SEPTEMBER 2017 NEWSLETTER

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1 Art Society of Strathcona County Mailing Address: PO Box 3061 Sherwood 1Park, AB T8H 2T1 Street Address: 590 Broadmoor Blvd, S. Park Ph: SEPTEMBER 2017 NEWSLETTER President s Message Well, wasn t that a summer? Hot, rainy, great summer weather but no time to paint! I trust you did better than I did and were able to find a wee bit of time to create something that you like "a chair by the Columbia River is where I did carve some soapstone, though ". Welcome back! I hope you visited the ACACA Alberta Wide Show it was great! The second annual Open Studio Tour was a success, and we have received good news in the way of grants: $14, from the AFA as an operating grant (the most ever!), and $3500 from the County for the Fall Show Celebrating Canadian Art. Also as a note, the garage sale at the last June meeting netted $ for the coffee fund so you will be able to drink away!! When the time came last May to close off our last Casino account, there were sufficient funds to complete the following: 6 Additional ads in the Sherwood Park News $316 paid towards advertising for the Open Studio Tour Additional 10 roadside signs 2 more Loft Gallery signs for the road 2 signs for the porch on the Ottewell Centre carpets cleaned downstairs and in the Loft Additional drapery bought for outside shows, ie., NOA Ad in the Fall Rec Guide New Flags at the entrance Additional brochures printed $400 in utilities paid for the O Centre - and now we look forward to another Casino hopefully in the spring of 2018!

2 And we look forward to a fabulous fall show in October with 70 artists registered (25 non-members and 45 members!!!). Once the jurors have made their decisions, you will receive notice about which pieces have been juried into the show. Check out the workshops and register if you have not yet, and plan on attending the General Meeting on September 12, 7 pm. to catch up on the summer news from your fellow artists! A big thank you to - Regards, Sonja. Tim and Cynthia Clark for helping set up for the ACACA show. Gail Lacey for filling in for Sue (and me) for 4 days in August during an Ottewell Centre rental. All the volunteers in the Loft during the ACACA show. Joyce and Kay for helping with the takedown of the show. Fall Show Committee for all their time on the call for submissions. Notes There was no response to the asking for volunteers for the Artisan Market by the County so our table released! The ASSC promotional table at the Heritage Day at SPARK GALLERY: was very quiet! but we looked good!

3 MEMBERS CORNER Next Board Meeting: Tuesday, September 6:30 Ottewell Centre Next General Meeting: Tuesday, September 7:00 Ottewell Centre. We will hear from Cynthia Clark about her art adventure in Scotland. September 15: deadline to register online for the Member Appreciation Dinner on Sept 30!!! October 1 - deadline for submission in the Loft Gallery for the November/December show. June Potluck

4 The Alberta Wide Exhibit of the ACACA, which was in the Centre this summer, brought in rent revenue to assist the Ottewell Centre expenses. Many artists from around the province are introduced to our Society, the building and our artists! and the Loft Gallery & Gift Shop! The Ottewell Centre was the site for the Alberta Wide Show of the Art Community Art Clubs Association from July 21 to August 13, and introduced many artists and the public to the ASSC and the Centre itself. Numerous pieces were juried into the Alberta Spirit Show scheduled for Red Deer Museum until October Special recognition goes to our member, Joyce Boyer, for the Margaret Seelye Award for her piece Balancing Act in pastel. The show presented the opportunity to the ASSC to have the Loft Gallery and Gift Shop open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and many sales were made from that venue as well. The dates open were covered by volunteers from the ACACA and the ASSC and, without them, the show would not go on! The Centre looked lovely the art was top notch! All in all a positive activity both for the Ottewell Centre, the ASSC and the ACACA.

5 Saturday, September 30 TH is Alberta Culture Day! ALL MEMBERS OF THE ASSC are invited to come to the Centre and work on their art pieces and to hang some artwork for sale. It is anticipated that the public will be venturing around Sherwood Park to the various locations celebrating Culture Days. This is also a great day to meet fellow artists and to have a tea with friends. No cost, no volunteer hour or meeting requirement just sign up! If you are interested in being at the Centre that day and setting up to work and sell art, please contact Antoinette Alleyne, who is gathering names. Her is sendtoantoinette@gmail.com THE ASSC wants to show you appreciation for being a member!! If you have not registered online for the Member Appreciation Dinner on September 30, please do so as I have to give numbers to the caterers. The Society wishes to thank you for your membership and you will have an opportunity to listen to Brenda Robinson, a Sherwood Park motivational speaker, and to socialize with your fellow members. Please register and join with fellow artists for a social evening. Simply register online under the Members Section before September 13 so we can give numbers to the caterer! How do you think we compare?? A recent arts engagement survey confirms that 92% of Calgarians engage with the arts; 89% believe that developing local artists of all kinds is a good thing for Calgary; 87% believe arts and culture venues make life in Calgary better, 86% believe the arts bring people together and enable people to connect, and 79% believe that a strong arts and culture scene is key to creating a vibrant, safe and prosperous city.

