Iain Stewart, our judge and juror for the 2025 exhibition fell a few weeks ago and broke his shoulder. He had surgery and his doctors said he shouldn’t paint during the healing period. He will still be able to judge the show he selected, but he will no longer be able to do a painting demonstration or teach the scheduled three-day workshop. This means that the workshop has been postponed until he can be rescheduled and he will do a demo then.
SWS Signature member, Nel Dorn Byrd, who is also a Signature member of the American Watercolor Society, National Watercolor Society, Watercolor Honor Society, Rocky Mountain National Watermedia Society, Western Federation of Watercolor Societies, has agreed to do the demonstration that evening in his place. We are delighted she is willing to share her expertise and experience with us on Tuesday, September 9 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm at Lovers Lane United Methodist Church at Inwood Road and Northwest Highway.
Nel Dorn Byrd is known for her quick, spontaneous-looking responses to the world she sees or remembers. She stives for an impressionistic interpretation of her subject matter. Through her brush, everyday subjects are rendered special when she is responding to sunlight bathing a scene before her. The cast shadows transform the mundane to create new, unpredictable shapes and bouncing colors around surfaces. She especially enjoys painting en plein air because that pushes her to work even more quickly and instinctively before the light changes. Her typical subject matter ranges from landscapes, to architecture, to florals, to still lifes.
Nel says that she likes to paint what is before her, but she also likes going back into her own past. Raised on a farm, she finds herself doing paintings of cotton sometimes. She hopes that when she paints something that she has a feeling about like that, it will evoke some corresponding feeling in the viewer. She is tentatively planning to show us the way she approaches cotton as a subject in her demo on Tuesday, September 9. Along with an explanation of the ways she tackles a painting and her painting process, Nel will be sharing tips and things she has learned over the course of her painting journey.
To find out more about Nel Dorn Byrd and to see more of his paintings, go to her website, https://neldornbyrd.com/