Author: Blackstone Valley Art Association

The Blackstone Valley Art Association is showcasing a delightful selection of photography, watercolors, acrylic paintings, oil paintings, jewelry, and more for the month of December 2023. Be sure to stop by and see what we have available! Perfect for gift giving! We’ll also have fun events on every Saturday in December to entertain and intrigue you!

When:
November 18th 2023 to January 6, 2024

Where:
BVAA Open Sky Uxbridge Community Gallery
5 South Main Street
Uxbridge, MA 01569

There is a TON of free parking immediately next to this building. It is fully and easily handicapped accessible.

BVAA Alternatives Uxbridge Community Art Gallery Information

Entering the Show
This FREE show is open to BVAA members only. The theme is wide open. Any topic can be addressed as long as it is family-friendly. Artwork can be any size. That being said, please contact us first if you plan on bringing anything over 20″ x 30″ in size. We need to arrange for space for those separately.

This show is NOT judged (no ribbons, no prizes) – it is primarily about providing visibility and sales for artists during the holiday season. For that reason, you can enter pieces that have been in previous shows. We suggest you enter pieces you think will catch a buyer’s eye and serve well as a gift.

All wall-hanging items must be properly wired for hanging. Our hanging system does not work with saw-tooth or triangle hangers. If you are new to preparing artwork for shows, read our page on How to Mat and Frame a Photo. Please also check out our Show Terms and Conditions

Submissions
To submit your entries use our BVAA Online Submission Form. This show is free to participate in. Each artist may submit up to five items under 11×17 or up to three items if they’re 11×17 or larger.

Drop Off of Works
Drop off your works on Saturday, November 18th from 10am – 3pm.

All work which is brought in will be hung (as long as it is properly wired and is family-friendly).

Opening Reception
The opening reception will be on Friday, November 24th from 5-7pm. This is Black Friday so hopefully we’ll get some visitors in to rest and relax! And buy!

Pick Up
The pick-up for the Great Gifts show will be on Saturday, January 6th from 10am – 3pm.

Address any questions via our BVAA Contact Information

Ask with any questions! We look forward to seeing your entries!

Here’s the show from 2022 to inspire you!

On October 26th, 2023, the Blackstone Valley Art Association held a community workshop at the Grafton Historical Society Museum. Talented artist Scott Nelson created a still life using antique items from the museum, and showcased how to approach a still life project. The video of Scott’s project is linked to at the bottom of this page.

We’ll also be recording a full tour of the museum. That tour is on Wednesday, November 8th 2023 at 10am. Contact the BVAA if you’d like to join us for that tour.

For those who were not able to attend in person, photographer Lisa Shea took a variety of photos of the item in the museum.

Lisa Shea grants permission to all artists to use these photos as a way to begin their own paintings or sketches. You are able to sketch or paint any version you wish, using these images as guidelines.

If there’s an item you’re intrigued by, and would like to see a different angle or version, let us know. We should be able to get you new versions of any object shown here! Ask with any questions!

To see this same list of photos in a YouTube slideshow format:

To enjoy Scott Nelson’s workshop on painting or drawing a still life, based on objects from the Grafton Historical Society Museum, view:

Here’s the full playlist of all of our Grafton-based videos:

Thank you so much to the Grafton Cultural Council and the Grafton Historical Society for working with us on this project!

The Grafton Historical Society Museum hosts a treasured collection of a wealth of antique items. From historic clothing to beautiful tea sets, from stunning fans to intriguing mechanical objects, there are fun things to every side

From 10:30am to 12:30pm on Thursday, October 26th, 2023, talented artist Scott Nelson will inspire us to look at items with fresh eyes. How would you sketch the scene? How could you paint objects into life?

You are warmly encouraged to bring your own cameras, cellphones, and sketch pads. Take the time to create your own art. Think about items you might want to photograph and sketch from the historic collection. Later, at home, you could create oil paintings, acrylic paintings, watercolors, digital art, and more based on those impressions.

Our BVAA photographers have taken a number of photos and post them to our BVAA.org website, so you can use those as starting points for derivative art if you wish.

We have recorded Scott’s presentation, so if you couldn’t make it in person, you can watch the recorded version at your leisure.

We’ll also be recording a full tour of the museum. That tour is on Wednesday, November 8th 2023 at 10am. Contact the BVAA if you’d like to join us for that tour.

This workshop is FREE and is open to the community!

Location:
Grafton Historical Society Museum
71 Main Street
South Grafton, MA 01560

GraftonHistoricalSociety.org

Here’s the video of Scott Nelson’s presentation!

The following photos from the Grafton Historical Society Museum have been taken by photographer Lisa Shea. You can use these as the starting point for your own sketches or drawings.

Grafton Historical Society Museum – Photos for Creating Artwork

Here is a tour of the Grafton Historical Society Museum led by president Nancy Therrien –

We will created a slideshow of art which portrays Grafton, Massachusetts. If you create photos, sketches, paintings, or other art, please email that in to us to be a part of this project!

