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The Minnesota Watercolor Society is thrilled to welcome award-winning artist Hazel Soan to our March 12 meeting. She will demo a painting of African elephants via zoom from 12:00-1:30 PM CST.

Hazel is a British artist working out of studios in London and Cape Town and on location throughout the world. She is known for her distinctive direct, wet-into-wet watercolor approach, using rich pigments and strong contrasts of light and shade. Her work often focuses on the subjects of shape, interval, tone, figures, wildlife, and action. She draws inspiration from the interplay of light and shadow in various environments and her extensive travels, particularly to Africa.

“On my first visit to Africa (Zimbabwe 1981), I was attracted to Africa immediately,” Hazel told Hannah Monro in a 2022 interview. “Its light, the smell of the earth, the heat, the wildlife and the people, [feeling] passionate about elephants and seeing animals in their natural habitat — free and as if I was seeing the Earth as God intended. I felt immediately at home.”

Hazel’s work is represented in private and public collections worldwide, including the National Portrait Gallery, the Lister Institute, the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, the Ritz, other London and international hotels, the British Embassy in Ankara, and the EU Delegation in Windhoek. Hazel has held numerous solo exhibitions, mainly in London and the UK, but also in Venezuela, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Her passion for painting is shared through books, DVD films, workshops, lectures and painting holidays, demonstrating the vibrant immediacy of the watercolor medium and the properties of watercolor pigments. She is the author of 25 books and contributes articles regularly to The Artist magazine and other art titles. Join us as we are inspired by Hazel’s teaching and work.