The purpose of the Taos Watercolor Society is to encourage and promote the production of professional quality watercolor. Watercolor is defined as any water media on water media surface; including but not limited to watercolor, acrylic, ink, tempera, casein, and mixed media.

About

30th Anniversary -

The year 2022 marked the 30th year anniversary of the Taos Watercolor Society. In 1992, a small group of professional artists, illustrators, art director, professors and the like, wanted to display their watercolors. They also wanted to invite other national art societies to show the legendary art colony of Taos.

The well-organized group launched many shows, both locally and around the southwest, to great acclaim. These artists paved the way for the current membership to foster public awareness of the medium and to teach the finer points of watercolor to workshop participants.

The society sponsored internationally known artists Ron Stocke and Michael Holter for workshops in October of 2018 and 2019 respectively. Guests were thrilled to work and learn in the very studio of Nicolai Fechin and to walk the same streets the founding members of the Taos Society of Artists walked at the beginning of the last century. Participants came from all over the US to soak up the creative atmosphere and comradery of Taos.

The TWS has exhibited in the Millicent Rodgers Museum, Fechin Studio Gallery, Taos Center for the Arts Encore Gallery, Stables Gallery and Taos Country Club giving wide viewership for Taos residents and tourists.

New Mexico’s seduction of artists is legendary. The landscape, architecture, wildlife, skies and people all drive the need to capture and share their experience. Whether interpreting the vastness of the landscape, an intimate interior, an elusive coyote or the visual richness of its people, New Mexico is a haven for artists.

The Medium – WATERCOLOR

Watercolor can be traced back to earliest man. Early people put water into a shell, mixed in some ochre into it, then took a mouthful and spit it over their own hand placed on the cave wall. This first stenciled print was the first watercolor.

Today, artists use their smartphones to make quick “notes” in the field. but the old masters used watercolor to record what they saw. Traditional watercolors are now part of a group of water media. This group now includes many fluid applications. Watercolor is now joined by inks, acrylic, gouache, casine, alcohol-based pigment, and markers that are used on paper, illustration boards, canvas, and specialty papers to name a few.

Watercolor is worked light to dark, using the paper as white and painting around white areas. It is an unforgiving medium and requires planning ahead. While there are a bag of tricks- special techniques to get the most out of the medium, there are no tricks in mastery of the medium.

There are different avenues to becoming expert in watercolor. And the members of TWS have all traveled a different road.