To learn more about Scott Nelson, be sure to visit:

ScottNelsonAndSons.com

Here’s the full playlist of all of our Grafton-themed art videos:

Thank you so much to the Grafton Cultural Council and the Massachusetts Cultural Council for sponsoring this project!

It’s creepy and it’s kooky! Mysterious and spooky! 2023 is the year for our 9th annual Macabre art show!

About the Show
Spooky. Unsettling. Wisps of mists and dark shadows. Macabre brings out the fascination with the off-beat side of life.

Submissions / Virtual Show
The online submission deadline for the Macabre show is Friday, October 27th, 2023. You don’t need to use the online submission form – you can simply email the JPGs to us. You can submit up to five works for the virtual show. It’s open to all BVAA members. This is not a judged show so you CAN enter things you’ve entered in previous shows (including previous Macabre shows).

The In Person Macabre Show

We have our Diversity show reception on Friday October 27th 5-7, and then the gallery is open its normal 10-3 hours on Saturday October 28th. So we’ll have stand-up panels in the gallery for those TWO DAYS ONLY for the Macabre special event. Please bring in 1-2 items for the panels. There will just be a few panels up, so we want to have room for everyone. You can bring your art with you Friday if you want and then pick them up any time after Saturday afternoon (or in later weeks). No rush. The in-person show is just a highlight to …

The Macabre Video
The video we release for the reception with be a “moody” version. It will have a soundtrack and the images showing one by one. It will be something you could have going in the background at a spooky dinner to add ambiance.

Virtual Reception
We’ll have our premiere of the video slideshow on Friday night October 27th to kick off the Halloween weekend.

Theme
This show is Halloween. Spooky. Shadowy.

Here are photos from previous years –

Twisted Dolls Show 2015

Macabre Show 2016

Here’s the video from the 2020 show!

Here’s the Macabre show from 2021!

Here’s the Macabre show in 2022!

We look forward to seeing your spooky work!

Come join us in Auburn! All are welcome as we set up on site and paint a painting of a house – what’s known as a plein air painting. The house in question is the beautiful historic Thaddeus Chapin House. The house is a rare four-chimney structure and was built in 1780.

Photo by Bob See

There is a large free parking lot immediately across the street for us to set up in. You can bring cameras, sketchbooks, or painting supplies. We’ll have sketching supplies on hand for those who want to give it a try. Our featured artist is the talented Dianne Panarelli Miller:

https://www.diannepmiller.com/

This workshop is FREE and is open to the community!

We are currently aiming for Wednesday October 25th from 1-3pm. It keeps raining on weekends, so we will see if this works! Watch our social media and our newsletter for updates!

Location:
Thaddeus Chapin House
11 Elmwood Street
Auburn, MA

Note this is a PRIVATE RESIDENCE so please do not go on the property. Stay across the street at the credit union’s parking lot. We are celebrating the Auburn historic building and the fun of creating art in our community. The parking lot has two entrances. The parking lot entrance on Elmwood Street (the side we’ll be painting from) is gated off, which is good, because it means we can stand in that gated area. Drive around to the other side to get into the parking lot.

Ask with any questions!

Here is the video:

This project is supported by the Auburn Cultural Council.

Open Critique Session

It’s time for a critique session! We all bring in our latest works or images and then offer each other suggestions and advice. You can bring the works in in person or bring JPG images on a thumb drive for us to view on a laptop. You can bring in paintings, drawings, or sculptures. Whatever you wish! It’ll be fun, relaxed, and conversational.

If you aren’t able to bring the physical item in, and don’t have a thumb drive, you can email the image to our normal info@bvaa.org address sometime before Tuesday and we’ll handle it for you. Lisa Shea will be on laptop duty for the night :).

Our November 2023 monthly meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 21st, 2023 from 6:30-9pm.

This critique will be moderated by the talented award-winning painter Carol Arnold!

https://www.carolarnoldfineart.com/

Location:
BVAA Open Sky Uxbridge Community Gallery
5 South Main Street
Uxbridge, MA 01569

This meeting and session is free and open to the public. No experience is necessary. The fun of our workshops is that we all learn new things we’ve never done before.

Our meetings cover BVAA organization business from 6:30-7:00pm and then go into the workshop part of the evening. Feel free to come for whichever half interests you the most. In general, our monthly meetings are held on the third Tuesday of each month unless otherwise announced.

All are welcome – this workshop is open to members and non-members. Feel free to bring along a friend! We’d love to see you there to learn some new things and explore your creativity!

Ask with any questions!

Some samples of Carol Arnold’s work:

This Uxbridge gallery is supported in part by BVAA member dues, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and by ValleyCAST. The space use is kindly donated to us by ValleyCast, the community outreach department of Open Sky Community Services. Open Sky uses this space for special-needs client activities during daytime weekdays. They allow the BVAA use of the space – and its gallery walls – on evenings and weekends. We actively support their inclusive mission. All are welcome to all of our events and activities!

It’s an amazing session with talented artist Jill Pottle! We will be meeting at the historic E. N. Jenckes Museum in Douglas, Massachusetts. This building was once a traditional 1800s-era general store. It is still stocked full of all sorts of stunning historic items.

