Annual Monday Bunch “Group Show”

Spring is here and it's time for the Monday Bunch to present their annual "Show and Sale" of their paintings. A meet and greet will be held with our artists in attendance Saturday April 25th from 1pm to 4pm. Refreshments will be served.

We are expecting an exciting show. Although our membership dropped, several new members have joined. We welcome and look forward to seeing work by:

Barbara Martin is new to Comox. Previously she painted in Nelson, B.C. and also enjoyed yearly plein air workshops in Jasper, Alberta. Barbara attended art classes through Selkirk College and workshops through the West Kootenay Chapter of the Federation of Canadian Artists. In the past, she has used art therapeutically with young students in counseling sessions. Barbara loves the opportunity to study the natural world – be it peony, arbutus, mountain or seagull. Fortunately, staring for hours at subjects of beauty is acceptable with paintbrush in hand.

Bruce Martin has been involved with painting and drawing for most of his life. The great beauty of British Columbia and many years of hiking in the Canadian Rockies have been a source of inspiration for much of his work. Bruce works primarily in watercolour but also in acrylic and sumi ink. His paintings range from representational to pure abstract with the occasional blend of each and some mixed media thrown in to keep things exciting and open to the unknown. Bruce's work has appeared in numerous juried shows over the years and is held in private collections in Canada and the United States. Bruce is currently a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, the Arrowsmith Chapter of the FCA, the Jasper Artist's Guild and most recently, the Pearl Ellis Gallery of Comox. His paintings and prints can be seen at the Craft Connection, Nelson BC, the Art Gallery of Golden, Golden BC, The Kootenay Gallery of Art, Castlegar, BC and the Jasper Artists's Guild Gallery in Jasper, Alberta.

Althea White – Watercolours are a fairly new medium for her to express her love of colours. Both fabric and watercolours are a source of fun and creativity to examine various subjects. She loves to blend colours, mix different colour combinations and to explore the colour wheel. She is still challenged in changing the regular colour choices for darks or lights in order to get a sense of reality in a subject: for example – a brilliant turquoise to illustrate a bright shiny area. Because she has been travelling recently, she is truly aware of the different atmospheric lights can have in changing the colour palette for trees, hills water and skies. This means starting with a whole new concept of colour and the mixing of colours – great fun. Her style is fairly conservative and she leans towards botanical detailed work. She believes that a balanced drawing underlines any painting but can see that this changes whilst doing plein aire styles. All her work is done from her own photography for originality.

Some of the familiar artists are still with the Monday Bunch so look for new work by Daphne Borden, Sharon Lennox, Bev Johnson and Bev's daughter Colleen who is showing great talent "one to track"! Sharon's recent trip to Africa enabled her to take photos up close of animals and as a result has produced pictures using Scratch Board, a newly discovered technique. It has satisfied her need for detail requiring multiple layers of scratching resulting in "almost alive images" a very detailed work – worth seeing.