Special Arrangements show on at Artway

Our annual Special Arrangements show is now on at Artway Gallery. On exhibit are Andrea McLeod, Betty Jean Evans, Paul Draper, Keith Moreau, and the late Bridget Aubé.

The show runs until Friday 24 February 2012, at Artway Gallery in Shoppers World Brampton, near Winners.

Continuing at Artway Invitational Gallery, near Zellers, is Young Gold. Every year, the Youth Achievement Awards acknowledge the accomplishments of Visual Arts Brampton's youth session students. The best receive Gold medallions, and they are on display at Artway Invitational Gallery. Five of the six teen students who won gold at the Youth Achievement Awards are participating: Lucy, Francesca, Victoria, Tasha, and Nicole.

Runs in the Family returns for 2011

An annual tradition started last year, Artway Invitational Gallery is proud to show that artistic ability does run in the family. This year's Runs in the Family exhibitors are:

• Paulina Su and sister Victoria Su
• Albert Seaman and son C. A. Seaman
• Tasha Singh and her cousin Tiana Tzogas
• Andrea McLeod and husband Kerry McLeod
• Keith Moreau and wife Janice Moreau

VAB in Scientific American

This is certainly a first: tonight at Visual Arts Brampton's Artway Invitational Gallery, we're installing Artistic by Nature, an exhibit of work by members of Southern Ontario Nature and Science Illustrators. While that in itself is a first, the show is being featured on Symbiartic, a Scientific American blog about science art.


If you're not aware, SciAm was first published in 1845, making it the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. Contributors have included Albert Einstein. It is written for an educated, but not necessarily science-trained, public.


The show runs until November 16.

Science, nature illustrators on display at Artway Invite

Tomorrow night at 8 pm, we install the show Artistic by Nature: An exhibit of work by Southern Ontario Nature and Science Illustrators (SONSI) at Artway Invitational Gallery, at Shoppers World Brampton.

The show runs October 13 – November 16, 2011, and features Kathryn Chorney, Emily S. Damstra, Trish Murphy, and Jennifer Osborn. Artway Invitational Gallery is located in the southeast corner of the shopping centre, near to Zellers.

The four artists featured in this exhibit are all members of the Southern Ontario Nature and Science Illustrators (SONSI), a community of illustrators whose work focuses on science and nature subjects. SONSI aims to raise the profile of this specialized subset of the illustration, art, and design profession, to share their dedication to visualizing aspects of the natural world, and to help educate the public about issues in science and nature. Most SONSI members live either in or between the Greater Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo areas, with a few further afield in Sarnia, Southampton, and towns east of Kingston.

Nature and Science Illustration is all around us, even though the general public may not be as aware of it as they are of more high-profile types of art. We see it on web sites, in zoos, nature centers, and museums, on posters & brochures in the doctor, dentist, or vet's office, in school books, calendars, note cards, magazines, galleries, or in any one of thousands of illustrated books for children and adults that capture the wonders of the natural world and science ideas.

Science illustrators work with publishers, designers, art directors, scientists, advertisers, and educators in developing visuals that communicate vital information as they illuminate the beauties of nature and the wonders of science. Subject matter ranges from nature and biology thru to astronomy and the latest conceptual thinking. What all science illustrations have in common is an exacting level of accuracy and faithfulness to the subject or concept, combined with a high degree of artistic skill and judgment in bringing the subject to life in a striking manner.

SONSI exhibits are for all art lovers as well as everyone who loves nature’s wonders and harbours curiosity about the natural world.

For more information about SONSI or to leave a comment about this exhibit, please visit the Southern Ontario Nature and Science Illustrators’ web site at sonsi.ca.

Monday, Civic Holiday, studio is closed

For Simcoe Day, tomorrow, the studio will be closed.

Open studio sessions resume on their normal schedule Thursday, August 4. Tuesday life drawing continues, as per normal. Wednesday portrait sessions return in the fall.

Shoppers World Brampton is open tomorrow, from 9:30 am to 6:00 pm. Check out the recently installed Drawing in Colour exhibit, at Artway Gallery near Winners, and the touring floral art show, at Artway Invitational Gallery, near Zellers.

Carabram's Canada pavilion a success as always

Visual Arts Brampton member Ryan C. Thompson was sure drawing a crowd, pardon the pun, Saturday night at the Carabram's Canada pavilion. In this picture he's demonstrating his marker technique for the crowd, with the end result going to some lucky children attending the event.

VAB has its 25th anniversary floral art show displayed at the three-day event, the second stop on its tour. The works are now installed at Artway Invitational Gallery in Shoppers World.

Many thanks to the artists who came to volunteer and those who came to draw, including Stephanie Czolij, Paul Draper, Lucy Feng, Keith Moreau, Bill Riopka, Francesca Riopka, Victoria Riopka, Ryan C. Thompson, and Jacqueline Veltri.