6 Christmas Market is November 18 & 19. If you would like to have a table, please contact joyceboyer@shaw.ca BY SEPTEMBER 1, 2017!!!! 2 nd Hidden Treasures Open Art Studio Tour A Success!! Our second studio tour on June th was a huge success with good attendance numbers, sales and weather! We had 6 home studios participating, 9 artists in the barn as well as the Clay Hut/Studio One, Gallery 501 and Spark Gallery participating. The event was advertised in the Sherwood Park, Fort Saskatchewan and Beaumont newspapers as well as in a Daytripper section of the Edmonton Sun and Edmonton Examiner and the Go East magazine. The Sherwood Park news also published an article about the event in the June 20 th edition. We advertised on Facebook, ASSC website and many other sources on the internet. Brochures were distributed widely across County businesses. Individual artist participants also heavily promoted the event through , invitations, and Facebook promotion. Our studio tour yellow signs directed people to the studios. Most studios had about 100 visitors with the barn recording 221 visitors for the weekend. Attendance was well up from last year, as our event is gaining recognition within the community. Although we do not request sales numbers from each artist, sales from the 15 artists were likely over $ total. Loft Gallery Sales for the weekend were $ (mostly small items). The Committee is planning for 2018 and will share this soon with members. Any artist wishing to show their entire art collection without having to haul everything to a show should seriously consider becoming involved in this successful event!! For more information contact Norma Callicott at or normacallicott59@gmail.com

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8 Loft Gallery and Gift Shop Open Saturday and Sunday 12 4 Thank you to our many talented artists who contributed to the July- August rotation during the ACACA Alberta-wide Show. The gallery was busy and many new customers were introduced to our wonderful space! We are busy organizing for the September-October rotation. Registered artists are asked to drop off their painting on September 7 at 4:00. The Loft committee will begin hanging shortly afterwards. The Loft Shift schedule has been altered somewhat to coincide with days and times set by the Fall Show. Please check out the available spots on the Loft Shifts page (under Members) and asscgallery@gmail.com to volunteer for any shifts you want. Looking ahead.. The deadline for registering for the November-December rotation is October 1. Please remember to use the dedicated for all Loft business : asscgallery@gmail.com To accommodate the Fall Show, the Gallery Inventory list will not be due until October 23. If you have recorded 20 hours of volunteer time during 2016 and 2017 and have attended 3 meetings, you may enter up to 7 paintings (with consideration of size). If you are a new member this year, you may enter one painting and if you have recorded 10 hours of volunteer time, you may enter 2 paintings. We encourage smaller pieces for this rotation as we have many people looking for gifts but larger works are welcome as well. As usual, a table will be set up in the centre of the Loft for members to display craft items following the Christmas Market. If you are in the Market and would like to bring up items for this table a separate inventory sheet will have to be done. All table items will need to be removed at the end of the rotation.

9 Workshops Volunteers are needed to help with a couple of Fall Workshops. The advantage is that you are able to participate in the workshop while attending to the artists/instructor. The workshop is free to you for your help David Langevin The Art of Business, Sept 15. Two helpers needed. David Langevin One more helper for Mastering Acrylics II Sept 16/17. Please Elaine etweedy@shaw.ca if you are interested. Thanks, Elaine SEPTEMBER PAINTING THE LIVING LANDSCAPE IN PASTELS with Sharon Bamber - 2 day workshop: Saturday Sept.9 and Sunday Sept.10 9am 5pm. Cost: Member $100. ONE SPACE LEFT 6 WEEK SESSION - REFLECTIONS AND CHIAROSCURO IN WATERCOLOURS with Willie Wong - 6 Mondays Sept 11 to Oct 23, 9:30am 12:30pm Cost $150. FULL THE ART OF BUSINESS with David Langevin - SFCA 1 EVENING - Friday September 15, 7PM-9PM Cost - $25.00 members. NO LIMIT MASTERING ACRYLICS II with David Langevin - 2 day workshop that is an extension of the Mastering Acrylics workshop, which is a prerequisite for admission into this workshop. Saturday September 16 & Sunday September 17, :00 am 4:00 pm Cost - $ members. SIX SPACES LEFT OCTOBER SKYLINES AND SUNSETS IN WATERCOLOURS with Gregg Johnson - Tues/Wed. Oct 24 & 25. 9am-4pm Cost $100 members. EIGHT SPACES LEFT NOVEMBER "UNDERSTANDING ACRYLICS With Brent Laycock (Thursday- Saturday ) Nov. 9, 10 11, 9:30 am 4:30 pm Cost - $ member. SEVEN SPACES LEFT All workshops are posted on the website with a supply list and information.

