Arts & Entertainment
Amateur Artists Celebrate Library Exhibit
Local students of watercolor painting showing their work through June 15
More than two dozen amateur watercolor artists held a reception Saturday to celebrate their exhibit in the Community Room at the Wall Public Library.
The painters were students of the Rose Reilly Leonard Watercolor Studio in Brick. Leonard, who also teaches at The Atlantic Club in Wall, said her students work from photographs. Subjects of the paintings range from still-life to seascapes to landscapes.
Leonard, who has 25 years of experience studying painting and other art mediums, aims to pass on the technique of painting so that students can continue their painting at home on their own.
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“If students learn the technique from start to finish, it becomes a part of them and they feel confident to paint on their own,” Leonard said.
Township resident Bette Marx, 61, said she was fond of Leonard’s teaching method.
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“She shows you how to do it without doing it for you,’’ said Marx, who has two paintings on exhibit. “We learn how to start a painting and how to finish a painting.”
Doreen Messina, 56, of Brick, said that she floundered before finding Leonard’s studio.
“I wanted to get back into painting and went through a variety of teachers,” Messina said. “Rose’s way of teaching includes a study of perspective, color and detail like I hadn’t found with anyone else. With Rose, it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to get to the end product, it just matters that you get there.”
Prior painting experience is not necessary at Leonard’s studio.
Rosie Unhoch, age 63 who takes painting lessons at The Atlantic Club in Wall, had little experience before starting Leonard’s class.
“When I saw the photograph that the class would be working on, I was terrified,’’ Unhoch said. “But we all started at the beginning together and took it step by step.”
The exhibit also includes works by pre-teen and teen artists -- including Courtney Okal, who has been enrolled in weekly painting classes with Leonard since she was 8 years old.
“When I was little I used to draw all the time so I have always been artistic,’’ said Okal, 15, of Brick. “It feels great to have my paintings on exhibit.”
The exhibit of 35 watercolor paintings runs through June 15.
