Having just finished our December issue, which announces our 2008 Ones to Watch, we’re currently working on our February issue special report: the annual Society Winners Showcase. As the watercolor society exhibition catalogs roll in, I’m noticing a delightful trend: the reappearance of works by this year’s Ones to Watch! So who are these art stars? You’ll have to wait for the December issue, on sale Oct. 28.

Speaking of watercolor societies, three shows you might be interested in are currently on display:

National Watercolor Society 88th Annual Exhibition: through November 1 at the Riverside Art Museum (Riverside, California)
The Alaska Watercolor Society 34th Annual Juried Exhibition: through September 22 at the Stephan Fine Art Gallery (Anchorage, Alaska)
California Watercolor Association Member Fall Show: September 27 through December 30 at Gallery Concord (Concord, California)

(Pictured: Feeding Time (30x22), winner of the National Watercolor Society Purchase Award, with Silver Star, by Soon Y. Warren)

One nice way to ease out of your Labor Day weekend: Take in a few video, audio and music podcasts at the National Gallery of Art's fine website. The J.M.W Turner video, for example, is stellar. (It's narrated by Jeremey Irons!) Check out Alexander Nemerov on Edward Hopper too.

Sure, you’re online. But how much time do you waste finding useful sites for artists? We trolled the web—so you wouldn’t have to—and came up with 73 sites we found most useful. The results can be found in the October issue of the magazine, but you can also download the document by clicking here to have the document right on your desktop and, with the click of your mouse, go directly to the sites.

Obviously, you’ve found the Watercolor Artist blog, so there’s a start.

In the June 2008 issue of Watercolor Artist, Wendy Hill challenged readers to loosen up with a spontaneous background. "Deciding how to handle the background can sometimes be the most difficult part of making a painting," she said. Hill recommended that artists experiment with unconventional tools--tea bags, coffee filters, sponges, leaves, paper, plastic wrap and salt, to name a few--in order to liberate the painting process. (Click here to read an excerpt of the column)

Artists from all over the country responded to her call in record numbers and sent us images of experiments of their own. We're now pleased to announce the winner of the $100 gift certificate from Jerry's Artarama: Gail Gwinup with What's Black and White (see below). Runners-up include Nancy Standlee, Helen K. Beacham, Mary Hopf and Doreen Spoor. Click here to see all of the winning works and read about their creation. And thanks to everyone who entered!

A reminder: There's just one day left to enter your Speedy Delivery paintings for a chance to win your $100 gift certificate to Jerry's Artarama. Click here for the details.

Artist Al Setton celebrates and honors the long career of beloved painter and teacher with a very special feature in the Henry FukuharaOctober 2008 issue of Watercolor Artist.

“A modernist in his approach, Henry celebrates freedom of expression above all else, demonstrating a regard for daring color shape and design choices over a detailed or realistic depiction of the natural world,” writes Setton.

Click here for a slide show of some of the artist's works.

Despite the somewhat tempting impulse to stay up all night, working out your painting's compositional dissonance, recent studies suggest that that better choice might be to sleep on it. Scientific American has published "Sleep on It: How Snoozing Makes You Smarter," which argues that our minds are hard at work while we're snoaring away:

"While we sleep, our brain is anything but inactive. It is now clear that sleep can consolidate memories by enhancing and stabilizing them and by finding patterns within studied material even when we do not know that patterns might be there. It is also obvious that skimping on sleep stymies these crucial cognitive processes: some aspects of memory consolidation only happen with more than six hours of sleep. Miss a night, and the day’s memories might be compromised—an unsettling thought in our fast-paced, sleep-deprived society."

I'd be surprised if you could find a better excuse for taking a nap on a Monday afternoon. I know I could use one.