Watercolorist Roxanne Tobaison Shows Her Work at Center Place in Brandon

Roaxanne Tobaison is a student of a her art, 40 pieces of which hang in the Mook Art Gallery for the February exhibit at .

"I've learned a thing or two in 32 years, and some of it the hard way," Tobaison said. As an artist, she added, "you're constantly learning because they're constantly coming up with new things."

"They even have water-based oils now," she said. "Who would have thunk it?"

For Tobaison, though, watercolors are her medium of choice, thanks to allergies and smells that don't allow her "to go there" with oils, the medium with which she first began her  painting career.

"After doing oils, it was very difficult to switch because oils are so easy," she said. "You don't have to think, you just paint. With watercolors you have to plan, you have to know what you're going to do, because once it gets down there it's a lot more difficult to correct."

Tobaison last showed her art as a sole exhibit artist at Center Place some four years ago. She's back through February with 40 pieces, including 10 pieces that haven't been seen publicly before.

For Tobaison enthusiasts — and that includes wildlife and nature enthuiasts — the watercolor pieces on exhibit in the Mook Art Gallery likely will not disappoint. The show is entitled, “Preserving Our Backyard” and it features, among other things, a Tobaison favorite: birds.

“I love the birds,” she said. “The sandhills and the spoonbills and, of course, my favorite (painting) is the big, giant painting of Florida endangered species.”

"Big is a lot harder for anybody, no matter what the medium," Tobaison said.

Nevertheless, watercolorists have unique challenges, she acknowledged.

"It's not like oils, or acrylics, where you can paint over a mistake," Tobaison said. "With watercolor, the more you paint over an area the more chance you get for mud. The paints underneath will lift up when you put something on top of it. The different colors have different pigments because they're made from minerals. Some are sedentary, which means they're grainy and earthy, so if you paint several layers over an earthy tone you're just going to get mud. Whereas if you paint with transparent watercolors you're less likely to have muddy and icky painting."

Indeed, it's the colors of a Tobaison painting that stand out to artist Laure Ferlita, who attended the Feb. 3 artist's reception for Tobaison's Center Place show.

"I've always associated Roxanne's work with being the quintessential Florida artist," Ferlita said. "Her colors are outstanding. She brings to her work a certain amount of intimacy and understanding that you don't often see when someone who is new to the area, or unfamiliar with the area, attempts to create the same images."

Tobaison, Ferlita added, "takes you head- and-shoulders above other artists in the same genre."

As Tobaison explains it, "you have to know what your paints do and that comes from years of analyzing them and working with them."

"I've learned a thing or two in 32 years, and some of it the hard way," she said. "I had one painting that disappeared on me, with the sun beating down on the colors. So, over the years I've learned to stay away from certain colors in certain circumstances."

Tobaison has lived in Brandon for 35 years and she remembers her early days as an artist, dabbling in country crafts. "Back then you painted on wood and fruit with oils and you traced the pattern," she said. "Everybody was tole painting and country was in."

Then came Leona Towle, whose work Tobaison spotted during art shows held at Clayton Plaza on Brandon Boulevard. "She had the most beautiful oil paintings and I admired them so much," Tobaison said. "She said, 'I teach and I can teach you to paint.' I said, 'You can?' I went to one class and I was hooked."

After about a year, Tobaison met Jo Tarabula of Ruskin, who taught watercolor.

As they say, the rest was history.

As Tobaison put it: "I just loved it."