Avenue Road Arts School

We just wrapped up our final Sketch the Market session last weekend with Rose Montgomery-Whicher! ARAS students spent Saturday mornings at Wychwood Barns’ farmers market, using wet and dry media to translate the energetic atmosphere onto their pages. It was beautiful to see how the moving crowds, the fresh vegetation, the scents, and the lively community energy was captured in their sketchbooks.

Here is a look at student pieces and scenes from the days!

We recently had the joy of collaborating with a wonderful group of Kindergarteners at Cottingham Junior Public School! Cottingham Junior PS

Inspired by their studies of pollinators and the floral work of Yayoi Kusama, we explored the world of sculptural art for their annual Art Gallery Walk. The afternoon bloomed into a beautiful, 3D mixed-media design that was truly unique to each individual artist.

Thank you so much Cottingham for allowing us to be a part of this special event!

There is a distinct mesmerization and meditation in watching light dance across the water. This is something we are fascinated by and exploring how to capture.

In our upcoming Spring workshop, Luminous Watercolours: Fluidity, Reflections, Shorelines, artist Laura Krieger gives you the insight and tools to do exactly that. Laura will be guiding students in exploring how to capture the fluid movement, shifting colours, and unique reflections of water, turning the waterfront into a source of inspiration. Here is a little glimpse of her hand at play and some of her beautiful artwork.

Tap the link in bio to learn more.

art

We recently had the pleasure of welcoming artist and ARAS instructor, Martha Johnson, into the studio for a special guest feature in The Artist Studio: Connect & Create!

Deeply influenced by local environment and history, Martha’s current work explores themes of transition and transformation of the landscape, often painted on unique surfaces. Martha generously shared her creative process, approach, and a live demonstration on working gesturally with us. It was an incredibly insightful and inspiring evening, giving our students an insider’s view into her unique techniques.

Thank you so much, Martha, for this wonderful visit!

Now that the warmer season is here, we are so excited to expand our studio space right into the setting of Wychwood Barns’ Farmers Market in the upcoming short course, Sketch the Market, led by Rose Montgomery-Whicher!

The Farmers Market is an energetic setting that stimulates all your senses through sounds, sights, tastes and movement that Rose explored in her own personal sketches.

Starting June 6, Sketch the Market is all about using the lively backdrop as your open-air studio. Rose will be guiding students through plein air studies with drawing media, watercolour and inks, allowing those to explore expansive practices in capturing the essence of the market on paper.

Check it out! Link in bio.

Behind the scenes of The Artist Studio: Connect & Create led by ARAS Creative Director Evan Hutchinson.

For this session, we focussed on gesture, mark-making and uninhibited movement through stick drawing and painting. This allowed us to be in greater tune with how our bodies relate to the canvas and the types of movement we can make (and the type of precision we might not be able to make).

In forcing ourselves to relinquish some control and engage our entire shoulder rotation, we taped our tools to 3’ long wooden dowels. Inspired by Henri Matisse who created with pigment sticks attached to long bamboo poles, this technique allowed us to circle around our entire piece and experiment in the process.

Art in motion!

A fun practice that Dave Lapp explores in Cartooning & Comic Art is the art of flip book making!

A flip book is a series of hand-drawn illustrations bound together that, when flipped rapidly through the fingers, creates the illusion of seamless movement and animation.

Daveis a celebrated, published graphic novelist where students in Grades 3–8 learn how to bring to life their imagination through character development and storytelling in this course.

This week, Cartooning & Comic Art gears up for the Spring sessions, running Thursdays @ 4:45 - 6:15pm, May 14 - June 25 at Wychwood Barns.

Don’t miss out on the chance to learn from a pro. Check out link in bio💥