THE VILLAGES – An unfinished painting of a single water lily sits inside a folder in Marty Thumm’s Village of Mallory Square home.
Whether the lily will see its completed state is a question Thumm was hoping to solve when she joined the Colored Pencil Painters Guild, a new artists' group that held its first meeting in August.
Thumm attended the guild’s business meeting Wednesday at Lake Miona Recreation Center.
"I've been away from (colored pencils) for a while, so when they started the Colored Pencil Painters Guild I was intrigued and I thought it would jump start me back into enjoying the painting again," Thumm said.
Village of Piedmont resident Helen Gromadzki spearheaded the effort to start the club in June after receiving encouragement from a judge at a recent La Galleria event at La Hacienda Recreation Center, as well as support of well-known painter and Village of Belle Aire resident Nan Klein.
"We want to encourage colored pencil painters. We're willing to pass on to others what we’ve learned so they can improve their paintings,” Gromadzki said. “We support one another as far as the art form itself is concerned."
A collective love for the medium has led the group's attendance to reach 100 members in just one month, she said.
Guild members say colored pencil's demand for precision and patience stoke a fervor for the medium.
"Colored pencil work is very tedious. Oils and watercolors use a brush for their strokes,” guild member Sue Franz said, describing the wide swaths of paint a big oil or acrylic brush can leave.
The small, sharp tip of pencils is perfect for creating the concrete, realistic scenes often depicted in colored pencil paintings," she said.
The precise strokes of the pencil, however, mean that color blending becomes a very difficult endeavor.
"It's a very involved process. It takes a lot of time," the Village of Santiago resident said. "With wet media, you can mix colors on a pallet. With colored pencils, you have to layer them because you can’t mix them."
The result is a painstaking process that gobbles up time and requires an acute knowledge of color theory, she said.
Thumm doesn't mind the time pencil paintings take, though.
The minutes and hours that fly by during a painting are a benefit, not a hindrance, she said.
"You just focus into the work you're doing, your projects, your little pieces, she said. "Everything else melts away and it's very quiet and you are so involved in it that hours can slip away.”
Though she is yet to pick up a pencil since joining the guild, she has plans to finish her lily and move on to another painting.
"I just need to finish a corner of it and finish some cleanup," she said. "I hope I will shortly complete it, and then I'll be off to find a new project."
THE VILLAGES – A group of resident artists is reeling about a special interest group that is beyond the planning stages.
We're ready to go," said Helen Gromadzki, president-elect for the Colored Pencil Painters Guild.
The guild will have its first meeting at 9 a.m. Aug. 3 at Lake Miona Recreation Center. All colored pencil artists in The Villages, beginners through advanced, are invited to attend and join the group.
So far, 79 prospective members are on the roster. Gromadzki, who lives in the Village of Piedmont, is quite pleased with that figure. She expects it to increase when seasonal residents return.
"I've had so much support," she said, "and so much interest."
Gromadzki was among people who discussed the new group Monday during a colored pencil and pen and ink workshop at Laurel Manor Recreation Center.
The guild was formed as a mode for encouraging and promoting the colored pencil medium for artists. Educating the public about colored pencil also will be a priority.
"We want colored pencil to be accepted on the same plane as oils," Village of Belle Aire resident Nan Klein said, "as a fine art medium."
Klein has taught more than 800 students how to work with colored pencil through The Villages Lifelong Learning College.
The guild will bring together colored pencil artists year-round 9:30 a.m. – noon the first and fourth Wednesday of each month at Lake Miona. The monthly meeting will take place the first Wed. and will include a demonstration. Members will work on independent projects the fourth Wednesday.
All the while, artists can expect plenty of interaction with one another.
"We won't be having classes per se," Gromadzki said, "but we'll be supporting artists who want their work critiqued."
Donna Caputo, who with Klein is credited with bringing colored pencil to The Villages, said the guild will be invaluable to resident artists.
"The guild is important because we’ll help each other," said Caputo, who lives in the Villages of Santo Domingo. "We're working toward the same goal and we feed off one another.”
Both Caputo and Klein joined a Chicago-area district chapter of the Colored Pencil Society of America shortly after the CPSA was organized in 1994.
Connie Shannon, an Ocala-based artist who judged the VAA Summer Show in June at La Galleria, suggested the formation of the guild in The Villages.
"She indicated to me there were so many wonderful colored pencil works in the show," Klein said, "that we should have a group devoted to colored pencil." The guild is designed as a member-run group, with gatherings conducted in an easy-going, comfortable atmosphere.
Attendees of the Aug. 3 meeting will not need their colored pencil supplies. The agenda that day will consist of registering and voting on officers and some other issues.
"Then we are going to celebrate," Gromadzki said.
The Villages – Giggles of joy bounced off the walls of the Stars and Stripes Room at Lake Miona Recreation Center.