10 Everyday Places, Everyday People What an awesome workshop presented by international artist, Graham Berry! Graham s striking paintings, which largely feature people going about their everyday lives, showcase the strong effect of light and shadow. These elements work together to bring his scenes to life; they literally make the painting pop off the paper. This 2 ½ day workshop began with a demonstration of how Graham takes a painting from drawing to completion. As class members watched him skillfully apply layers of color to bring his paintings to life, we were mesmerized you could have heard a pin drop! Over the next two days, Graham broke down our painting process into a series of steps, first demonstrating, then giving us time to follow. It was exciting to see our own versions of the photos take shape. This workshop was an excellent opportunity to learn how to add life to our paintings. Graham, and his wife Pauline, used humour, wit and one-on-one assistance to make the workshop a most enjoyable experience. Fall Show - Celebrating Canadian Art The committee is thrilled with the response and the number of entries received for our show in honour of Canada's 150 birthday. Over 70 artists submitted their work for this juried show. The process is well underway and expect an outstanding exhibition of work. Everything is on track. The committee is working away but will soon we requesting your assistance in manning the actual show. At the September general meeting, we will be there with a schedule, requesting your assistance to work this show. Dates to remember. Oct 13 to15; Oct 20 to 22, open to the public Friday 1 to 9 PM, Saturday and Sunday 10 to 4 PM. Special events during the show: Opening Reception Friday evening October 13, 7 to 9 PM (where the awards will be announced) as well there will be a closing Tea on Sunday afternoon October 22, 1 to 3 pm. The show will close at 4 PM.

11 Library Corner Welcome back after the Summer break. We hope that you had a wonderful break, full of outdoors time and creative exploits. To start this part of the year, here are reviews of two new books in the ASSC library. Val Holts of the library committee wrote both reviews. If you re looking for a creative kick-start to Fall, check them out. Color and Light (A Guide for the Realist Painter) by James Gurney Because this author has written and illustrated a whole new world in his book Dinotopia, James Gurney s grasp of light and color is literally beyond the norm. He has asked and answered questions I hadn t thought of. Need to know about reflected light? JG gives you FIVE truths about this subject. Pictures and illustrations back up his theories and knowledge, all helping the reader to understand. Twenty-one types of different light, 16 atmospheric effects, 21+ different articles on color/pigments/relationships and SO much more. Using a wonderful selection of old Masters, his own paintings, and illustrations, James Gurney gives short and informative answers to questions that every artist will ask themselves, sooner or later. A book to return to over and over again, all artists, realist or not, will benefit from the knowledge James Gurney shares in this work.

12 The Encyclopedia of Oil Painting Techniques By Jeremy Galton A quick cursory glance through this book may pique your interest and have you trying out a new technique that you either haven t had time for or didn t quite know how to approach. Clear, concise and in alphabetical order for the technique section of this book, this book is simple to follow and easy to find what you may be looking for - or just start at A and follow through to Z. Try Dabbing Sgraffito Alla Prima - Corrections Tonking Wet into Wet. So many to try! Part Two of this book carries into Themed painting, such as Architecture, Skies, Still Life and Water. With many photographs and paintings, the author includes demo paintings that you can follow along with, all while providing many explanations of items such as perspective, working on location, unifying a painting and much, much more. Don t forget to bring back your summer loans to the meeting on September 12. We look forward to seeing you and hearing What I did over the summer! See you in September, The Library Committee

