DEMOS & TALKS

Watercolour artist Kathy Baker has created this video about beginning a watercolour painting, a very different process from working in acrylics or oil paints. The video begins with information on how to keep the whites in watercolour, as they are of primary importance in keeping the luminous quality of the medium. Kathy also shares important information about key considerations when purchasing watercolour paints and demonstrates important techniques used in painting with watercolour. (27 minutes)

Kathy Baker is a retired art teacher, with 32 years’ experience; she is a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and has shown in numerous juried exhibits both through the Federation, and with the International Watercolor Society. She was selected to show in the IWS First Canadian Biennale, the Canada 150 Exhibit, as well as “NWWS Waterworks: Amplified 2019”. She was awarded an Artist Appreciation Award from the 3rd International Abu Rawash Prize Exhibit, as well. She has had two group shows and a solo exhibit in her old hometown of Mission, BC. She teaches workshops and does frequent artist’s demonstrations, and currently has a line of clothing featuring her artwork on sale throughout North America. She is excited about her recent move to Sooke, where she hopes to be an active member in the artists’ community.

Artist Website

Jen Wright is a painter in oils and acrylics, and a sculptor in steel working in North Saanich. Her work reflects our connection to nature. This demonstration covers the entire process of a large equestrian painting in oil. (20 minutes)

Jen has been showing her art since 1997, winning many juror’s choice awards, including the Island Blue Juror’s award here at Sooke Fine Arts.

Artist Website

Jennifer Olson demonstrates her watercolour process for still life with a small painting of colourful wildflowers in a bud vase. Starting with the soft wet-in-wet background and working towards the more detailed foreground, she shares her techniques for flowers, glass, shadows and more. (25 minutes)

Jennifer Olson is a representational watercolour artist from Victoria, BC. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary and has been recognized nationally as a three-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Grant for representational artwork. Jennifer regularly exhibits at juried exhibitions across Vancouver Island, the lower mainland and beyond. She has received Juror’s Choice and People’s Choice Awards at the prestigious Sidney Fine Arts Show and has been included in international exhibitions for the Northwest Watercolour Society and the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour. Jennifer is a signature member of the Federation of Canadian Artists.
Focusing on still life and architectural subjects, Jennifer uses the natural flow of paint through water to create vibrant and dramatic imagery. Unique in their strong contrast, quality of light, and brilliant luminosity, Jennifer’s original paintings and commissions are held in private and corporate collections across Canada and beyond.

Artist Website

Mixed media artist Patt Scrivener will demonstrate her process using cold wax medium and oil paint. Cold wax is a medium made with beeswax, resin and solvent, and added to oil paint up to a 50/50 ratio. The paint is applied with scrapers and silicon brushes. It dries and hardens by oxidizing and sets up quicker than traditional oil paint. In this video, Patt will share how to build up layers, the tools to use and other compatible media. (15 minutes)

Patt Scrivener was born and raised on a farm in Saskatchewan. As a child she spent many hours painting, drawing and doing crafts. With little money for supplies she upcylced before the word was coined. Today she credits this to her love of experimenting. Patt has honed her creative skills through her work as a floral designer and interior stylist. She has studied with many notable artists from Canada, USA and Australia. Her work is abstract in nature including non-objective abstract, imagery of people, and landscapes.
Process is important to Patt – layering, scraping, sanding, pouring and dripping. She uses many unorthodox tools and loves visits to the hardware store! Patt works in several mediums including, acrylic, cold wax and oil, and encaustic and is known for her bright colourful palette. She is a career artist and paints daily. Patt also takes time for making music on her harp and working in the garden. She is a signature member (AFCA) of the Federation of Canadian Artists and a member of the De Cosmos Art Group. Her work is in collections in Canada, USA, the UK and Ireland.

