



Mother's Day Weekend was also the Fifth Annual
Kirkland Artist Studio Tour and I came with
John Cogley, owner of
Daniel Smith Artists' Materials, to visit the studios on the tour. We were able to visit the studios of
Ann Fiser and
Robert Fiser,
Elizabeth Kincaid,
Chris Sharp and
Layla Jacobson before fatigue from the
Camano Island Studio Tour the day before set in and cut short our itinerary for the day.
While at the Studio of
Ann and Robert Fiser , Ann showed us a unique way she has of keeping her watercolor paint examples. Ann paints the watercolor on watercolor paper she has cut out approximately 1.5 by 6 inches from full color strength to 50% to a wash, labels it, punches a hole at the top and keeps it on a ring in much the same way as an interior designer would with paint samples. The advantage is that when she adds a new color to her collection Ann can easily slip it into place. Really a cool idea!
Elizabeth Kincaid had a very unique way of organizing her workspace and palette, she uses an entire butcher tray for each watercolor and each tray rests on plastic paper organizers, four high, that you buy at office supply stores! This way her colors don't get corrupted as she feels they do on a smaller palette. We also got to take a peek at a work in progress that is a real labor of love for Elizabeth, her extraordinarily complex
"Tree of Life" watercolor painting.
Trying to make the rounds to both the
Camano Island Studio Tour and the
Kirkland Artist Studio Tour in a single weekend began to wear on us, so we decided to shorten the tour that
Katherine Taylor (Manager of the
Bellevue Daniel Smith Store) had planned for us.
Our last two stops were a group exhibit at
Sharp Studio where we chatted a bit with
Chris Sharp, and stopped to see
Layla Jacobson and
Petra Fursman and the paintings on display at the
Petranella Fursman Studio.
When visiting each of the studios, John brought some
Daniel Smith Art Supply goodies to give to the artists we visited, in the form of a hand full of tubes of
Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors!