NEXT MEETING – October 17, 2024

In-person Demo By Heidi Nelson

1:00-3:00pm Paint-In for all members! Bring your own supplies. Including an in-person demo by Heidi Nelson.
St. Luke Lutheran Church, 1807 Field Ave., St. Paul, MN

Our October member meeting will be an interactive demo in the afternoon at St. Luke Lutheran Church. Heidi Nelson will teach a lesson on the topic of “Trees, Water and Clouds”. Members should bring their own supplies to paint along with the demo.

Heidi Nelson has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in oil painting and pursued a fine art career in the Louisville/Cincinnati area, while working in graphic design to make a living. Upon moving back to Minnesota in 1994, she once again started fine art painting for herself mainly in watercolor. She worked for 20 years as a contract art instructor at several art centers in the twin cities area and St. Paul Community Ed., teaching all painting media and drawing to students of all ages and abilities. Now semi-retired she paints and teaches weekly watercolor classes featuring step-by-step demos, paint swatches to match, and often color handout-outs.

To people who don’t know her well Ms. Nelson is a “watercolor painter who does portraits”, but she took up oil painting again when the White Bear Center for the Arts asked her to start an oil painting program in 2004. She is happiest when she has both an oil and a watercolor painting going at the same time. 

Heidi has earned signature status with NorthStar Watermedia Society, Minnesota Watercolor Society and Kentucky Watercolor Society. She has won many awards including four from the Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition,  Most recently she has won some awards for her oil landscape paintings. 

Artist statement:

Striving to take my watercolor paintings into the realm of mainstream post-contemporary art, I have begun working in a more abstract format, utilizing random elements to facilitate creativity. Drawing from the past my love of pattern, both in rhythmic repetitions of simple shapes and in formal patterns of textiles and pottery. I am adding to it my signature technique of building up layers of luminous color to create faces that seem to pulse with life, cropping the in unusual ways and arranging them in groups, rather like a quilt. I am creating pieces that whisper of origins, oneness and hope.

You can learn more about Heidi Nelson at heidisite.com, or #HeidiNelson_ArtInstructor