Monthly Meetings
Meetings with demonstrations are on every fourth Friday from 7:00pm to 9:00pm, with the exception of our Installation and Awards meeting usually held in January or early February, July (no meeting), November which is the 3rd Friday, and December (no meeting). For more information, click the Contact button.
February 3, 2024 (Saturday) Installation and Awards Luncheon, Harry’s Hofbrau, Trophy Room, 11:30am-1:00pm: Members may bring spouses or guests to this meeting as it is our only annual social get together. This is a no-host event. After installing our 2024 Officers, we will also present our Annual Popular Vote and Sable Brush winners. If you are unable to join us, your award ribbon and check may either be mailed or presented to you at the February 23, 2024, meeting.
February 23, 2024 (Friday) Guy Magallanes (watercolor), Veterans Memorial Senior Center, Goldstar Room, 7:00pm: Guy is a native San Franciscan who is self-taught and has painted since childhood. His Grandmother knew he would be an artist because he was more involved in painting the walls and curtains with his food rather than eating it! Guy made the decision to finally call himself an artist in 2000 and made the transition into a full-time artist in 2007. His work is published in the following “Splash” books 9, 10 and 15 and is one of Splash 15 artists selected to contribute to “Watercolor Secrets” all by North Light Books. He started teaching in 2005 and continues to teach workshops and weekly classes, mostly at his San Carlos Studio.
March 22, 2024 (Friday) Robin Scholl (watercolor/pastel), Veterans Memorial Senior Center, Goldstar Room, 7:00pm: Robin Scholl has been painting in her Los Altos studio and teaching at the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto for more than 30 years. She is known for impressionistic landscapes with a focus on light and color in the natural world. She works from photographs taken during her wide travels and favorite California scenes, using four media: oils, watercolor, watercolor with pastel, and watercolor with gouache. Her signature layered technique builds up the media, creating movement and depth uncommon in watercolors. She holds a B.A. in studio art and a teaching credential in arts instruction from UCSB. Her classes in watercolor, oil media, and landscape drawing are popular favorites at the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto. She served on the Board of Directors for seven years, retiring from that role recently. She has been affiliated with galleries across the United States, including Mona Berman Fine Arts in New Haven, CT, Corporate Art Directions in New York, NY, Greenleaf Gallery in Saratoga, CA, The Equinox in Chicago, IL, and Nathan’s Gallery in Carmel, CA. Her work has been commissioned for large scale by corporations and recognized in three different statewide competitions at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, as well as in juried shows at the Santa Cruz Art League and the Pacific Art League. Scholl exhibits currently at Fast Frame Gallery in Los Altos, the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto, Marcella’s Village Gallery in Menlo Park, the Portola Gallery in Allied Arts, Menlo Park, and online at RobinScholl.com.
April 26, 2024 (Friday) Denise Howard (colored pencil as a fine art medium), Veterans Memorial Senior Center, Goldstar Room, 7:00pm. Denise grew up on a Missouri farm surrounded by animals and nature, drawing constantly. She earned a BA in Art and a BS in Math/Computer Science concurrently from Truman State University, and later an MS in Computer Science from Ohio State University focused on computer graphics. She worked for several Silicon Valley companies, was one of the developers of iPhoto at Apple and earned movie credits on ANTZ and SHREK at PDI/Dreamworks. Software engineering left little time or energy for creating art for 25+ years. Finally the urge to return to her art became too strong to ignore, so she committed to it as a second career and soon received local, national and international recognition and awards for her realist colored pencil and graphite work. She is the author of “101 Textures in Colored Pencil” (Walter Foster Publishing 2017) and a co-author of “The Complete Book of Textures for Artists” (also Walter Foster Publishing 2020). She is a Ten-Year Merit Signature Member of the Colored Pencil Society of America (CPSA) for which she is also the President. She is also a Silver Signature Member of the United Kingdom Colored Pencil Society (UKCPS) and lives in Santa Clara, CA.
