Artist Garry Hamilton leading more watercolour Zoom classes
Garry Hamilton, a local artist in the town of Brome Lake has teamed up with the prestigious Chesapeake Fine Arts Studio to offer several weeks of online Zoom lessons on watercolour painting.
In a time when so many activities have been cancelled, online classes such as Garry Hamilton’s can serve as a way to improve skills and learn new ones while staying safe and healthy.
One could not be much more qualified than this man to teach an art class.
Hamilton studied at the Ontario College of Art as well as at what was then known as Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University). He worked as a full-time teacher at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario and at Dawson College in Montreal. He also worked as a full-time political cartoonist at The Montreal Star which was a wonderful job, he explained.
While living in Cape Breton, Hamilton had the opportunity to be an extra in a historical movie that was filming there. He explained that while waiting for makeup, a process that was often hours long, he would sketch the other actors and crew. His sketches ended up drawing the attention of the Cape Breton Post and he was offered a bi-weekly column in the paper. In 2006, his writings and sketches for the column were compiled in a book called Trippin’ with Garry.
He is currently the first vice-president of the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour and holds Signature Status with The North East Watercolour Society and the Louisiana Watercolour Society. He is certainly well established as an artist and explained that he’s had a really fun life.
The Chesapeake art classes are a new adventure for him.
Hamilton considers his teaching background an asset but says he still has a way to go to be a pro on the virtual side of things.
“I’m a complete novice,” he admitted. In his studio he has a workstation set up with a webcam to record his classes and explained that he has been having quite a fun time doing them.
He mentioned that for his lessons so far, he has had a pretty small group, but he hopes to get more attendees through local interest. He recently went out with local sketching group Les Croquistes de Knowlton and is hopeful that some members from there will want to pursue their skills in his workshops.
The classes are structured as handson experience and Hamilton provides a sketch beforehand so participants can focus more on the watercolour techniques.
As the classes take place each week they get progressively more involved and cover different subjects.
He explained that he puts a lot of stress on himself to make sure the classes are as good as they can be and he puts a lot of thought into which of his pieces will be used and replicated in the classes. He sees the paintings as teaching tools and considers the new information that he can get and pass on from each painting.
The classes cover topics such as quick sketching, brush handling techniques, colour composition and much more.
Hamilton will be hosting the workshops every Thursday morning in October and interested parties can find the calendar of events for the Chesapeake Fine Art Studio’s numerous virtual classes at this link: http://chesapeakefineartstudio.com/.
To find Garry Hamilton’s classes, one can follow this link, http:// chesapeakefineartstudio.com/weeklyclasses/ and scroll down.
Hamilton mentioned that he feels a strong sense of community in TBL and hopes that residents will be interesting in participating in his watercolour workshops.