Well the Local Colour Art Group art show concluded last weekend.  It was a busy, fun time.  Our wine and cheese reception on the Friday evening was entertained by the Royal Canadian Band of HMCS Chippawa.  Not what you think.  This group of 4 musician had everyone tapping their toes and dancing by themselves.  Most of their tunes were jazz standards and very professionally done.  Saturday and Sunday shows were not as well attended as we had hoped, but the artists and all the volunteers had a fun time.

Attached are a few photos I took at the show.

Art Show

Well the fall season is upon us much too quickly I might add, and with it comes the art show season.  The Local Colour Art Group is holding their annual fall art show and sale, starting on November 1st, with a wine and cheese reception from 7PM - 9PM.  The show continues on Saturday, November 2nd  from 10AM till 5PM and on Sunday November 3rd from noon till 4PM.  This is one of the best art shows in Winnipeg.   We have 40 artists displaying their work, there will be entertainment on Friday evening, a door prize draw, demonstrations throughout the show, a refreshment room, and we have a raffle for several pieces of art donated by club members.  The proceeds of the raffle will go to a very worthy cause, Winnipeg Harvest.  So if you're looking for something to do come down and say hello, I guarantee that you will enjoy your visit.

There will be approximately 400 pieces of framed art on display, countless unframed art, art cards, fridge magnets, bookmarks and anything else you can name for sale at surprisingly low prices.

The show is at the Elmwood/East Kildonan Active Living Centre, 180 Poplar Avenue in Winnipeg.  It is located at the corner of Polar and Brazier Avenue, one block east of Henderson Highway.

Attached is a sample of my art that will be on display at the show.

Hope to see you all there.  

                                                          SNOOZING AT THE ZOO

A neighbour's gift

Because I'm still in the summer phase of my painting, meaning that I'm not doing very much painting at all, I thought I'd show you another one of my old favourites.
Just to give you a little background on why I selected this subject, I'll tell you the story behind this painting.  One morning I opened my garage door and across the lane peeking through the fence was this nice bunch of petunia flowers.  I thought gee, this would make a nice subject for a painting and planned to take a few photos of it later and paint from that.  By the time I got around to taking some pictures it was a very windy day and the flowers were bending sideways in the wind, not making it a good subject for a photo.  I thought I'll wait for a calm day and take the pictures later, but by the time I got around to it the flowers had dried up and all that was left were the leaves of the plant.  I thought I'd try pinching the dried up flowers back and waiting and voila, the flowers came back nicer then ever and made an excellent subject to paint.
Painting flowers is not my speciality but I persevered through six different versions of my painting, getting more frustrated with each version.  However on the seventh version everything seemed to fall into place and my result was something that I liked and hope you do too.

Your comments are much appreciated, so let me know what you think.

Since I haven't done any paintings that I feel are something that I would like to share with my friends, I thought I'd show you a few of my older favourites and the stories that go with them.

The First one is a painting of an old, abandoned house on Prince Edward Island.  My wife Joan and I vacationed there in the early spring several years ago.  One of the subjects I love to paint are old houses, so I thought, old houses and autumn foliage go together, so I started this painting.  The painting did not go well initially, the nice red trees that I imagined were too garish, I add rocks in front and had trees growing out of them, in other words it was a real mess.  Then one evening about a year later I was looking for something to play with so I pulled out this old abandoned painting.  I wet it, lifted out some of the colours I didn't like and just had a good time with it, not worrying about wether I would ruin it or not.  I guess I had something in mind that my first art teacher Leona Brown told me, "never give up on a painting".  When I finished it I put it in my art club show.  It won the People's Choice award for best watercolour, it was published in a pamphlet advertising the Local Colour Art Club, and it sold too.
So I guess Leona was right.  I hope you enjoy it too.

The second painting is "Strawberries on Deck".  My wife was looking for some hanging pots one spring, so I went to Superstore where they were clearing out strawberries in hanging pots for $1.84, what a bargain!

 I bought a couple and hung them on our deck that summer.  The plant produced strawberries and in the fall I took them out of the pot and put them in the ground for the winter.  Next year they produced more strawberries for us to enjoy once more.  I took some photos of it and did two versions of the hanging strawberries.  Both paintings sold quite quickly, so the $1.84 I paid for those strawberries turned out to be one of the best bargains I ever got.

Have a look and let me know what you think.

Some of my old favourite things

Too hot to go outside today so I thought I'd blog and show you some of my newer and some older paintings.  I'm a born and bred city boy from Winnipeg, but I seem to have a love of grain elevators and rural settings as well as cityscapes that bring back fond memories.  Attached are some grain elevator paintings, a little country schoolhouse in Osage, Saskatchewan and an old street car in Winnipeg.  I enjoyed painting all of them and I hope you enjoy looking at them.  Let me know what you think.  All of the paintings are available for sale, framed or unframed so let me know if you're interested.

Shortdale Station

Lately my focus has been on nostalgia, old trains, buildings, cars, streetcars, etc.  The last art show at the Local Colour Art Group of which I am a member selected a theme of nostalgia.  Each artist was asked to display at least one piece of art showing their interpretation of nostalgia.  That was a piece of cake for me as my whole board was nothing but nostalgia.  My painting shows a train going through the small community of Shortdale, Manitoba, a tiny community which has a special connection for me , because my parents owned the general store there in the 1920s.

You may purchase this watercolour painting, matted and framed in a 16" x 20" black metal frame.
Contact me at fperch@mts.net for price.

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to my Blog. This is the place to view and comment on my latest watercolour paintings, and find out where and when I'll be showing them. I hope you'll keep coming back, and do keep in mind that some of the paintings here are for sale and I also take commission work.

I also have a website www.fredperchaluk.com where you can see some of the best of my older work. Thanks for dropping by! Now here's a couple of my latest watercolours...

Above: The Gooderham Building (commonly referred to as the Flatiron Building) a historic landmark in Toronto.

Above: The now demolished Shanghai Restaurant in Winnipeg's China Town.