibition. If there are 250 or more entries, we have no choice but to eliminate a big number of works. I tried my best to be fair, but it is of course, not possible!
This is what i look for when jurying: Technical skill and knowledge of perspective, anatomy, a strong composition and/or pattern and design. Also, an understanding of values, light and atmosphere. (depending on the genre and subject matter, of course) In addition, the work should display a consistency (esp. if someone submits more than one painting) and assured individual style. Paintings also have to communicate with the viewer on some level and convey a mood or an expression!
My sincere congratulations to all the award winners! I hope I selected a balanced show and my thanks goes to Nell Bartlett and her wonderful team at the SDWC for making this job easy for me!