Sue Zimmermann’s Watercolor Surprises
artist, teacher, traveler
Lotus Pond
An American psychologist once wrote that “a musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.” For years Lake Charles artist Sue Zimmermann had a “practical” career and painted simply for her own pleasure. That is, until she realized she had a “God-given artistic talent” that she must share with others.
“All my childhood, I participated in creative endeavors, particularly with two neighborhood friends who were equally creative,” says Zimmermann, born in 1952 and a lifelong resident of Lake Charles. “My creative tendencies continued in high school and college, but I never grasped that it was a talent that not everyone had. It wasn’t until my adult years that I realized this.”
That realization came gradually to Zimmermann who graduated in 1974 from McNeese State University with a degree in consumer science. She considered majoring in art but was persuaded to apply herself to a more “practical field.” With that practical field under her belt and marriage in 1976, a friend urged her to sign up for a weekly art class, one that she continued for the next 15 years. Instructors came and went, but the one who most influenced her approached to art was Lake Charles artist Jerry Wright and his watercolors. During those years, she also attended other workshops given by various accomplished and well-known artists such as Louisiana artists Judi Betts and Doug Walton.
No Sails Today
“My weekly art class was my ‘me time’ as a young mother,” she says. “During that 15-year span I only painted in class, never at home.”
Then in 1992 Zimmermann joined the staff of the Children’s Clinic of Southwest Louisiana. Over the next two decades, she held various positions including education coordinator, patient services and public relations. About the same time, she read a book that “focused on simplifying life for women.” A chapter on creativity made her realize that she had “this God given artistic talent” that she was not sharing with others. She decided to “embrace this talent.” Moving forward, Zimmermann set up a studio in her home and began a self-study in art and design to hone her skills. Eventually, friends encouraged her to show her work at The Frame House Gallery in Lake Charles. When her paintings began to sell, she says, “I knew I had made the right decision.”
With her art career now on its way, Zimmermann retired from the clinic in 2011. For the next decade or so, she embraced “an overwhelming desire” to teach art classes and “share what knowledge in art and design I had learned.” During those same years, Zimmermann traveled with her husband to various scenic locations across the United States, Canada, Central America and Europe, all along keeping journals with quick watercolor sketches, documenting her travels.
Sand Fence
“About 12 years ago, I took a plein air workshop in Italy with artist Brenda Swenson,” she says. “I fell in love with it. She focused on painting in journals, and I was sold. I began painting on sight, journaling each of my vacation trips. These journals are precious to me. Each painting brings back the moment and every detail of my surroundings as I sat and painted.”
When it comes to subject matter, Zimmermann enjoys being outdoors, taking photographs for later paintings back in her studio. The resulting paintings show a masterful touch of color and composition that capture her “love” of the landscape.
“Although I have been successful in painting historic architecture, marsh birds and flowers,” she says, “my favorite subject is the landscape. I am in awe of the beauty of our world. I choose sights that capture the moment, or the design, or the lighting, or whatever made it special to me. I get excited about sharing that in my artwork and showing others the beauty that can be found in even an ordinary scene.”
Nets are Drying
Zimmermann paints in what she describes as an Impressionistic style. “I like to use symbols or suggestions to depict shapes particularly in the background and save the detail for the center of interest,” she says. “I try to emphasize the one thing that first attracted me to the scene, whether it be the subject, colors, shadows or atmosphere, and downplay the rest of it.”
To create these “symbols or suggestions,” Zimmermann prefers to paint with watercolors because, as she says, “it’s like a give and take relationship.”
Watercolor, she continues, seems “to have a personality of its own. It goes where it wants to go on the paper. But as I have learned the properties of watercolor, I have learned to take control of the flow of the paint and also take advantage of the ‘surprises’ it gives me on the paper. After painting with watercolor for 40 years, I’m still getting those surprises. That’s the joy of the medium.”
Those “surprises” can now be found, among other places, at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital, CHRISTUS Ochsner SWLA Foundation, Memorial Internal Medicine on Nelson Road, and SOWELA Technical Community College.
After years of painting, Zimmermann says her hope is to remind viewers of the “beauty and wonders of the world around them and evoke a sense of peace and good feelings.”
Meet the Artist
Sue Zimmermann
Residence
Lake Charles
Education
Consumer science, McNeese State University, 1974
Art workshops
Medium
Watercolor
Representation
The Artisans’ Gallery, Lake Charles
Historic City Hall Arts & Cultural Center, Lake Charles
Imperial Calcasieu Museum, Lake Charles
Favorite Imagery
The natural landscape
