The Daily Bulletin Archive

Watercolorist Kateri Ewing will present "Color Harmony: Making the Most of a Limited Palette" on Saturday, November 7, from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the Burchfield Penney Art Center.

Mixing colors that glow and don't turn muddy is one of the trickiest challenges when learning to paint with watercolor. The fewer pigments used, the clearer and more harmonious the results will be. Ewing will demonstrate the use of three different limited palettes of five or six pigments to show the vast variety of colors that can be achieved. Participants will look into the differences between pigment characteristics such as transparency, lightfastness, granulation, and staining and the importance of achieving a balance between warm and cool pigments. They will create a color chart from a selection of pigments from their own paints after creating a variety of limited palettes using the information learned.

Ewing says her work isn’t so much about creating art or making a statement as it is an avenue to convey how thoroughly in awe she is of the natural world around her. She expresses that awe in richly detailed paintings of songbirds, treasures of the plant kingdom and sweeping landscapes of the places she loves. Largely self-taught and committed to her continuing development as a painter, she says her technique evolves with each painting as she imagines ways to share the beauty and uniqueness of her winged and botanical subjects. 

Ewing has lived in Western New York for more than half her life, and counts Europe, the Midwest, the Desert Southwest, and Texas as previous homes. In preparation for painting these days, she regularly walks and photographs the woods, meadows, and waterways in two of her favorite places: Wyoming County and her beloved Knox Farm State Park in East Aurora, a park she helped rescue from New York State’s budgetary ax a few years back.

A writer as well as an artist, Ewing freelances for various publications. An accomplished poet, she was a featured reader at the Eden Mills (Ontario) Writers’ Festival in 2008. For her artistic endeavors and for her dedication to the community, she was honored with the 2012 Mary and Gil Stott Award at Roycroft. She teaches regular workshops in watercolor and drawing at MUSEjar in East Aurora, as well as private lessons from her home studio. Her first solo exhibition, On a Wing, was held at Meibohm Fine Arts in East Aurora in April and May 2015.

Grace Meibohm, owner of Meibohm Fine Arts, represents Ewing locally and on the Internet. "Kateri's knowledge of her subjects and her passion for them is evident in her work, which is fresh, direct, and appealing," Meibohm said. "We keep looking forward to what will be rendered next."

To register for this workshop, please contact Kathy Gaye Shiroki, curator of museum learning and community engagement, 878-3549, or download the registration form (PDF) from the Burchfield Penney website. The cost is $30 for members and $40 for not-yet members. Part of the International Center for Watercolor.