Bill Beam

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My first attempt at painting came at 3 years old when my mother put a small canvas board in front of me along with two tubes of her well-worn Grumbacher oils, and directed me to ‘paint an apple’, which I did. No other medium in art has brought me the same satisfaction that oil paints do. I studied Art at Yakima Valley College and Graphic Design at Central Washington University but after college I found few jobs in Yakima in the field. Over the years I worked in several varied business environments including legal and architectural, and finally found my niche in funeral service which I loved and served for many years. 

After leaving college, I did not pick up paints and a brush for more than 40 years when, in 2016, a request from my daughter to paint a landscape for her baby’s nursery convinced me to purchase enough paint and few brushes to get the job done and rekindled my interest in paintings. I really enjoyed the process and finished a few other paintings for family members.

Since retiring in 2020, painting has become the prime focus of much of my time and energy. It is the activity that calms my brain, entertains my thoughts, and offers social contact - meeting and talking with such a variety of people along the way.

I am especially drawn to sunlight—particularly depicting its effect on almost any scene or subject. The central Washington steppe, dry hills, and contrasting waterways are my favorite subjects.

Born and raised in Washington, Cheryl and her husband relocated to Yakima in 2014 after 28 years in Pierce County. She is a graduate of Seattle Pacific University and retired from the Puyallup School District and a career in the field of education. For the past several years she has been pursuing a lifelong interest in the arts.

As a former member of Rainier League of Arts, she participated in numerous art shows. She exhibited regularly at the Puyallup Fair Art Show during the Washington State Fair. Cheryl was artist of the month in June 2003 at Wagner’s crafts where she demonstrated in pastel. She received the 2006 Tacoma Mayor’s Art Award for “Hailey’s Dahlia” during the South Sound 4 Art League Exhibition at the Bronze Works in Tacoma. In 2009 she received 3rd place for “Heading Home” at the RLA members show, Serendipity. In 2011 she received the People’s Choice Award at Lakewold Gardens for Hailey’s Dahlia and was also accepted into the 9th Annual Open Regional Juried Art Exhibition in Gig Harbor. Her watercolor painting, “Still Life in Red, White, Blue,” received 3rd place at the Puyallup Fair and 2nd place at the 2014 Lakewood Arts Fest. Her painting, Two Red Petunias received 3rd place for watercolor at the Washington State Fair in September, 2018. In 2019 she received 1st place in Acrylic and the Director’s Purchase Award for her painting, “September Morning” at the Central Washington State Fair in Yakima. She also received 3rd place for her drawing, “Lake Tipsoo.”

Cheryl enjoys working with a variety of mediums and strives to depict the beauty of God’s creation in flowers, landscapes, and portraits. A number of her works are in private collections in our state.  

I am a naturalist and artist who loves to explore the beauty of nature through the medium of watercolors.

One of my favorite subjects is the Central Washington shrub steppe landscape. I delight in the vivid colors, darks and lights of the skies, rolling hills, Ponderosa pines and grasslands and continue to experiment on how best to capture this unique landscape in watercolor.