February: So much Snow. I mean Art.

Welcome to almost halfway through February already! I really did mean to draft this newsletter earlier but here we go. Life has been wonderfully busy and full. Here’s a look at what went on in the past month or so.

My biggest win from January is completing the panda mural. It is currently drying / curing in my studio until it can be safely taken down, touched up, and varnished. Installation will happen in the spring in Chinatown, I will definitely share the process!

I had the honour of being one of the featured artists at Art Battle in January, due to my win in December. I painted a figure inspired by the singer Aurora surrounded by my favourite flowers to paint, namely peonies and roses. The piece was auctioned off at the end of the evening and I miss it already!

We had our January and February Artawa meetups, and I managed to submit a grant application to help us launch an end of year group exhibition for Artawa members. It forced me to formalize things a little more. I have been working on the website, adding membership registrations, and thinking of workshops to offer as well as looking up venues to have our end of year, 10th anniversary group exhibition at. Super exciting, more details soon! But for now if you ever want to hang out with other creatives and bring an art project of your own that you feel needs a bit of love, come to our next meetup on March 8th. More details here.

I secured a skateboard to paint for the All Hands On Deck charity auction at Beyond the Pale Brewery. The boards sold out FAST and I feel very lucky to have grabbed one. I will be posting progress of my artwork on it as well as more info on placing bids on the many incredible works going up for sale and supporting a great cause.

I am busy on Wednesdays teaching my acrylic cloud painting class and it has been going wonderfully! I have a great group of talented students learning all about value studies and colour theory and of course, how to make beautiful fluffy clouds. My next class in the spring will be all about FOOD! More info coming soon for that one.

On the easel I have a variety of new canvases that I am preparing. I’m trying something new, where I am preparing a bunch “in bulk” so to speak. Michael’s had a 2 for 1 canvas sale recently and I picked up a bunch of gallery stretched canvases. I did an undercoat / primed them all with a similar colour and I have been putting on their hanging hardware in advance so that I don’t end up needing to do it to a drying painting and potentially damage it.

I have a couple new murals on the horizon and I am really excited about them! I am still looking for bookings for the rest of 2026. My goal is to try to have one mural project per month, ideally. If you are looking for or know someone who is, please share my info with them! I am still in the process of adding my past murals to my website, but my social media has a decent amount of coverage of my recent murals.

Ahh the website update that forever keeps getting pushed back… along with updating my Etsy shop.. There are only so many hours in the day!

Coming up for the rest of February, we have one more Art Battle, on Valentine’s day! Pretty much the ultimate date night out. Great music, entertainment, and affordable art by professional artists who you get to see creating their masterpieces right before your eyes! I’d call that a pretty cool date :) Get your tickets for the next Art Battle here, at Overflow Brewery this Saturday at 7pm.

That’s all from me for now. See you again in March!

Live painting at Swizzles alongside Sara Prisma, making some fun UV Reactive paintings. This one is available if you are interested, just shoot me an email!