Doors Open Richmond

Doors Open is this next weekend - May 2nd and 3rd and it looks like we will have good weather too! I'm celebrating having the window in my painting area now turned into French doors. It is a great improvement in terms of light and I might even move onto the patio to paint in good weather. So, the main effort has been getting things organized so that people can enjoy the visit. I'm making more printed out explanations of painting groupings so it will be interesting to check reactions to them. For instance, I will put the paintings of my Dad's tools on the workbench along with a large plane that he had. Some of the new paintings from the trip cannot be shown as they are scheduled to be at "Cork and Canvas" - and then at Summer Gallery. More news on those events later...
The Doors Open brochure has my painting of part of the Steveston Fleet in it - although, on the brochure, it is just the top part of the painting. Here is the whole thing...
More information on Doors Open is at: www.richmond.ca/doorsopen

Life Drawing

I believe that drawing is the basis for painting - and also that you have to keep in practice. I regularly go to life drawing as the human figure is always a challenge. Also, you can see your mistakes. A tree, drawn a bit "off" may very well look okay- but not so with the figure. Besides the club session in the Art Centre painting room, some of us are in a smaller group that meets Friday mornings either at Adrienne's or at Gail's studios. Our small group has "show and tell" at the end - and we do learn from each other, although we all have our own styles. Coffee break is always interesting. Models are always interesting too. So many are such creative people themselves - musicians, singers, actors, craftspeople, dancers, designers - and even painters.This is a coloured conte' drawing from the "long pose" last Friday. One half hour before the break and then an hour of the same pose afterwards.

Richmond Arts Awards

In a very nice presentation at City Hall last night, Adrienne Moore became the first recipient of the Arts Education Award. We were pleased to be there as she accepted her award honouring her 35 years as a teacher where she inspired countless students, integrated arts programs with Special Needs students and developed a curriculum to integrate arts education in elementary school programs. Beyond her career in the schools, Adrienne donated art for fundraising for Richmond Art Gallery, worked on the advisory committee for Artists Among Us and has done many demonstrations for art groups throughout the Lower Mainland. Adrienne shares her home studio with a number of artists (including me!) in order that they may practice life-drawing in a non-profit group. We all get a lot out of these sessions which have added to our sense of camaraderie as well as keeping up our drawing skills. We were very happy to see Adrienne's contributions recognized. The photo shows Adrienne at the right, along with Margaret Dragu, winner of the Artistic Innovation award.