13 Sherwood Park Photography Group of the Art Society of Strathcona County Hello all; With summer drawing to a close it is time to start preparing for the September meeting. The photography group meeting is September 19 from 7 to 9pm Meeting subjects are: 1. Landscape photography 2. Lightroom tutorials the subjects slated for future meetings are - Motion capture Panning Motion blur Freeze motion After taking the photograph, what s next? Edit image How do you store you image Do you sell your image Histograms The subject for photo viewing is on what you did this summer. Finally, a reminder if you have not joined Facebook group please do so as it is how we are doing the photo contest this year. only members who are paid dues to ASSC for 2017 will be accepted to the Facebook group

14 Six Compositional Boo-boos Dear Artist, Last night, while on jury duty, my fellow juror and I agreed the most common fault seen among entries was in composition. Well drawn, well rendered and well coloured all came to naught when the composition had significant faults. I ve often written about what an artist should do. In this letter I m giving six common pitfalls. Last night we noticed them all. Weak foreground The foreground appears as an afterthought. Wishy-washy, unresolved or inconsequential it fails to set the subject onto a reasonable ground or to lead the eye to what the artist would have us see. Even in abstract or mystical work, a foreground needs to be implied and understood as a vital contributor to the whole. Homeostatic conditions Homeostasis means equidistant lineups of trees, rocks, blocks of colour, or other patterns that are too mechanical or regular. It includes trees growing out of the tops of people s heads. While sometimes seen in nature, homeostasis is a natural human tendency a subconscious reordering and regularizing within the brain. Even in front of nature one must compose, said Edgar Degas. Amorphous design The general design lacks conviction. A woolly, lopsided or wandering pattern makes for a weak one. Often, the work has unresolved areas and lacks cohesiveness and unity. Everything that is placed within the enclosing borders of the picture rectangle relates in some way to everything else that is already there. Some attribute must be shared between all of them. (Ted Smuskiewicz) Lack of flow Rather than circulating the eye from one delight to another, the work blocks, peters out and invites you to look somewhere else. Composition, said Robert Henri, is controlling the eye of the observer. Effective compositions often contain planned activation (spots like stepping stones that take you around), and serpentinity (curves that beguile and take you in.) Too much going on Overly busy works tire the eye, induce boredom and make it difficult to find a centre of interest or focus. Less is often more. Take something out, said the American painter and illustrator Harvey Dunn. Defeated by size Effective small paintings often work well because they are simple and limited in scope. But when artists make larger paintings they often lose control of the basic idea and what is ironically called the big picture. The larger the area to be painted, says Alfred Muma, the harder it is to have a good composition. Best regards, Robert (sent in by Elaine Tweedy)

15 SEND YOUR S TO THE MAIL BAG at: to remain anonymous just say so OR please use the Suggestion Box at the Centre. s anonymously to the Mail Bag. Please keep your s coming! Editor s Message It would be very much appreciated if all submissions for the Newsletter could be sent by the 22nd of each month. And if you possibly can, please use Arial font for your submissions, (it just makes life easier for the editor.) Members If you are having a show or an art event, please send your information to Dianne Dixon, Newsletter Editor, at dcdixon@shaw.ca for inclusion in the Newsletter!

16 Member News Workshops for Fall of Dianna M. Sapara Introduction to Encaustics -- Instructor Dianna M. Sapara 1 Day - Beginner Class Date: Saturday -Sept 9, 2017 Time: 10-4pm Where: Dianna's Studio in the Country ( 6 km N - Vegreville, Alberta) Max: 5 Students per class Cost: $95.00 includes all supplies Please join me for an introductory course where you will learn the basics of working with encaustic using an iron and stylus. We will cover history, health and safety, set up, and the basic iron techniques as well as drawing with the stylus Encaustic: Stamping and Card Making - Instructor Dianna M. Sapara 1 Day Workshop Date: Saturday Sept 23, 2017 When: 10am to 4pm Where: Dianna s Studio in the country (6km Northwest of Vegreville) Cost: $125 includes all supplies Max: 5 students Please join me for a fun class that you will continue to learn more working with encaustic using an iron, stylus, scribbling tools, rubber stamps using Ink and hot wax.

17 We will cover history, health and safety, set up, recap on iron techniques, the different types of paper used for this session, as well as a variety of ways to manipulate your paintings/cards. Time permitting; we also will explore effect of wax using a heat gun. Everyone will go home with completed painting or card ready to frame. To reserve a spot Contact: Dianna or - dsapara@gmail.com. More information available on my website and at time of registration. Worth watching