For most people, their artistic careers wrapped up at the end of high school; and though many genuinely enjoyed exploring their creative side, dabbling at an easel and mucking about in paints, it was game over as soon as the school bell rang.
It can be an intimidating prospect for a "non-artist" to take their smock out of retirement and pick up a paintbrush or pencil again, especially when they've been on a lengthy hiatus. Niggling self-doubt creeps in: "Where do I start?" or "I'm just not creative enough," or "Everyone else will be so much better than me." It also isn't easy to get motivated and teach yourself the basics at home. But if you're among the many people who yearn to exercise the right side of your brain once again, the Whistler Arts Council (WAC) may have just the way for you to get your feet wet: Art Workshops on the Lake.
While most people head to the lake to simply worship the sun or jump in and cool off during the balmy summer months, there's a more artistically inclined set that can be found gathered around the shores of Alta Lake from June to August. This is the fourth summer for the Art Workshops on the Lake, a series organized and hosted by WAC at the Resort Municipality of Whistler's Alta Lake Station House - a rustic heritage home that offers an inspiring view of the Alta Lake waterfront with Whistler, Blackcomb and Wedge Mountains in the background.
The series has actually grown to become quite a popular event, attracting participants from within Whistler, Squamish and Pemberton, and even farther afield each and every year. They offer a pretty impressive range of two- to four-day sessions in a variety of mediums - life drawing, oil, acrylic and watercolour painting - that cater to people with a range of artistic abilities. The classes cost between $170 and $425, and are taught by some very well-known local and national artists, including Suzanne Northcott, David McEown, David Langevin and Isobel McLaurin.
This year, the artistic action kicked off with a two-day workshop on acrylics and colour theory hosted by Whistler's very own Chili Thom. Something of a local legend in his own right, Chili has made quite the name for himself with his vibrant, stylized, fresh take on the traditional landscape. A successful self-taught painter with just one year of formal training, Chili has been painting for 12 years and has been a full-time artist (quite a feat, these days) for 10 years. This is only the second year he has taught at the Art Workshops on the Lake, but he seems to have a natural knack for it: he's patient and explains things in a simple, straightforward way, shying away from technical terms and focusing, instead, on making the experience fun and accessible.
There were 12 participants signed up for last weekend's two-day workshop - one male and 11 females, myself included - who varied from totally inexperienced (read: me) to intermediate artists who were already comfortable in the medium and simply wanted to improve their use and understanding of colour. Our group was pretty diverse, boasting a graphic designer, teacher and various hobbyists and artists who were interested in exploring new mediums; some were clearly gifted artists, while others, like me, needed to shake the rust off.
Chili had five objectives for the class: to give students a greater understanding of colour theory, create more depth in their paintings, create cohesiveness in colour, learn basic brush techniques and teach students how to properly manage a palette.
That first day, Saturday, focused almost entirely on theory, with participants making colour wheels, learning to "excite" their colours, mix greys, blacks and browns, and explore the spectrum of tints, tones and shades that are possible to create using just the primary colours. While some of the information was simply a refresher (the primary, secondary, tertiary and complimentary colours just seemed to be tucked away in the back of everyone's minds), a lot of the information was new to me. Like, the fact that some paint costs more because it has more pigment, or that you have to mix a bit of a "control colour" into your palette to ensure there's cohesion in the painting.
Now, as someone who hasn't wielded a paintbrush for many years, I have to admit that I walked away from that first seven-hour session feeling slightly overwhelmed by the pages of notes I had furiously scribbled down. But I also felt better prepared to tackle the exercise and project in store for us on the second day.
Sunday morning was spent exploring different aspects of depth - light in the distance, perspective, bright and subdued colours, shapes, contrast and saturation - and practicing brush strokes. As anyone who has visited the art store can tell you, there's an entire aisle of brushes available, and apparently, they're all made for pretty different purposes (try painting a perfect square with a rounded brush; it's not easy).
After playing around with different brushstrokes for a while, and taking a quick lunch break to lounge around on the sunny lakeside deck, it was finally time to delve into our own projects. All of the participants had been asked to bring an image that they wanted to reproduce on canvas, and I, of course, had picked a very detailed photo of a Spanish urban landscape. While it was ambitious to say the least, Chili took a few minutes to help me figure out a way to tackle the project, and I was off, mixing paint and getting messy.
While I certainly didn't finish my painting during the two-day workshop (no one did), that wasn't really the point. Rather, WAC's Art Workshops on the Lake are about getting comfortable at the easel and sketch pad again, educating and helping to tear down people's inhibitions and dismiss those nasty, niggling messages of self-doubt.
Chili is only offering the one workshop at the lake this summer, but he's also hosting the occasional class at his studio in Function Junction (check www.chilithom.com for more information). There are also plenty of other art workshops being offered through WAC's Art Workshops on the Lake, including Beginner Acrylics, Life Drawing & Painting, Acrylics: Doing Your Own Work, Intermediate/Advanced Watercolour, Creative Texture with Watercolour, Intermediate Acrylics, Beginner Watercolour, The Art of Drawing and Experimental Painting Techniques in Watermedia. For more information or to register online, head to www.whistlerartscouncil.com.
