Opening Friday: Watercolor, that most capricious and demanding of art media, will be celebrated in a festival organized around the National Watercolor Society's 91st annual traveling exhibition, which features paintings by 30 artists from 14 states plus Australia, China, South Africa and Britain. Their subjects range from abstractions to portraits, landscape panoramas to city vistas, textured details to close-up studies of flora and fauna. As always, the play of light on form is key, and luminosity is prized. Festival events include a watercolor demonstration by South Carolina artist Carrie Burns Brown, whose "Transformations" abstraction is shown here: demonstration 7-9 p.m. Aug. 23, free. Minnesota's own international watercolor star, John Salminen, will discuss his work at 7 p.m. Aug. 30, free. (Opening reception 6-8 p.m. Fri., free. Bloomington Theatre and Art Center, 1800 W. Old Shakopee Rd., Bloomington. Exhibition ends Sept. 28, free. 952-563-8575 or www.bloomingtonartcenter.com.)

MARY ABBE