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Artist Shares Passion In Watercolor Classes

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By ESTHER HAMMER

Tribune correspondent

Published: June 21, 2008

PALMA CEIA - Most Tuesday mornings, Anne Smith can be found at Palma Ceia United Methodist Church on Bay to Bay Boulevard teaching a class in watercolor painting.

It's a passion the South Tampa mother of three and grandmother of five has taken into her retirement years and is sharing with others.
Scott Smith will tell you his mother has a gift for watercolors. He has a few of her paintings - mostly of her grandchildren - hanging in his store, Smith Bros. Framing, 1542 S. Dale Mabry Highway.
Anne Smith moved to Tampa at age 2 and grew up in New Suburb Beautiful. Her husband of 51 years, A. Preston Smith, died eight years ago.

Q. When and why did you start painting?

A. I've always liked painting. And then, when I was 12 years old, they had the Works Progress Administration program here, and I caught a bus or a streetcar downtown, where they gave free lessons. And I took watercolors and fashion. I really got hooked at that time.

Q. Did you have more training?

A. No, I've just always painted, and I was in charge of our church day school at one time, and I've taught children over a period of time.

Q. You gave up painting for a while when you were raising your children. What made you get back into it?

A. One day my son "Chipper" Preston came over and said, "You know, Mom, you better get back to painting because you don't have forever."

Q. Do you only do watercolors?

A. I've done them all - everything but pastels. But I just love watercolor. It has freshness or something that the others don't have.

Q. Do you have a favorite subject?

A. I like doing florals and portraits of children. The children have to look like the picture, but the flowers don't necessarily have to. I've done just about anything. I did a picture of a house once to put on an invitation. I have to give a lot of credit to my current teacher - she's been teaching me for the past 15 years - Mary Ann DiNilla.

Q. Why did you start this class?

A. There's this church room with nothing in it, and there were several people that wanted to learn to do watercolors, and they just never had pursued it because they were busy raising their family and working, like me. I started with five or six students about seven years ago. We've been as high as 20. Now we have 10 or 12 that come regularly.

Q. What do you like best about the class?

A. I just love it because I would never have met these people otherwise. Some of them I've known since childhood, but most of them have just heard about it. And we've just bonded. Not only through art but spiritually. It's like having another family. Maybe that's because we share so much. And we help each other. I'm not the bigwig.

Q. Your class participates in a yearly fundraiser. Tell us about that?

A. The United Methodist Women have a fashion show and luncheon every spring, and each of us donates five small paintings to sell, and that money goes to a scholarship for someone going to seminary or pursuing a religious career.

Q. Do you accept new members? If so, do they have to be Methodists?

A. We don't need new members, but we don't turn anybody away. And they don't have to be Methodists. We have some Episcopalians, Baptists and a Presbyterian now.

Q. Do you have passions besides painting?

A. I'm one of the wedding coordinators at our church, and it is one of the most fun jobs I've ever had because I get to be with the young people of our church. And I get to tell them about church and that they need to have a church family when they get married. It's a real happy job. They're all stressed out, but I'm not.

Correspondent Esther Hammer can be reached at (813) 835-2108 or ehammer@tampatrib.com.

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