Gateway Theatre Exhibit

Richmond Artists Guild was asked to provide an exhibit of paintings for the lobby of Gateway Theatre. Margreth Fry organized the exhibit. There was a size limit and it was to be one painting per person. The exhibit can be visited when the ticket office is open in the daytime and when there are performances in the evening. The show will probably run for six weeks. I picked "The New Walking Stick" as my entry. I thought it wa suitable for the season with the spring greenery. It is acrylic on canvas and is unframed since it is wrap-around canvas. I'd rather not frame paintings but leave it up to a purchaser to frame or not frame and to choose what suits their decor and other paintings that they may own. I wonder if the man with the walking stick will be walking to a new home when the exhibit finishes?

Excursion to NorthWest Watercolor Society show

On April 28th, a group of us went down to Mercer Island - near Seattle- to the reception for the 69th Annual Open Exhibition and Sale of the NorthWest Watercolor Society. Aided by her GPS, Tanya Bone drove, Gail Arrison helped navigate and Adrienne Moore, Sheila Symington and I were the backseat drivers. Adrienne and Tanya both had paintings accepted in the show and we had the added excitement of Tanya winning the Golden Paints Award.Tanya's painting was in acrylic - which is a water medium. It was her very well-done painting of shovels and a pitchfork that she has seen in an antique store. After crossing the border, we stopped for a terrific lunch in the cafe above the bookstore in Fairhaven, Bellingham and then ventured back on the freeway. As we had arrived in good time, we drove around Mercer Island - partly to see the nice views and lovely homes- but also to find our way to the town centre for coffee. The reception was well-attended and the level of the show was very high. Mike Svob , the juror, presented
the awards.The weather co-operated with sunshine and dry roads - and we baffled the border guard with the fact that five women could be out for a day and not go shopping. Another successful art foray!

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.

Adrienne's nomination

One of the things I've been busy working on is a nomination for Adrienne Moore in the category of Arts Education for the inaugural Richmond Arts Awards. Margreth, Tanya and I put our heads together and decided to organize the nomination. We wrote up the main nomination, got letters of support and assembled the package in time for the deadline. We've just received the good news that Adrienne is one of the three finalists in her category - so now we just hope for the final announcement to be what we want!

Finn Slough Art Show

The annual Finn Slough Art Show is on this weekend. This non-juried show is always a lot of fun - lots of artists and photographers and lots of different styles- all on one subject- Finn Slough. This historic area of Richmond makes an interesting subject. Some paintings I have painted in other years are now in homes in such places as Calgary and Victoria - and as far afield as Germany. I've painted a new one for this year - with boats almost obscured by lush growth.
The reception is Friday from 7 to 9 pm in the Art Centre Lecture Hall. Refreshments - and come to see the kid's contributions - a great mermaid and a feather-covered swan!