Many thanks as well to the hosts and organizers of the Canada pavilion, CAW Local 1285. It's always a pleasure working with Leon Rideout and the rest of the folks in this organization, they should be commended for the work that they put into everything, every year, to schedule all the performances, activities, vendors, and displays.

More pictures of this event are available at the bottom of our Floral Art Show photo album.

Anthony Jenkins show announced for Artway Invite

Perhaps best known as a spot illustrator and editorial cartoonist for The Globe and Mail, Anthony Jenkins has a body of artwork that he will be showing at Visual Arts Brampton's Artway Invitational Gallery, late this autumn.

Jenkins was the featured exhibitor in our 2009 Making Faces and Laughlines shows at Artway Gallery, showing both cartoons and fine art between the two exhibitions.

His long training in black-and-white media has influenced his painting in its search for line and structure. His travels and photography in the Third World have engendered a love of dramatic colour and a heightened fascination with his favorite subject - the human face.

For more about Anthony Jenkins, visit his website at jenkinsdraws.com

VAB at Shoppers World for 25th event, April 20, 21, 23

For one week, Visual Arts Brampton will be taking many of its weekly sessions from its studio across the road to Staples Court in Shoppers World. The events celebrate Visual Arts Brampton's 25th anniversary.

Wednesday, April 20
Visual Arts Brampton's portrait group will be drawing and painting from a costumed model, from 10 am to 2 pm. Come view the creative process, which happens most weeks at the VAB Creative Studio.

Thursday, April 21
Open studio sessions come to Staples Court, from 10 am to 2 pm, and from 7 to 9 pm, where artists will be creating floral art for their second annual travelling show. Come meet the artists, and learn about how you can participate at the weekly painting drop-in times.

Saturday, April 23
VAB's weekly Open Studio Saturdays are expanded for the Shoppers World visit, from their usual 3 to 5 pm slot to 9:30 am to 5:30 pm.

While at Shoppers World Brampton, see Visual Arts Brampton's monthly, in two corners of the shopping centre. Laughlines, an exhibition of cartoon artwork, is featured in both Artway Invitational Gallery (mall entrance near Zellers) and Artway Gallery (mall entrance between Winners and Bluenotes). Across from Artway Gallery, see a continuously changing selection of works at the Silver Clips Artworks Gallery.

Visual Arts Brampton is the longest serving community visual art group, serving adults and youth of all levels, from Brampton and surrounding areas. Visit visualartsbrampton.com for more details.

Brampton Guardian relaunching Thursday edition, dumping Booster

News in today's Guardian: The Brampton Booster has published its last issue. The Thursday newspaper was the last, starting next week, it's back to the traditional format.

The Brampton Guardian ran one article

online about 'Tis the Season, and one in

print and online about Artway Invitational's
Runs in the Family.

In related news, the Artway Invitational Show Runs in the Family includes artwork by Christine Montague and her son, Corporal Nate Montague, who recently returned home from being stationed in Kandahar. They were profiled in print and online recently ("Soldier returns home", December 25, 2010). An article about 'Tis the Season at Artway Gallery was published online-only, featuring artwork by Ryan C. Thompson ("Artist hides a tale in the reindeer", December 25, 2010).


'Tis the Season ends its run tonight, catch it at Shoppers World Brampton before the 6:30 pm take-down.

Laughlines cartoon and comic show pre-announcement

Just a heads-up for cartoon fans: Visual Arts Brampton is expanding Laughlines to two spaces this year. The 2011 show will run on the normal schedule at Artway Gallery, from 26 March to 29 April 2011, it will also run at Artway Invitational Gallery from mid-April to mid-May. Read between the lines, if you will, with regards to the later timing.

Featured on display will be Steve Nease, whose political cartoons and Pud comic strip appear across Ontario, and caricatures by Peter Emslie, a Sheridan College character design-prof with roots at Disney. Local illustrator Ryan C. Thompson will also display his humourous art.

Who are the other exhibitors? One very interesting reboot is confirmed, and we're trying to finalize an illustrator and graphic novelist. Details to be released in the next few weeks, as things are confirmed.

"Alysa Bartha: Petal's Wish" on display this June at Artway Invitational

We've just finalized the dates for Alysa Bartha's show at the Artway Invitational Gallery, at Shoppers World Brampton. Bartha is the author and illustrator of a picture book called Petal's Wish, about a fairy who learns a lesson in self-confidence. Her book is available for $10.99.

Alysa Bartha is a professional photographer who began writing in 2009, as another vehicle of her creativity. She was interviewed by The Brampton Guardian, for an upcoming article.

Alysa expects to be appearing at the mall in advance of the exhibit, at a soon-to-be-announced VAB event.

The new display space is located on the southeast corner of the mall, near Zellers, whereas the original Artway Gallery is still in the northwest corner of the mall.