Summer comes early with artist’s watercolor gallery

Summer is still 17 days away, but its colors and beauty were already present Friday evening at Bloomington artist and IU alumna Sara McQueen’s “Summer Images” opening reception at By Hand Gallery.\nFriends and acquaintances of the artist, who is also an art teacher at Jackson Creek Middle School, trickled in and out of the gallery, looking at more than 10 of McQueen’s watercolor paintings on display.\nThe paintings featured McQueen’s “responses to nature” and included reproductions of vibrant orange lilies, billowing purple clouds and even a sparkling Lake Monroe. Nature, McQueen said, is one of the primary inspirations of her art, which extends beyond watercolor painting to printmaking and photography. \nBloomington resident Diane McLelland was drawn to the reception after receiving a postcard advertising the event that featured a piece from McQueen’s rock series on the front. McLelland said her son was in McQueen’s art class this past school year and appreciated that her artistic endeavors transcended the classroom.\n“It’s important that her (students) see her doing work like this,” she said, adding that even her other son, who is 16 years old, expressed interest in McQueen’s work.\n“My son, who hates everything, said he liked it,” she said jokingly.\nMcQueen said her rocks series, which includes more than four paintings of multicolored and differently shaped stones, was initiated while she was on a fishing trip with her husband in the upper peninsula of Michigan.\n“It was one of those paintings that started off with me saying ‘I suck, I quit,’” she said. \nBut after persevering for a couple of days, she said, she found satisfaction.\n“It’s like portraits of people who don’t get offended,” she said. “And when (else) do people get to really look at rocks?”\nMcQueen’s work will be on display, and for sale, until July 4 at By Hand Gallery in Fountain Square Mall, 101 W. Kirkwood Ave. For more information, visit www.bloomington.in.us/~byhand/.