Meet Our Instructors

Andrew Hamilton is a Canadian Drawing Master, a Professor of Fine Arts and an accomplished, award-winning painter in acrylic, oil and watercolor mediums. Using a highly imaginative palette of the three primaries plus white he has learned that all the colors of the universe are at hand. Combining this with a loose, inventive colorful style and with great freshness and immediacy he paints the landscape. Painting mostly on location, "en plein air", Andrew paints in all four seasons capturing the beauty and natural rhythms of each. Using various media and traveling extensively, Andrew captures the rhythms, colors and moods of the landscape that inspires him.

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website: http://andrewhamiltonfineart.weebly.com

Oil Painting is my favourite medium. I use it to capture the landscape in hopes of revealing the beauty I see. Approaching the landscape head-on: painting on location or ‘plein-air’, offers this opportunity. Plein-Air simply means to paint in the open air or outside. It allows me to express my feeling and emotion by interpreting in paint what I see around me. 

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Simply speaking ‘I paint where I am’, looking to find subject matter with strong impact, such as old buildings, things with a bit of character, and then working quickly to record interesting effects of light on my subject before conditions change throughout the day. Bold use of colour heightens the visual impact of each painting and loose, rapidly executed brushstrokes capture moment-by moment impressions of what is before my canvas.

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The results can be fresh and spontaneous, but with enough depth to allow finding something new in the paintings each time they are viewed.

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website: https://lucymanley.ca

As an artist, I am moved by colour, the dramatic change in seasons, and the beauty of the natural world. Through the richness of oil paint, I allow myself to express that joy. I have worked in healthcare for my entire career, and on retirement, my path led me to create art. Firstly drawing, then painting large florals and presently impressionist landscapes.

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Jane works primarily with an assortment of brushes and pallet knives to apply thick, lush oil paints to a black canvas, resulting in paintings with rich textures and brilliant colours that bring her vision of the natural world to life.

Jane invites the viewer to enter her paintings, to smell the trees and hear the water moving, to feel the wind brushing against their face, to return to moments of beauty and tranquility helping them reconnect with nature, taking them back to special a moment or pleasant memory.

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website: www.ravenwoodstudio.ca

"I draw the human form in all of its beauty and complexity. I love bodies – how they move, how they change, what we express with them. I admire our differences and our similarities and continue to explore and express my appreciation. The more I draw and paint, the more I want to learn and the more I want to draw and paint. Crazy – and simple. Such a joy."

Anne graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto in 1985 with a diploma in Communication and Design, studied at the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver, and continues to study with many independent artists. She has been drawing from life for over 45 years and has been teaching life drawing for more than fifteen years. Anne organizes two Open Studio Life Drawing sessions; teaches lifedrawing, portraiture classes; and continues to offer workshops on drawing, painting and portraiture.

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website: http://www.annehooverart.ca/

“Andrew Sookrah is that rare combination of an accomplished artist who is also a gifted teacher.  He clearly explains and demonstrates his process, while also giving ample individual attention to each student in the class.  Andrew always strikes the right balance between making class challenging and making it fun.” 

 

He is a raw colourist whose free brushwork is confident and powerful. His strengths can be seen in his strong sense of design, exquisite use of effective composition, confident presentation of bold colours… and in his figurative and portraiture work, his capturing the raw essence of the human spirit. His is a masterful expression of the unity of nature as shown in his passion for the Canadian landscape and Arctic.

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website: https://www.sookrah.ca

Catherine began in the profession of decorative painting, having studied with internationally recognized Ritins Studio. She pursued an independent career and later worked for Ritins herself as a project manager and artisan assisting in many challenging and rewarding projects such as Winsor Casino, Niagara Falls Casino, Pillar and Post Spa and Hotel, The Royal Ontario Museum and many exclusive private residences. Catherine also worked with the talented Lori Klassen Studios on projects for Divine Design, one of Candace Olsen’s television projects. This work led to a lateral move into the fine arts and the exploration of oil painting as a career.

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Catherine’s technique evolves from a classical, indirect approach in oil; a discipline of drawing, underpainting, layers of paint and final glazes, sometimes disrupted with impasto layers to create detailed realistic portrayals of her subjects, suspended in imagined space and time.

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website: https://www.catherinemillsartist.com/

Painter of those moments when you look up and shout to the person next to you, “0h my gosh...Look at That”! Paul Nabuurs is a full-time professional artist based in Peterborough County. Paul is well known for creating striking works with a bold colour palette that are at once filled with vibrating energy and nostalgia. His paintings capture the interaction of light with the colours and patterns in an ever-changing environment. Inspired by a mix of landscapes and city scenes, his works are alive with a fresh and inspiring take on Canadian identity. Paul’s technique draws a viewer’s attention inside the painting and allows a moment in time, to be appreciated and absorbed.

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website: https://www.paulnabuurs.com/

Jeffrey is a Peterborough, Ontario based artist and freelance graphic designer. Working within the Peterborough business community for over 30 years - Jeffrey has created successful branding, design/ layout solutions for dozens of clients. Along with the visuals, Jeffrey creates communications to support the visuals for clients across the region. 

 

On the fine art side, he works primarily with relief printing (letterpress) and mixed media (watercolour and acrylic). He often employs words as visual triggers, as well as present-day/historical pop-culture icons and figures in both his print work and his mixed media pieces. 

 

Jeffrey also teaches within the Graphic Design + Visual Communications program at Fleming College.

 

website: jacksoncreekpress.ca

Stephanie Schirm is an accomplished, fine artist, apparel designer, and fashion illustrator. Inspired by the variability and curvaceousness of the human form—and equipped with a fearlessly vivid palette—Schirm expresses her signature aesthetic through a variety of media, industries, channels, and contexts. The dynamic tension between how her work looks (bright, sensual, kinetic, elemental) and feels (soothing, ethereal, meandering, enigmatic) gives it unusually broad appeal, from churches and galleries to retailers and manufacturers.

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website: https://www.stephanieschirm.com

Steve Rose is a graduate of OCAD with a major in drawing and painting. He has exhibited his work extensively and has a diverse and experienced background as an artist/educator.
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His work is collected in private and corporate international collections. There are three main areas of interest to the artist, those being non-objective painting, life drawing and printmaking ( generally in the medium of lithography.) In addition to an active independent studio practice, Steve enjoys teaching and lecturing on art and art history as well as constantly taking workshops such as his life drawing sessions every Wednesday evening for the past 17 years.
 

website: http://www.steverose.ca/