May 24, 2024 (Friday) Alan Hart (photography), Veterans Memorial Senior Center, Goldstar Room, 7:00pm. Like many, Alan Hart began his photography life in his teenage years and the film camera became a means of recording memories of mountain climbing in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. While the mountain climbing and the documentation of its landscape beauty continued in his college years he also expanded his photographic interest as the photography editor of the California Engineer magazine, a student published journal of UC Berkeley & UCLA where he learned image-based story telling. Post-college the mountain climbing gave way to a technical career in semiconductor technology and photography became intermittent as well. Unbeknownst at the time, he would contribute to the future of digital photography through the development of electronic systems that enabled flash memory technology to produce non-volatile memory storage, more commonly known as SD and CF cards and solid state disc drives. By the mid-2000’s Alan replaced his SLR with a DSLR and his second act in photography began. After attending several workshops on digital photographic methods he decided a faster way to learn was to create his own workshop. With good friend and fellow photographer Roger Mullenhour they started the Focus in Paradise Photography Workshops in Kauai, Hawaii in 2010. The following year they brought the workshop to Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, CA alternating with the Kauai venue for several years. Since then Alan has been involved with the Dischler Photography Workshop in Palo Alto also teaching the art and science of image capture and subsequently joined the Center for Photographic Art in 2019. In 2022 Alan joined Art Bias in San Carlos where he has a studio/gallery and in 2023 curated and produced the Nature’s Stories Photography Exhibition of 10 Bay Area photographers. Alan’s images have won numerous awards in the San Mateo County Fine Art Galleria series, been seen in Black & White Magazine, and displayed at the Monterey Museum of Art, Asilomar Conference Grounds, the Advantest America Corporate Art Gallery in San Jose, the PJCC in Foster City, and in many private collections. He continues to be drawn to unique forms of nature in the hunt for compelling images that describe world we inhabit and the environment we impact. Visit his website at https://alan-hart.pixels.com.
June 28, 2024 (Friday) Jim Caldwell (art history), Veterans Memorial Senior Center, Goldstar Room, 7:00pm. John Singer Sargent went to Madrid when he was 23 to study Velasquez first hand. He soon fell in love with everything Spanish, returning six more times, and visiting 26 Spanish cities. He loved Flamenco, the Roma (gypsy) people, the Moorish castle of the Alhambra, and the spirituality of the Spaniards. When Sargent was 51 he announced that he was closing his famous portrait studio and would spend the rest of his life painting watercolors for his own pleasure. Jim Caldwell will present a 40 minute slide show which contains over 60 images of Sargent’s brilliant watercolors. You won’t want to miss Jim’s meticulous research and information on this unknown aspect of Sargent’s artistic life.
July — no meeting
August 23, 2024 (Friday) Scott Johnson (oil landscape), Veterans Memorial Senior Center, Goldstar Room, 7:00pm. Scott was born in 1977 in the San Francisco Bay area; he focuses much of his artwork on the local landscape of his California home. Painting exclusively in oils, he strives to capture the world in a style known as impressionistic realism. Scott is a juried member of the California Art Club, a member of the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association, and a member of the Portola Art Gallery at Allied Arts in Menlo Park. He has studied under some of the world’s foremost contemporary landscape and plein air artists, including Joe Paquet and Marc Dalessio. Visit his website at https://smjstudios.com.
September 27, 2024 (Friday) Steve Curl (watercolor landscape), Veterans Memorial Senior Center, Goldstar Room, 7:00pm. Steve is fortunate to have chosen to pursue the artist’s life. It has allowed him to spend his time as he wishes and actually earn a living from making art and teaching. He loves being outdoors and in the wilderness, and paints from his direct experience on hikes and excursions where he’s spent awestruck moments in each landscape. Watercolor is very natural as it is basically pigment and water on paper and how these two elements organically interact. It is simple, spontaneous, and surprising, yet challenging to control. It is a joyfully portable medium with supplies easily stowed in a backpack. Set up and cleanup are relatively easy and paintings dry within 10 minutes of completion. This affords him the opportunity to record his visual impressions quickly and with a natural freshness. If he is not deliberately on location to paint “plein air” he’ll take photos, so a small, quick study on the spot, then finish a larger painting back in his studio. Visit his website at stevecurl.com.
October 25, 2024 (Friday) Bob Hills (photography), Veterans Memorial Senior Center, Goldstar Room, 7:00pm. Bob says that when he looks through the lens of his camera, he sees a creative opportunity. He began his career at age seventy by taking a basic camera course through Redwood City Adult Education and eventually to Foothill College obtaining AA Degrees in both Photography and Art History. In the ensuing years, his interest in photography has taken him to many parts of the United States and the world including the Pacific Northwest, Eastern Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Northern California, and the State of Maine. Cuba, Iceland, Penang, Italy, and Thailand are other parts of the world he has visited thanks to his interest in photography. Bob searched for a “style” several times in his photography career and never found one. He depends on the creative opportunity that presents itself when he looks through the lens. He records scenes and people that interest him, and he hopes they interest you as well.
November 22, 2024 (Friday) Georgesse Gomez (oil), Veterans Memorial Senior Center, Goldstar Room, 7:00pm. Georgesse will be doing an oil, still demonstration. She earned her MFA in drawing and painting at the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. She has exhibited with the Triton Museum and the DeYoung Museum, and collectors span the entire United States. They are drawn to her rich and authentic brush work and her ability to capture the sun’s effect on a particular location. Visit her website at https://www.georgesse.com.
December — no meeting