Forgo reference photos and discover a more organic and joyful way of painting! With its friendly step-by-step format, Painting Imaginary Flowers features a simple, three-stage approach to creating flowers only you can make … Ten demonstrations show the versatility of this approach—from large-format pieces, to work in a series and even Zen doodle landscapes. Never again will you be stuck for ideas or dependent on a photo. Every flower you paint will be unique, personal, and fresh from your imagination!
Let your imagination blossom!
Wondering how painting from imagination look like? Check this time lapse video and see the process from start to finish.
Organized by Sandrine Pelissier and Sophie Babeanu
We are passionate about making art accessible. We believe that if you can write, you can draw. Every year we organize a Culture Days event that will reveal the artist in you in a fun and relaxed environment.
Everybody is an artist!
We truly believe that art is for everyone and we designed a fun activity that will have you make a unique picture, easily and in no time. All you have to do is relax and let your imagination do all the work.
This activity is suitable for kids all ages as well as for adults, even the adults who could not draw to save their life.
If you like the picture you made, Sophie and Sandrine will help you upload it to the Big Picture Art Project, and online collective art project where artists from everywhere in the world are sharing drawings and stories.
Co- founding the North Shore Art Crawl: Collaboration with Norman Vipond
The idea of a crawl based on the North shore originated from a discussion with Norman Vipond’s. He was very convincingly making the point that the North Shore is one of the places with the highest concentration of artists in North America and that we should have a crawl.
He was looking for someone to help him with the technical side to this enterprise so we started working together on this project.
The crawl was modest in size the first year but most participants enjoyed it and thought it should become an annual event. We organized the crawl for 3 more years and it grew bigger and bigger. Since its beginning the number of participants kept growing as well as the variety of art disciplines represented. It takes a few years for such an event to be known in the community and I can see the difference every year.
After those four years, the crawl was beginning to be too much work for a team of 2 volunteers and we looked for an organization with more resources to take on the project. We were very happy that the Arts Council took on that task and kept the original ideas of inclusiveness and accessibility very much at the heart of that annual festival.
Weekly life drawing group Simply drawing: Collaboration with Anna du Bois and Michael Gordon
I met Anna du Bois and Michael Gordon while renting a studio at 195 Pemberton. Together we set up a weekly life drawing group. Other the years we moved locations a few times and now our group meets in my studio every Thursday evening.
It is a very friendly group where you can practice life drawing in a relaxed atmosphere. We also organize a yearly exhibition for our class members with a great selection of figure drawings and paintings.
Connecting Artists with models- Collaboration with Anna du Bois
As we wanted to keep our life drawing models listings up to date and also give the opportunity for more artists to work with models and for models to find job opportunities, Anna and I designed a website to help models connect with artists:
The website is steadily growing as we have more than 100 models living in the Vancouver area listed on the website.
The Big Picture Art project is our latest collaboration.
The big picture is a collective art project where people in our local area and around the world are collaborating to create a big mosaic picture from thousands of drawings and stories.
This project will probably take a few years to complete and we have many exciting ideas that we are working on for its future!
First Saturdays Open studios, open studio every first Saturday of the month
Selected exhibitions
2019
Tonality, group show at the Ferry Building Gallery (March 12-30) North Shore Art Crawl : March 2&3 2019 10 am-5 pm Subjective Reality at Liquid Amber Tattoo and Art Collective
2018
Ensemble show at the ACT in Maple Ridge Solo show: Garden Dream at the Pitt Meadows Art Gallery ArtSpeaks Showcase Exhibition for the Harmony Arts Festival at the Ferry Building Venus rising, exhibition at the Vancouver Italian Cultural Center Bark exhibition at the VanDusen botanical garden Painting on the Edge at the Federation of Canadian Artists
2017
Painting on the edge at the Federation of Canadian Artists- Award third place National Crossing Boundaries Arts Exhibition at the International Arts Gallery and the Federation of Canadian Artists gallery. First Western Canadian Artists Portrait Exhibition at the International Arts Gallery Works on paper at the Federation of Canadian Artists- 2nd place Award Organized chaos, group exhibition of abstracts and semi abstracts works at the International Arts Gallery.
2016
FCA medal show at the Federation of Canadian Artists gallery Tactile Forest , group show at the North Vancouver Cityscape Community Art Space FCA 75th Anniversary Signature Celebration and Exhibition show Painting on the edge 2016 at the Federation of Canadian Artists- Award third place Harmony Showcase Exhibition at the Ferry Building Gallery
2015
“Going in Circles” has been selected as one of ten honorable-mention winners in the 2015 Shades of Gray Competition by Drawing magazine. Invitational Exhibition of Prominent Female Artists by International Arts Gallery; International Research and Study Arts Center. Harmony Art Festival group exhibition “Exploring balance in art: Harmony and Discord” Cityscape Art Gallery: The boat show Painting on the Edge 2015 at the Federation of Canadian Artists- Award second place
2014
Solo exhibition at Nou’Art Gallery, France, Auch Solo exhibition at the Silk Purse gallery, West Vancouver Spilsbury Medal Show at the Federation of Canadian Artists – Bronze medal Award Foliage and Flowers at the Federation of Canadian Artist – Second prize Award Landscape show at the Federation of Canadian Artists Works on paper show at the Federation of Canadian Artists Active members show at the Federation of Canadian Artists
2013
Finalist, International Artist Magazine Winner of the Artist Magazine All media Art Competition in the mixed media category. Exquisite Landscapes, group exhibition at the Cityscape Community Art Gallery. Spilsbury Medal Show at the Federation of Canadian Artists Still life exhibition at the Federation of Canadian artists Landscape Show, at the Federation of Canadian artists- FCA Second Prize Award
2012
Spilsbury Medal Show at the Federation of Canadian artists
2010
3 paintings selected for the Twitter/Art+Social Media Exhibition in the Diane Farris gallery-Vancouver.
2014 Splash 16, the best of Watercolor series. Incite 2, Color Passions: The Best of Mixed Media! Splash 15, the best of Watercolor series.
2013 Princess Park finalist in the Landscape competition of the Aug-Sept issue of International Artist Magazine: First place winner of the all media art competition by the Artist Magazine in the mixed media category Incite, Dreams Realized: The Best of Mixed Media
2011 Splash 13, the best of Watercolor series: Alternative approaches Splash 12, the best of Watercolor series: Celebrating Artistic Vision
2010 Splash 11, the best of Watercolor series: New Directions
2009 Feature Article in Watercolor Artist magazine August issue
