Coffee painting demonstration today

The Sussex County Art Society is sponsoring a demonstration on Thursday, Oct. 12 in the style of coffee painting.

Artist Margie Samuels will demonstrate her work at noon in the Hampton Community Center, 1 Rumsey Way, Newton.

The public and current and prospective members are welcome to attend.

Samuels’ was a fine arts major at Brandeis University. She later studied at the Arts Student League in New York City and the Visual Arts Center in New Jersey.

She is an elected member of the New Jersey Watercolor Society and the Essex Water Color Club, where she also serves on the board.

For many years, she has been teaching watercolor painting at her studio in New Jersey and at other local and regional art centers.

She has taught in a variety of locations in New England, including the Landgrove Inn in Vermont, where she teaches an annual five-day summer workshop. Next June, she will teach a watercolor workshop in the French Alps for French Escapade.

“My intention as an artist isn’t just to portray a scene but to bring out the details of a specific moment through light and color,” she said. “In depicting a subject, whether it be a landscape or still life, I often look to these elements to draw inspiration.

“I will often consider what colors will evoke an emotional connection: transparent pigments that shimmer or the opaque colors that create solidity or the complements that vibrate with tension.

“Similarly, light inspires the direction I take a painting. Sunbeams bouncing off a building; rays peaking behind clouds; the warm soft morning glow through translucent flower petals. In this manner, I can paint an atmosphere that lets viewers experience my paintings through my artistic vision. “

The Sussex County Art Society meets on the second Thursday of each month except during the summer.

Besides the meetings, members exhibit their work in the municipal buildings of Lafayette, Frankford and Hampton townships.

Funding for their demonstrations has been made available in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, through the State/County Partnership Block Grant Program as administered by the Sussex County Arts and Heritage Council.