Ontario Society of Artists - A New Member!

Last weekend I participated in the new member selection show for the OSA. And I was accepted into the society.  This was a 2 step process - First submit a written proposal and a number of images online. Then present 5 original works for evaluation to the membership. The venue was the historic Ashbridges House in downtown Toronto. All in all a great experience and a chance to take a step back to reiterate my goals and renew my art spirit!

Founded in 1872, the Ontario Society of Artists is Canada's longest continuing art society.

We are a province-wide professional association for visual artists living and working across the Province. Our mandate is to foster and promote the visual arts through exhibitions, special projects,and arts advocacy.  Our membership roster includes many of Canada's best-known painters, sculptors, printmakers, and photographers. We currently have an active membership of over two hundred artists, working in a wide range of media and from diverse backgrounds and cultures. We are a non-profit, charitable organization, which is administered by a volunteer executive council of artists.

Each year we present exhibitions of works by members, and a juried art exhibition open to all artists working in two and three dimensional media.  We encourage emerging artists, established artists and artists from diverse backgrounds to apply to our organization for membership.

I look forward to meeting all of the members, participating in the shows and providing my assistance were needed to promote the society and the art community.

 

Can't wait till it snows!

We have had a few flurries here but nothing that has remained on the ground yet. I have been painting snowy landscapes for the past couple of weeks and it is always good to have a walk around in the snow again to see how it looks first hand. I dropped off a small number of sketches  and a couple of larger paintings to the gallery this week. Here is a sample:

Artist's Talk - Revealing the Landscape

 

Next week I will be doing a talk to kick off my new show at Artworld of Sherway and I though I would provide an outline of what I wanted to get into the talk.

Landscape  - a classic Canadian motif.

Great Canadian landscapes – my influences.

How I find the right landscapes – ideas, trips, photos, sketches.

How does it become a painting – composition, sizes, colour, technique.

My hope is that this talk is of interest to you, and let me know if there is anything else you would like to talk about. See you there Sept 20 at 7PM.

Here is a sneak preview to a few new images that will be in the show. All from a recent trip to the North Channel, Manitoulin and Killarney.

Snow, water and light.

This morning my wife and I were drinking coffee looking out back at the new snow and the subject turned to colour. Specifically blue. This morning the snow is mostly blue with a touch of peach where the early sunlight filters through the trees. When we are asked what colour is snow, we invariably say snow is white. But on observation snow is never white. And that is why it is challenging to paint. Snow is every colour – in a way it is like water - always changing always a different look – sometimes blue, or pink, or yellow or green, and sometimes a strange combination of all colours. 

I have been working on 2 series of sketches that works through some of these ideas. One series is about water – light effects on a shoreline at various times of the day and various weather effects. The second series is about snow and the play of light across this “white canvas”. A close look reveals that there is very little true white in any of these sketches. 

But what is realized is that snow and water share many of the same qualities – a shadow of one colour, a reflection of another, and highlight of a third. It is the quality and balance of these three that becomes important to the outcome of the light effect.

Snow, water and the effect of light – it is a simple combination that has held the artist’s interest for centuries.  To capture their quality, you need to look at the subject with new eyes each time - for it is always changing.