Give someone the gift of Creativity this Holiday Season with Fine Oak Art School!

We know how (not) into going to the mall to look for Christmas presents you are, but we've got something both easy for you and meaningful for that special someone on your Christmas gift list or workplace Secret Santa. 

Erica Beyea of Fine Oak Art School has generously donated a 5 week art course for beginner artists in the medium of their choice! 

Never heard of Fine Oak Art School? It's new! Here's a little bio on the kind of experience you'll be gifting someone:

Fine Oak Art School was founded by Toronto artist and instructor Erica Beyea. She studied Fine Arts at the Ontario College of Art & Design and the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design. Since graduating, she has been teaching and showing her artwork across Canada. Erica has also worked as a curator, gallery assistant and a variety of other roles in the Toronto art scene. 

Fine Oak has developed a program that suits each student’s individual goals. Each class begins with a one-on-one interview where Erica determines your strengths, weaknesses and artistic goals for the session. A curriculum is then developed to meet the needs of every student in the class. Small class sizes of five or seven students ensure that each student gets the attention they require from the instructor, as well as a familiarity with other students and their work. Studio practice and technical skills are reinforced with concept-development and small lessons in art history. Students are exposed further to the art world through gallery tours and visits from working artists and designers. 

This package is valued at over $200, but you can donate just $100 to The About Face Collective and be feeding two birds with one seed! Not only will you be giving a great, unique gift, but you can feel good knowing that you're helping to further our fundraising efforts towards the creation of our rooftop garden!

Please contact us at aboutface@aboutfacecollective.com if you're interested in purchasing this wicked holiday gift!

Greenhouse Gallery Featured Artist Series | Round3: Illustration Nation

Greenhouse Gallery kicks off tomorrow and runs through Sunday!

The three ladies in this round of the artist features each spread their creativity over several mediums; graphic design, photography, painting, writing, drawing, the occasional living room dance party... though, it's probably safe to say that they all primarily identify as illustrators. The first two, admittedly, are serious art-crushes of mine, and the last one, well... the last one's me. I'll leave the bio in third person for good measure. 

Juliana Neufeld 

 
Juliana Neufeld is an illustrator and mixed media artist living and working happily in Toronto, Canada. Her work has been inspired by the whimsy of children’s illustration, journal art and an obsession with textiles. Her work has been showcased in galleries in Japan, France, Los Angeles and across Canada. Some of her working folks include The Globe and Mail, Arts and Crafts Records, Element Skateboards andSpinmaster Toys.

www.juliananeufeld.com 

www.juliananeufeld.tumblr.com

Juliana will have large framed giclee prints as well as limited edition 8x10 prints for sale and silent auction tomorrow and Sunday at Greenhouse Gallery.

 

Kathryn Macnaughton 

Kathryn Macnaughton is an illustrator and graphic artist who lives and works in Toronto. She graduated from Ontario College of Art and Design. She combines her drawings with collage in a hue of light pastel shades, mixing soft pornographic material with random objects, patterns or typefaces. Her work has appeared in magazines, on books and album covers. She recently finished the book covers for six John Steinbeck classic novel for penguin.

www.kathrynmacnaughton.com.

Kathryn will have large paintings and limited edition 8x14 prints for sale and auction tomorrow and Sunday.

Lauren Pirie

 
After a year of wandering around the world, Lauren studied Communication Design at Ryerson University followed by Illustration at OCAD in Toronto, wandering a little more in between. She still thinks some of her most influential education was acquired during summers at camp in Northern Ontario.

Lauren currently spends her days and nights and small hours of the morning making drawings, writing stories and working on various illustration and design projects in music, fashion, and for NGOs like the About Face Collective, an art and environmental project which she co-founded. Lauren likes finding meaning (or simply amusement) in things that make little sense. She likes little things, (but loves run-on sentences).

www.laurenpirie.com

Lauren will have framed drawings, limited edition prints, greeting cards and books for sale and auction tomorrow and Sunday.

Tomorrow's the day! Join us at the Fresh City Greenhouse, 70 Canuck Ave from 11-6 this Saturday AND Sunday. See Facebook event for full details here.

Greenhouse Gallery Featured Artist Series | Round2: Broadbent Nation

We are thrilled to have not one, not two, but all three Broadbent siblings exhibiting this weekend at Greenhouse Gallery. Team Broadbent has been supportive of the AFC since the beginning; contributing art work, working volunteer shifts, dj-ing events, introducing us to our now-project-partners at Sketch... If they weren't so kind and generous, this trio of blond, super-human talents would be pretty intimidating...