On Wednesday morning, July 6th, 2011, Nancy Dias, Helen Gromadzki and Leda Rabenold looked at note cards that had been spread out on a table. The women were amused because the cards were made from recycled paintings.
Formerly artists' cast-offs, the paintings were repurposed – cropped and often embellished – into miniature works of art.
"They're really great little gems," said Dias, a Village of Piedmont resident.
The note cards will be one of several facets of The Villages Art League's Summer Art Festival. The fifth annual event is planned for 9 a.m.-3 p.m., July 9 at Lake Miona Recreation Center. Admission is free.
Dias is chairwoman of the event.
More than 60 Villages artists will offer their work for sale at the festival, and that is likely to be quite a draw.
A workshop where attendees can sign the mentioned note cards for American troops will be an attraction in itself. The signing of cards will be facilitated by Operation Shoebox, the local organization that assembles and sends care packages to American troops.
"They’re going to love these," said Gromadzki, a Village of Piedmont resident, considering the recipients' reaction to the cards. "Some are farmable."
Gromadzki is Publicity Chairwoman for the festival in which she will show her work. Her colored pencil painting of a butterfly will be offered in print form.
July 9 marks Cabool's debut as a participant in the Summer Art Festival. She has shown her work in other Villages art events, so Rabenold, a Village of Mallory Square resident, has an idea of what to expect.
Experience tells Rabenold that attendees will want to discuss her work.
"I really enjoy talking with people who come by," she said. "That is my favorite part."
For the first time, Rabenold will offer prints of her work. One of such prints depicts a pelican she photographed at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park.
"It was just walking along posing for me," she said, "so I called it 'Pelican Pose.'"
Dias will show a lot of abstract work at the festival, a departure from the past.
"It's really a loose style," she said. "I was very detailed and structured with my paintings and I wanted to break out of it. (Abstract painting.) is very freeing. Good for the soul."
The large abstract Dias showed Wednesday is a giclee print of a mixed media work made using gesso, acrylics and watercolors. The original's base was a black streak. Dias said she added color here and there for a complete painting.
Artists often talk about their techniques. Five artists actually will demonstrate their techniques at the Summer Art Festival. The demonstration schedule is as follows:
Demonstrations will last 45 minutes each. Spectator questions will be welcomed.
Dias said art-related door prizes will be handed out during the course of the festival.
Attendees also can get in on a chance drawing for a graphite portrait by Frank Zampardi. An award winning artists and Village of Liberty Park resident, Zampardi will donate all funds raised by the chance drawing to Operation Shoebox.
Dias is grateful for the volunteer efforts being put into the festival.
"I'm excited about this show and how everybody has stepped up to the plate," she said. "The response was phenomenal."
Now that four months of planning is bout to come to fruition, all involved with the Summer Art Festival are hopeful the community will come out in support.
"I think they're going to be in for a treat," Gromadzki said. "We have amazing artists here."
THE VILLAGES – Helen Gromadzki always knew she could draw. She knew she liked to paint.
"I was often selected to do special art projects in elementary school," said Gromadzki, who lives in The Piedmont Village. "In high school, I didn't do as much art – I discovered there were boys in high school. But I always wanted to continue my painting someday."
But she didn't know how well she could draw until one of her college professors urged her to switch her major from education to art.
"An art course was required for education majors," Gromadzki said. That's when one of my professors, after seeing my work, asked me to switch majors to art."
But Gromadzki kept her brushes dry and her pencils in their box and went on to become a teacher. She had her reasons.
Her plans to go to college were put on hold when her father suddenly died when she was 16. It wasn't until later in life that she was able to continue her education.
"I got married, and my husband finished his graduate degree in computer science," Gromadzki said. I had three children and I was a 30-something freshmen. We did homework together."
Gromadzki had her personal reason for wanting to become a teacher.
"My son was learning disabled and gifted," Gromadzki said. "He was having a terrible time trying to cope with teachers who didn't understand how to teach him, and I knew I needed to find a better way to reach children who were struggling with learning disabilities."
Gromadzki graduated with a dual certification in regular and special education, and taught in Howard Co. Public School System in Maryland. She received much joy from helping students realize that learning could be fun.
"Seeing that light bulb go off was one of the best rewards of teaching," she said. "I loved being a teacher, and know I made a difference by rekindling a love of learning in my students. As the students' successes built upon other successes, their self-confidence soared. They learned that learning was fun. And that, after all, had always been my goal as a teacher."
A light bulb of sorts went off for Gromadzki when she moved to The Villages.
"I had no idea there was an art community as large or active like this when we moved here," she said. "I was here about a month when I started to attend The Villages Art League's workshop sessions, and I've been painting ever since."
The local art community turned the teacher back into a student.
"I've taken every class the (Villages Lifelong Learning) college has offered on art and still want to take more," Gromadzki said.
