Watercolors by Floy Preslar

Floy Preslar has extensive experience as an artist, having majored in art in college. She enjoys painting in different styles and experimenting with a variety of subjects, especially perspective in the landscape and architectural features in buildings such as light houses and cityscapes.

Floy also enjoys painting people and capturing them in idyllic settings. She paints exclusively in watercolors because she enjoys watching the painting emerge as the colors flow together on the paper, forming beautiful combinations. Rather than force the painting, she works with the design formed by the colors. Floy feels that it is important to use fresh paints whenever you work and transparent colors give the painting a wonderful glow. Color and contrast also give the painting dramatic appeal.

"I've enjoyed the opportunity to display my artwork in the Clubhouse and enjoyed seeing all of the other artist's work each month," she says. "Through painting I've learned to view this beautiful world in a new way. I'm so much more observant, and look at everything through the eyes of a painter--colors, composition, the feeling of a subject--always as something to paint."

She has been studying and taking watercolor classes for about 15 years. "I've gained so much from workshops, demonstrations, and my fellow artists," she says.

Floy paints every week with a group of artists at the Buttermakers Cottage in Gateway Park. She says, "I love my painting friends; they have brought so much enjoyment to me during these retirement years.

In 2008 Floy's "Misty Farm" won first place at the Nevada County Fair, and she is currently exhibiting in the Pleasant Valley Grille Restaurant in Penn Valley.