Demo in Banff

Alice and I in the back, and a guest in front trying her hand at painting. ( photos by Doug Johnston)

Back from an overnight trip to Banff to paint ( with fellow Calgary artist Alice Helwig ) a demo for Mountain Galleries at the Banff Springs Hotel in one of their beautiful ball rooms. The room was dimly lit and set up as a fancy cocktail bar with stand up tables draped in white table clothes and servers passing around hot hor d'oeuvres...and then there was us. With our painting easels, plastic table coverings,brown paper on the floor and our 'dirty' painting clothes,the spotlight was on us..  Painting in front of a large group ( 600+ ), is still relatively new for me ,but having Alice there was a huge help as we interacted and tried to paint. Mountain Galleries also had a blank canvas set up to invite guests to add a few splashes of color.Guests were timid at first,but by the end of the night the canvas was full thanks to the encouragement of gallery staff John and Aimee and artist friend Douglas Johnston ( thank-you ). It was a very successful evening, and we capped it off with some beer and pizza afterward.