News

Meet Your Neighbor: Kris Parins
By Donna Anderson for the Pelican Cove News
April 2017

The community has enjoyed a wonderful opportunity to both meet Kris Parins and view her watercolors this season. She spoke at the February Art Club meeting on the 7th, and on the 17th, the club honored her achievements with a reception and a solo exhibit at the Wilbanks. The collection stayed up through the Art Show weekend in March. It is a lot of notice for a self-confessed introvert.

Perhaps that social constraint is one reason Kris’s work communicates so well. Her watercolors have been shown in Juried and Invitational Exhibits in 35 competitions, including two in Canada and Thailand. She has been chosen for some of those as many as five times over, and several as the solo artist. She has been honored with dozens of awards and featured in several professional magazines, including three covers, a “Ones to Watch” article, and two that she authored about the...

Art Center Manatee of Bradenton, Florida has placed an ad in Working Title Magazine's January 2017 issue which features the artwork of the art center's members Jenny Medved, Jean Cormier, John Mascoll, Kris Parins, Donna Morisson, and Grant Jefferies. The publication's circulation is about 7000 and is delivered to high end hotels & galleries.

This interview appears on the "Artist's Road" website, where Kris was featured as "Artist of the Month" for December 2016. http://www.theartistsroad.net
Kris Parins brings to her watercolor paintings bold colors and a strong sense of design. She credits her early college study in textile design and her career as a graphic artist in influencing her watercolor paintings today. Parins is a signature member of the American Watercolor Society, the National Watercolor Society and the Transparent Watercolor Society of America. She was invited to participate in the first World Watercolor Exposition Thailand hosted by the Office of Contemporary Art and Culture in Bangkok and the first International Watercolor Exhibition Canada held in Vancouver. She has received many awards and has been published in multiple arts publications. Parins maintains studios in northern Wisconsin and Sarasota, Florida.

We asked Parins the question we had previously asked ten top watercolor artists in...

Area artist Kris Parins has been awarded Signature Status in the American Watercolor Society. Each year, jurors select about 100 paintings from the approximately 1200 submissions from artists throughout the world. The inclusion of Kris Parins� painting was the third time she had a piece juried into an AWS exhibition, and qualified her for Signature Membership and the use of the initials AWS after her name.

In April Parins and her husband Richard Parins traveled to attend the annual awards event and the 149th AWS Exhibition held at the Salmagundi Club in New York City. �This was a lifetime goal of mine, and I couldn�t be more thrilled by the honor,� said Parins. �I am challenged by the randomness and spontaneity of watercolor. The swirl of transparent color mixing on the paper, creating its own nuanced atmosphere, provides endless inspiration.�
Parins� painting�Breakfast with Tiffanys was given the Fred E Albrecht Award by the jurors. The inspiration for the painting is a...

WAUSAU, WISCONSIN: Mesmerizing artwork by 123 of the world�s most talented artists serves as a fitting tribute to this year�s milestone 40th annual �Birds in Art� exhibition on view September 12 through November 29 at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. Varied and accomplished depictions of avian life, from regal poses, lively gatherings, and calm repose to sculptural statements and whimsical �trompe l�oeil� works highlight why throughout four decades �Birds in Art� has earned international esteem.

The 2015 exhibition includes the work of 102 artists, selected by three jurors, and 21 who have been named Master Artists during previous �Birds in Art� exhibitions. Artwork from 607 artists was submitted for the 2015 jury�s consideration. The 2015 jurors were Danny Bills, curator of collections and exhibitions, Wichita Falls Museum at Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, Texas; Virginia Eichhorn, director and chief curator, Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound, Ontario,...

by Terri Bryce Reeves, Times Correspondent 9/2/15

Artist Libit Jones, the current president of the Florida Watercolor Society, is "learning to let go."

Of her backgrounds, that is.

To create her award-winning style � one layered with lively patterns and textures � she paints over the initial rendering until only a trace of the original watercolors or objects remain visible.

"It's hard," she says. "I fall in love with my backgrounds, but it's a jumping off point."

See her watercolor painting, Together, a pictorial of her sister and two nieces walking through Central Park, during the Florida Watercolor Society's 44th Annual Exhibition at the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art.

The juried art show, featuring 100 chosen watercolor paintings from Florida artists, opens Sunday and runs through Nov. 1.

Many of the pieces are for sale, including Dean Mitchell's Morning in the Quarter, a photo-like rendering of a New Orleans streetscape...

Splash 16 - Exploring Texture
The Best of Watercolor
By Editor: Rachel Rubin Wolf
Format: Hardcover

Two paintings by artist Kris Parins are included in the newly-released "Splash 16." The first, "Salute to the Sun", depicts the wooded view from her northern Wisconsin studio. The second, "Nine Bicycles" depicts a scene glimpsed in Salzburg, Austria. Parins' award-winning work has also been selected for previous Splash volumes 9, 13, 14, and 15. She has earned signature status in several societies, including the National Watercolor Society and Florida Watercolor Society. Her work can be viewed at www.krisparins.com.

The 16th book in the Splash series captures the best of contemporary artists while exploring texture in every subject matter. Nature produces an unending array of texture that artists can either copy or be inspired by. Some artists take creative licenses while others work slowly and deliberately using simple and pure watercolor techniques. The...

Esteemed artist and juror Dean Mitchell of Tampa, FL selected pieces for the exhibit by the members of the Florida Suncoast Watercolor Society held at Art Center Sarasota through January 16, 2015. Mitchell also was the juror of awards.
First Place: Kris Parins "Breakfast at Tiffanys" (image shown)
Second Place: Vladislav Yeliseyev "Day on the Beach, Anna Maria"
Third Place: Mary Louise Ringers "Going Nuts"
Merit Awards: Roger Parent "Peggy�s Cove, Late Afternoon", Gail Ribas "Jersey Boys", and Judy Saltzman "Art of Cooking".

The Longboat Key Guide and Map for 2015 features a detail of a watercolor painting by Sarasota artist Kris Parins. The painting titled "Trio", depicts trillium, a type of wild lily. The printed material will be distributed throughout the area for the coming year. The work was selected by Richard Berg�re, Creative Director and CEO of Madison Ave Advertising of Bradenton FL.
The original painting is 14" x 21" and is available for sale from the artist. To contact Kris Parins or to see more of her work, go to krisparins.com or email kris.parins@gmail.com.

Sarasota Observer
Date: December 10, 2014

Photo Caption: Kris Parins, local artist and member of the Florida Suncoast Watercolor Society, won first prize at the FSWS's latest juried exhibition.

BEAUTIFUL MINDS
by: Nick Reichert | A&E Editor

No matter where Kris Parins goes, ideas are always swirling all around her. She�s always looking for her next painting: the way the light hits an object, the way colors pop out of a landscape.

With a father who loved to paint watercolor and an uncle who worked in the graphic design field, Parins� interest, passion and talent for art was all but inevitable.

When she moved in 2003 to Sarasota after a career in advertising and design as a graphic artist, Parins found the perfect outlet for her creativity in the Florida Suncoast Watercolor Society, which she joined as soon as she heard about it.

�I was blown away by how organized, welcoming and supportive they are,� says Parins. �It�s very...