Open Studio Tuesdays

The second Tuesday of every month the John M. Parrott Gallery in Belleville has an open studio session for area artists, or even beginners. Its runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. You can get a light lunch at the cafe in the library lobby. There is no instruction per se, but people are willing to help and share tips with each other. A new development is that there is a still life set up for anyone who wishes to do it. See painting above. Of course, if you just want to do your own thing, that's fine too. No charge except for coffee which is 75 cents.

While you are at the gallery, check out Barbara Chappelle's amazing pottery figure and Tina Osbourne's handcrafted jewellery in the corridor display cases.

Tips for attracting people to your Art booth or display

Follow the link or click on the title above for some great tips on how to promote your art show or booth  or exhibit in an art fair.
http://www.finearttips.com/2010/10/10-tips-to-bring-visitors-to-your-art-fair-booth-or-open-studio/
Some of them you may already be familiar with. Signage is very important. Balloons etc draw attention as do fresh flowers. Have candy for the kids and do a demo painting if you have time inbetween talking to the public.

Speaking of demos, I will be doing one at Michael's in Belleville on Saturday 1-3 p.m . I expect I will be painting spring flowers, but I might change my mind! This is to attract people to sign up for my fine art acrylic painting classes-and no, it is NOT the Bob Ross method!

Paul Kelly Life Drawings

I just came back from taking part in a life drawing class with the well known Toronto artist, Paul Kelly who has an exhibition currently running at the John M. Parrott gallery in Belleville.
The class was at quite an advanced level as many of the participants had taken life drawing classes previously and some were art college graduates.  The poses were quite tricky to draw. We did the usual 2 min poses, followed by a ten minute, a half hour and finally a one hour pose that we did either in watercolour or pastels. Paul Kelly taught us to use unusual colours-dark blue/violet for the darks and yellow/orange for the lights. There were some very interesting results.