Betty Ganley

Painter

The beauty of watercolor is seated in its unique quality of luminosity.  The ability to glaze layer over layer and retain this wonderful glow is a quality that has attracted many new artists in recent years.  The portability of the medium also was an attraction that drew me from oils to watercolor in the mid 70's.  Now, no need for a separate studio, I could use the kitchen table!  However to master that medium required many years of study and practice.  In fact it was 3 years before I felt I had created my first painting worthy of framing.

 

It was with the passage of yet more years before I felt confident enough to enter my first show.  That was over 70 awards ago, many of them on a national level!  As a result of national and international competitions my work has been published in several international art magazines and many "How To" art books that feature the top watercolorists in the country. In 2005 my first book "10 SECRET GARDENS IN WATERCOLOR" was published by International Artist Magazines, Inc.

 

As an artist I am motivated to capture those moments in time, sparked by the rhythm and play of light, the dramatic mood of a fierce sea or a brooding sky, perhaps to capture the delicate petals of a lovely flower lit with reflected light and cast shadows.  I am drawn like a magnet to balanced compositions encompassing both the subject and its shadows, to bursts of joyous color, to undulating reflections – perhaps a cluster of rowboats, a harbor side village, or just a shadow bedecked dirt path.  Of late, my passion seems to lie mostly in the beauty of nautical scenes.  So much to see, so much to paint – and –yes, I still use the kitchen table.