Artist Website

Carving a soapstone bear, start to finish! In these two videos Katherine Woods shows the full process from rough stone to finished bear, including tools, materials and tips on working with soapstone. Katherine has provided two 15 minute videos for you to enjoy – Part 1 and Part 2

Much of the inspiration for Katherine Woods’ artwork comes from the wildlife and rugged beauty of the west coast where she has lived all her life. She began carving in wood at an early age and turned to it as a profession in her early twenties. Her commissioned work has ranged in size from half-inch miniatures for pewter casting to a twelve-foot maple whale, and includes reproduction carving for the new altar at St. Ann’s chapel, and on desks for the legislative assembly.
She taught her craft for many years, including workshops at Tools ‘n Space, Camosun College, Lee Valley Tools and Coast Collective Art Gallery. She has been active in the Vancouver Island Sculptors Guild and was a founding member of the Vancouver Island Woodworkers Guild. Her work has appeared in Guild shows, at the Sooke Fine Arts Show, Sidney Fine Art Show and in private galleries including Sooke Harbour House, South Shore Gallery and Coast Collective.
Katherine lives in Sooke and currently works primarily in soapstone. She also wrote and illustrated the book, “Ferrets Underfoot”, published by Hedgerow Press in 2009.

Artist Website

This demo will show how artist Kristin Backlund goes about sculpting one of her figures. Each clip demonstrates a step in the creation, from building a wire armature, applying the layers of papier maché, drying, sealing, through to decorative brushwork and mounting on a base. The demo briefly shows each step, the types of material used and how they are used, from the beginning to the end of the creative process. (17 minutes)

Kristin Backlund is an award winning artist who studied Art History at SUNY Geneseo before moving to Las Vegas where she split her time between two professional passions: theatrical design and teaching. Her awards include set and lighting design, pottery, aniline dyed paintings, and an acrylic which was selected as the promotional poster for the Komen Breast Cancer 2001 Race.  Moving to Victoria, she continued with her art, fusing glass and concentrating on landscape acrylics.  Her embrace of sculpture was triggered by the loss of her parents and the Covid isolation. Creating interactions between these animated figures has brought her joy again.

Bernard Funston began building guitars about 20 years ago, at the suggestion of his then-young children. He launched Funston Guitars in 2005 to begin selling his instruments in a market seldom considered by others: the circumpolar North, including northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and Finland. His repertoire includes mandolins and flamenco, classical, steel string acoustic, solid body and hollow body electric guitars. Funston instruments have made their way into the hands of musicians all over the world. In September 2011 a Funston guitar, commissioned by the University of the Arctic, was presented to Vladimir Putin in Arkhangelsk, Russia to promote Arctic dialogue and cooperation. In 2020 two Funston mandolins were included in the twelve instruments produced from paulownia for the President Carter Legacy Collection. Funston’s work has been showcased in guitar shows, winning the People’s Choice Award at the Ottawa Guitar Show in 2014.

Artist Website

For most of her life, Sue Pyper lived in the world of “practical” creativity, as a production manager and designer for magazines in London, England. But her arrival to Vancouver Island’s Comox Valley in 2000 opened her up to a more spontaneous relationship with the visual arts. Applying artistic skills previously developed at Art School in London she turned to expressions of nature in all its forms.
As well as painting animals, Sue works with live-edge wood from around Vancouver Island that she says is taking her art into a whole new realm. “I work with the shape and the grain of the wood to reveal the unique story in each piece.”
In much of her work with wood, Sue uses a technique called pointillism which involves creating images from dots.
Sue has shown in venues and arts events around Vancouver Island, including the Robert Bateman Gallery and both the Sooke and Sidney Fine Arts Shows. Her work can be found in various galleries on Vancouver Island and in private collections in the UK, Canada and the USA. She currently lives in the Comox Valley where she works from her sunny home studio in Courtenay.

Artist Website

This video is artist Gregory Dawe’s demonstration of the techniques, thoughts and process used to make his image “Burning Imperialism”. As a photographer, his work can be described as conceptual pictorialism. In this video he demonstrates the the processing and burning of a film negative to create distorted, surreal images. (15 minutes)

Gregory w. Dawe is a retired high School Media Arts teacher and winner of $50,000 “Best in Class” contest which resulted in a new media art lab for the inner city school at which he worked in Surrey British Columbia. Gregory was also part of the group exhibition at the Surrey art gallery “Views from the Southbank II: Moments, Reflections, Intervals”. Gregory was the winner of White Rock Museum: One – Minute Film Contest. Gregory received a Bachelor of Education with distinction, University of Victoria, Art specialty along with a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Victoria.

Artist Website