submitted by North Grenville Arts Guild
The North Grenville Arts Guild (NGAG) is pleased to announce that the co-operative art project has been completed. On Monday, April 20, the last of the canvases were turned in. Each artist added the finishing touches and prepared the canvas for Auction.
As we are back in lock-down, the Guild will bring the art to the public. Individual canvases will be showcased, along with comments from the various artists involved in each. We hope that everyone will have a chance to view the pieces before they go into the Library for the final exhibit before the Auction.
The first work, as yet untitled, was completed by the following artists: Meredith Luce, Barb Buchanan, Lisa Mackinley, Leahbeth Harding, Aleta Karstad, Mary Moore, and Caroline Marshall.
Meredith Luce started with the first step of preparing the base. Meredith said, “I wanted to keep the background abstract while still providing some framework. I used the wavy shapes to break the canvas into sections and suggest some depth. It was my hope that these early shapes would be simple enough to allow for a range of interpretations from future artists. I love how it has evolved!”
Barb Buchanan added to the piece next and said, “I wanted an organic feel to the canvas, with hints of nature showing through. I used yellow and green acrylics, and laid them down with a sponge.
Lisa Mackinley also added to the work. “ I defined the lines with black and red thinking to keep the possibilities of either a landscape (horizontal) or a woman’s body form (vertical).
Leahbeth Harding – I felt the direction was tending towards “flow”, so I created water down the middle and gold on the “shore” for focus.”
Aleta Karstad was the next artist to add to the piece. “I received this one with swaths of contrasty stripes and a soft gray-green sweep of flowing water, separated by a narrow, rough-textured shore. I thought it could use a centre of interest but wasn’t sure what, so husband Fred sketched and cut out one of his characteristic cartoon snails. I traced and painted it, and made the water more lively by emphasizing the edges of the flowing strokes,” she said.
Mary Moore added into the work also saying, “The background was very ‘busy’, with strong stripes. I toned it down while maintaining the movement, and turned it more toward leaves/water outdoor. I added the water droplets.”
The final contributor to the work was Caroline Marshall. “With each consecutive layer of this canvas, it always had a sense of ebb and flow. As the final contributor, I felt that the water drops, snail, and vivid colours had an underwater feeling. Adding kelp, coral, starfish, a hint of an approaching creature and bringing back the turquoise, shown in the original layer, to tie the colours together, was my addition to this piece.”
Stay tuned in the coming weeks to see how the whole project unfolded! Check the North Grenville Arts Guild Facebook page (blue & green logo) to view all of the canvases and follow the progress to its conclusion.