In some ways, art is like meditation for Gromadzki.
"It centers me," Gromadzki said, "It gives me an inner peace. A creative person is happiest when he or she is creating."
Gromadzki has been the editor of the Visual Arts Association of The Villages' newsletter, and has served on their Executive Committee, and was named Artist of the Month for March 2007 by The Villages Art League.
"Helen has been very active, and has taken on many projects," said Marie Walsh, VAA president. She has taken on the volunteer and sponsor committees. We appreciate her sense of humor, and I don't know when she finds the time to paint."
One of the things Gromadzki enjoys is the AHA! Workshops offered monthly by the VAA. "It's Artists Helping Artists," Gromadzki said. "The artist demonstrates a tip or technique. It's that "aha!" moment when you see how something is done. We're trying to tap into the incredible talents here. When I first suggested these AHA! Workshops to the VAA Executive Committee, I had no idea they would become so popular," Gromadzki said.
Gromadzki has progressed from landscapes and flowers to portraits.
"I've always considered portraits to be the ultimate challenge for an artist," Gromadzki said. "If you are a fraction of an inch off, you lose the likeness."
Gromadzki said she builds a rapport with her subjects when she is working from an old photograph.
"I was working on a portrait of my Aunt Abbie, who passed away some time ago," Gromadzki said. "I felt a connection with her, that I was communicating with her on some level."
While Gromadzki said colored pencil is her strongest medium, she also uses a variety of other media to create her art.
"I use the computer to print greeting and Christmas cards of my work, and to enhance the photos I use to create portraits," Gromadzki said. I have used oils and watercolor, and I like to combine watercolor or pastels with colored pencil."
Gromadzki looks at each new project as a chance to learn more.
"Every new painting or portrait is a challenge I've set for myself," she said. "I want to improve on what I have already learned to do. I've merely just begun!"
THE VILLAGES – Art has become an important part of Helen's Gromadzki's life once again.
"I paint things that mean something for me or challenges me in some way," Gromadzki said. It brings joy to me and an inner peace I can get in few other ways."
Gromadzki, a Village of Piedmont resident, had painted some 30 years ago, but "my other life (as a teacher) kept me busy, so I dried my brushes and put them away," she said.
After moving here, Gromadzki jumped back into the art world, taking just about every course offered at The Villages Lifelong Learning College.
"I couldn't learn enough," Gromadzki said. "I always wanted to do better and learn more."
Gromadzki and many other members of The Villages Art League will share their joys on canvas during the group's 10th Annual Artists' Showcase, which will be held 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. Saturday at Savannah Center. Gromadzki is the show's co-chair.
One of Gromadzki's drawings, "Let's Eat," features two blue birds perched on a snow-covered branch filled with berries. This painting also is featured on the front of her Christmas cards. Another painting is a portrait of her Aunt Abbie.
"She's always been a very special person in my life," Gromadzki said. "When I do a portrait, I start with the eyes. I then feel like I've established an emotional connection with the individual.
THE VILLAGES – When resident Helen Gromadzki opens her eyes in the morning, the fate of her day depends on pain. It is not something she can control, and she never knows how bad it will be from one day to the next.
"It is not something I can take a pill for and it's going to go away," Gromadzki said, explaining what it is like to live with Fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, and the best way for me is to work through the pain through my art."
Gromadzki was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia while working as a fifth-grade teacher, yet her spirit never took a back seat to her diagnosis.
"You have to take life's pitfalls and climb out of them, and you go on. Gromadzki said. You can't let things like that slow you down, and so I try very hard to get beyond the pain."
Overcoming the stiffness and the constant aching never will be easy for Gromadzki, but she has found a way to cope that also is reuniting her with a passion she had years ago – painting. "Painting was something I promised myself I'd do in retirement, and so about a month after we arrived here, I went to The Villages Art League to see what they were all about."
Ever since that first day when she surrounded herself with fellow artists, she has been drawn back to the easel, or the table, or wherever her workplace takes shape, and she forgets about the pain.
"I'm the happiest when I create," Gromadzki said. "When I was teaching, it was creating an interesting and fun lesson plan, or creating complete curriculum based teaching units, but all along, in the back of my head, I'm thinking, "This is not enough, and it won't be enough for the future."
That could explain why once she retired from the classroom, she was so eager to sit in a student's chair. To date, Gromadzki has taken every colored pencil class she could find here in The Villages, as well as a number of watercolor and oil classes. This educator turned student isn't taking any chances on missing a lesson.
"I've always enjoyed learning, and this is one thing I tried to spark in my students when I was teaching, that learning, you know, is a journey," she said. "It can take you anywhere."
For Gromadzki, learning is taking her to a world without pain, even if it is for only a little while.
"It brings an inner peace to me that few other things can do," she said. "I lose myself in it."