Tosa Artist Wins First Prize in International Watercolor Exhibition

Wauwatosa artist Betsy Peckenpaugh's favorite hobby begins with egg yolks. She cracks open raw eggs, and pours the yolks into a squeeze bottle. Then she squirts the yolks into a mixture of colored powder and distilled water to get a vibrant palette to use in her egg tempera paintings.

This year, her painting "Excellent Service" won first prize in the Philadelphia Water Color Society's 111th anniversary exhibition. The society was founded in 1900 to bring prestige to the art of watercolor, which the club felt was disrespected at the time. Although Peckenpaugh's work is not watercolor, she said the society accepts other aqueous forms of painting — meaning those that mix paint with water. 

Peckenpaugh has had a painting accepted into an exhibition before, but she said she never expected to win anything. In fact, her biggest concern was whether the painting had fallen out of its frame, as had happened at another exhibition.

"One of the co-chairs called me," Peckenpaugh said, describing how she found out she won. "I had her number in my phone, and when I saw her name, I was so sure she was calling to say the painting had fallen off the mat... She started rattling right away, 'Congratulations you won the grand prize,' and I wasn't even listening because I was so sure."

The honor also came with a $1,000 award, something Peckenpaugh said was more than welcome during a slow time for her regular job as an .

She estimated that the "Excellent Service" painting took her about 60 hours, over about two-and-a-half months and many transformations.

In the painting, a viewer can discern several familiar objects, but Peckenpaugh said it's not "of" anything.

"That was a very organic piece," she said. "It started out totally abstract. There was no single inspiraton. You can often see some sort of image in there but nothing is definitive. I don’t start out thinking that I’m painting an image."

This is a common process for Peckenpaugh's egg tempera paintings.

"They all start abstractly, and organically evolve," she said. "All of my stuff is typically driven by the feeling that this time I’m going to make the perfect composition, and whatever happens, happens. I start out with a feeling of excitement that something new will be born but I never know what it will be."

As part of the exhibition, Excellent Service will be on display at the Community Arts Center in Wallingford, PA, from Oct. 2 to Nov. 19. She hopes it will sell there for about $1,500. Otherwise, the painting will go to her daughter's dorm room in Pennsylvania until she can retrieve it.

Peckenpaugh will be displaying her other works at a free gallery this weekend at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. On the fourth floor of MIAD, the gallery will be open 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.