EMILY HSUEH
PONTIAC Feb. 10, 2021
With everyone staying home due to travel restrictions, one artist is hoping to take some prospective painters on an eight-week trip to Australia.
However, the artists won’t need to leave the country, or even their own homes for that matter. Artist Dale Taylor will be offering a painting course over eight Wednesdays from Feb. 22 until April 14 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The theme is . . .
Australia and participants will be able to join via Zoom and learn how to paint various scenes and wildlife from the continent.
“It’ll be eight evenings, and they’ll do four paintings in that time. The first one we’re ‘going to Australia,’” said Taylor, who visits the Land Down Under frequently. “I’ve lived in Australia quite a few times starting with a teacher exchange in 1997 and my husband and I usually do house exchanges in the winter … My own paintings are paintings of the ocean these days so our first trip will be to the east coast of Australia, near Byron Bay. One painting will be an ocean wave, one might be like a landscape or beach scene, then there’ll be an animal from the area. Usually we do some flora [too].”
Taylor has been teaching art classes online since the pandemic started last March, but has a teaching history far more expansive. She has also given several in-person workshops, including paint nights at the Norway Bay Golf Course, where she taught people of all ages and skill levels.
“Before I retired, I was an arts teacher in the OCDSB for 30 years and four of those years I was the arts consultant for the entire school board so I’m used to teaching at all levels,” she said. “I’ve been teaching workshops at the lakehouse here in Val-des-Monts, I do art retreats and painting retreats … I’m kind of combining that virtually so that we all do the same painting but it’ll be me giving them tips on how to put their own style in it and have a little fun with it.”
Because the course is online, participants will have to provide their own supplies, but Taylor will provide them with a list of what they’ll need before they start. She even added the possibility of adding a recipe to prepare before each session, as she wants to maintain the atmosphere her in-person classes had.
“It’s kind of a paint night where everyone meets people through painting the same painting, and they drink and eat and have a good social time as well, and they end up with a painting that they can take home and be proud of. Usually that kind of thing is for people who might never have painted before who just want to give it a go in a risk free environment.
The course is $270 for the eight weeks and those interested can register via her website daletaylorarts.com or by sending an email to daletaylorarts@gmail.com. Taylor encourages anyone interested to sign up, regardless of painting or art experience.
“A lot of people say, ‘Oh, I can’t draw,’ but it’s just not true,” she said. “There’s just nobody who cannot do it.”
