Hampton watercolorists, Holland Etheridge and Jim Dees, celebrate Venice with a show at the Williamsburg Library Gallery, 515 Scotland Street, from November 5, 2008 through January 18, 2009. A free reception is being held in the Gallery Sunday, November 9 from 2 to 4 p.m. to which the public is invited. Call (757) 259-4070 or visit www.wrl.org/programs for more information.

“Venice Revisited” includes some three-dozen drawings and watercolors. They are based on scores of photographs the artists took during a 10-day plein-air workshop in what may be the world’s most painted city. “You can’t really avoid cliché when painting Venice,” Dees says. “The city has been painted for centuries by the world’s leading artists, but we strived to express the excitement of rediscovery – our own personal take on all that enchantment.” Many of the works in Venice Revisited were painted this year as the two artists worked together to bring new life to their memories.

Etheridge is a leading local artist, who won Best In Show in the 2008 Romance On the River Art Show in Hampton. Dees is an owner of Blue Skies Gallery in Hampton and an instructor at Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News and The Charles H. Taylor Arts Center in Hampton.