From 12 noon to 2pm on Sunday, October 22nd, 2023, Jill Pottle will show us how to approach a still life project. How do you consider the shapes? The composition?

You are warmly encouraged to bring your own cameras, cellphones, and sketch pads. Take the time to create your own art. Think about items you might want to photograph and sketch from the historic collection. Later, at home, you could create oil paintings, acrylic paintings, watercolors, digital art, and more based on those impressions.

Our BVAA photographers will take a number of photos and post them to our BVAA.org website, so you can use those as starting points for derivative art if you wish.

This workshop is FREE and is open to the community!

Location:
E. N. Jenckes Museum
283 Main Street
Douglas, MA 01516

https://en-jenckes-store-museum.business.site/

We’ll be creating a slideshow of art which portrays Douglas, Massachusetts. If you create photos, sketches, paintings, or other art, please email that in to us to be a part of this project!

Here is the video of Jill’s painting demonstration:

Here is a guided tour of the E. N. Jenckes Museum –

Here is a walkthrough of the E. N. Jenckes Museum –

To learn more about Jill Pottle, be sure to visit:

Home

Thank you so much to the Douglas Cultural Council and the Massachusetts Cultural Council for sponsoring this project!

Mixing colors together is a key part of most painting projects. You want to mix to get just the right shade of green for your leaf, or just the right shade of blue for your water. Sometimes those mixing efforts result in stunning, vibrant colors.

Other times, though, the colors turn muddy. Gray. They lose their vibrancy.

Talented artist Gina Croce will step us through some basics of color theory and demonstrate HOW and WHY this happens. She will then guide you on tips to help your own paintings glow with vibrancy and clean color. Gina will be doing her demonstration in watercolors, but the underlying concept of how color mixing works will apply to nearly all media.

Gina Croce is the past President of the International Watercolor Society of the USA and a signature member of the Rhode Island Watercolor Society. Her National Award Winning work has been shown here in the United States as well as internationally.

Our October 2023 monthly meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 17th, 2023 from 6:30-9pm.

Location:
BVAA Open Sky Uxbridge Community Gallery
5 South Main Street
Uxbridge, MA 01569

The space is fully handicapped / disability accessible with no stairs. It is immediately next to a large free parking lot.

This meeting and workshop is free and open to the public. No experience is necessary. The fun of our workshops is that we all try new things we’ve never done before.

Our meetings cover BVAA organization business from 6:30-7:00pm and then go into the workshop part of the evening. Feel free to come for whichever half interests you the most. In general, our monthly meetings are held on the third Tuesday of each month unless otherwise announced.

All are welcome – this workshop is open to BVAA members and non-members. Feel free to bring along a friend! We’d love to see you there to try some new things and explore your creativity!

To learn more about Gina Croce and her art, visit:

https://www.ginacroce.com/

Ask with any questions!

Here is the video from this workshop. Thank you again, Gina!

Our meetings are supported in part by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Thank you to everyone who entered our 2023 Blackstone Valley Art Association Fall Art Show! Here are the list of winners from this show. The juror was Jennifer Behymer. The notes are from Jennifer. Thank you to everyone who participated in this show!

First place – Portrait of Lisa Shea – Young Farwell
Portraits are a combination of achieving both a likeness and a sense of personality of the model – which is challenging. This portrait does both of these beautifully as well as achieving good skin tones and sense of form. Nice work!

Second place – Committed – Al Weems
There is so much to love about this piece and for me the title enhances the storytelling aspects of the hands and string. Commitment takes time and does not come without many entanglements and is more valuable for its weathering. The hands locked together and the intertwining string which forms an infinity symbol around one finger are a lovely composition.

Third place – MFA Luncheon – Frank Robertson
The composition and sense of sunlight are what drew me into this painting. Scenes with multiple figures, perspective, and lighting are a challenge in any media. Watercolor is particularly difficult to achieve figurative work in successfully. I admire the artist’s accomplishment in taking on this subject matter.

Honorable Mention 1 – Adrianna’s Lily – Sue Dion
I like how the artist chose a square format to really zone in on the lily. White is difficult to achieve a variation of form in and I like how the petals and colors work together to give the flower form.

Honorable Mention 2 – Umbrellas – Bob Evans
What a fun piece! So many bright colors and shapes tumble through this piece. The blue of the sky as it transitions along with the size of the umbrellas is a visual delight.

Honorable Mention 3 – Coastal Winter – Carol Frieswick
This little landscape drew me in with its warm sky and cool blue snow in the foreground. The ocean in winter has such a range of colors and light, and I liked how the warm and cool palette worked together on this piece.

Juror’s Note – Nightmare Fox – Anayah Goncalves (Libia’s granddaughter)
I love this adorable little creature, Anayah! Great job on your painting and I especially like the wide open eyes and bushy tail. Great job! Keep painting!

Here are the full details about our 2023 Fall Art Show –

2023 Fall Show at the Blackstone Valley Art Association