Rose Broadbent

Rose Broadbent spends her time making art and traveling the earth. Her work often reflects worldly struggles of power and injustice that she has witnessed. She does not commit to one but many mediums. Rose is a head designer of the collective The New BEAT, while also art director of the vintage fashion line, Bridge & Bardot. Her roots lie in the progressive world of New Media, from which she graduated at Ryerson University. Rose continues to seek to understand, and to create good things in the world.

Rose will have a selection of watercolour pieces for sale and auction this weekend.

www.rosebroadbent.com 

Justin Broadbent

Justin Broadbent is an accomplished Toronto-based multi-disciplinary artist. His work includes video performance, poems, funny ideas, illustration, design, music video direction, and installation. Justin is also a self-taught photographer.

Co-directing music videos under the moniker HotDogGarbage, Justin has done work for recording artists such as Shad and Metric. He has achieved a CBC Bucky Award and three Much Music Video Award nominations for his work.

Justin chooses layered projects that challenged his expectations. His work often centers on meaning-of-life topics, which he delivers with a glimmer of charm and wit. Hence, he’s often reminding people that the sun is a burning ball of fire floating in outer space!

Justin’s work is inspired by the impossibility of a seed becoming a tree, thrift stores, clever lyrics, and human perseverance.

Justin will be have a selection of drawings and collages for sale and auction this weekend, some from his recent residency in Miami.

www.justinbroadbent.com

www.hotdoggarbage.com

 

Joy Broadbent

 

Joy lives and works as a painter in Toronto. She completed her Honours BFA at the University of Western Ontario. Her paintings combine abstraction with representation by way of a diverse range of painterly techniques. The paint itself seems to mask and sometimes reveal bits of organic material and human‐made creations in flat planes of ambiguous origins. Her current works present a mystical vision of rose gardens at night, with themes of revelation, time, destruction and renewal.

Joy will have a selection of large and small paintings for sale and silent auction at Greenhouse Gallery.

www.joybroadbent.com

Greenhouse Gallery | Art Fundraiser for the Everything Roof, this Saturday and Sunday! Facebook event here

Greenhouse Gallery Featured Artist Series | Round1: Hession, Baruchel & Luk

Danielle Hession

Danielle is a long-time friend and supporter of The About Face Collective. We love her not only for her incredible willingness to help out, her sweet-as-pie attitude, and her incredible talent; but also because we nerd out over some common loves.  

Like us, Danielle “takes great satisfaction in recycling discarded items and giving them a new life”. She works with old photographs, papers and imagery and draws inspiration from found objects and ephemera from times past. Though she turns these things into her own new, enchanting images -collaging them and infusing them with handmade marks and colour- her work still imparts a great sense of mystery and nostalgia.

The following are two of Danielle’s pieces that will be up for silent auction at this weekend’s Greenhouse Gallery Art Fundraiser for The Everything Roof. See more on Saturday and Sunday!

daniellehession.com

Danielle Hession, Boom Town Wranglers, 13x40

Danielle Hession, On Your Side, 30 x 30

Virgil Baruchel

Virgil has been around since the beginning of time… at least, the AFC’s time. Virgil has bent over backwards (and jumped over things) to help us out since before we even had a name. We can only assume that his monsters have also been around since the beginning of time. And we’re not sure if their names came before or after their creation (so, before time?), but we really think the titles are the crown jewels on Virg’s work.

You may remember these guys from our last fundraiser show at Arta Gallery. Since then, they’ve been created in far away lands such as Paris and New York and with all sorts of new materials and colour and texture. And sometimes they’re not even monsters anymore. In fact, sometimes Virgil now works with materials he's pulled off the street, like recycled and found wood and metal, to make amazing furniture. Virgil will have a selection of drawings and paintings for sale and auction this weekend.

virgilbaruchel.blogspot.com

Virgil Baruchel, goingtothebanktocashyourcheck(inparis), 50 x 65cm

Virgil's Paris studio, all paintings and furniture by Baruchel

Eunice Luk

Eunice was born in Hong Kong. She now lives and works and makes incredible, fantastical things in Toronto. These precious wonders range from drawings to ceramics, which will be displayed for sale and auction in the Greenhouse Gallery this weekend. We are so excited to these amazing pieces linger and twinkle among the greenery.

Eunice strives to create work that maps the imagination in a synthetic world. In May 2010, she founded Fantasy Camp, an independent publisher of artist books and zines. Eunice studied at Ontario College of Art and Design where she also became one of the founding members of Childface Sausage; the collective will also have work in the show this weekend.

euniceluk.com

Eunice Luk, Skin, Earthenware

Eunice Luk, Coral II & Coral III, Earthenware

We will be featuring more of the artists involved in Greenhouse Gallery Art Fundraiser for The Everything Roof throughout the week. Watch this space and join us Saturday and Sunday for the show, sale and silent auction as well as music and workshops and food, beer and wine.