Debbie King went from painting with a child’s watercolor set to winning awards for her work in about two years.
Her paintings will be featured in a “Picture This at the Library” exhibition, opening with a free reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday in the Greensburg Hempfield Area Library, 237 S. Pennsylvania Ave.
The show, which King calls “How I See It,” will feature about 30 paintings of various sizes, including some oils, a medium the Greensburg resident has recently started exploring. Many will be for sale.
Running through April 22 during regular library hours, the show will include a multi-award-winning painting of the Greensburg train station.
King started painting in 2017 after a lifetime devoted to music.
Growing up in Ligonier, she learned to play the piano and started giving private lessons at age 16. She earned a degree in music education with a concentration in vocal music from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
In 1993, King began teaching music in the Greater Latrobe School District.
“I was the junior high choral director and started the junior high musical,” she said.
King wasn’t one to sit around in retirement.
“I have to have something to do. I said, ‘I need a hobby, so I’ll try something new,’” she said.
Her foray into painting was kick-started when King and her husband, Bob, moved into a new house with high ceilings.
“I was looking around for artwork to put in our home, and I go to Target or wherever, and think, ‘I could paint this stuff,” she said. “So I thought, ‘I’ll try watercolor, that will be easy.’
“It turns out it’s the hardest thing.”
Dollar store paint set
To get started, King bought that dollar store paint set and watched YouTube videos. Eventually, she signed up for classes with noted area artists including Peg Panasiti, Elmer Knizner and Susan Pollins, who became a mentor.
After about two years of painting, King joined the Greensburg and Latrobe art centers and started entering work in their shows.
The train station painting won first prize in the amateur category for an “Art Neighbors” show at the Latrobe center, and also won fifth place this year in a Pennsylvania Watercolor Society exhibition. It also was selected for inclusion in Pittsburgh Watercolor Society’s Aqueous Open International Exhibition.
King primarily paints landscapes, although her 16-year-old cat, Samson, is also a frequent subject. She sells her work at Your Favorite Things in the Wow Outlets in Hempfield and at Frye Farm Place in Unity.
Although her husband is another musician without an art background, King says he is her best critic.
“I’ll show him something and he’ll be very clear, very direct, and he knows what he thinks looks good and what doesn’t,” she said.
King’s exhibit was originally scheduled to open in Spring 2020, but was delayed by the pandemic.
“I look at some of my old things, and I think, ‘Wow, I’ve done a lot of painting since then,’” King said. “I paint just about every day.”
The “Picture This” exhibition series was created about 10 years ago as a partnership between the library and Greensburg Art Center, said library liaison Rosemary Sovyak.
It increases the Hempfield center’s presence in the downtown area and “increases the vibrancy of the arts in the city,” Sovyak said.
“It’s been such a successful venture,” she said. “We support them as much as they support us. (Library) staff even purchase artwork, and our artists have gotten commissions out of these shows.”
For information, call the library at 724-837-5620 or visit ghal.org.
