If you haven’t got your tickets yet, now is the time to do it! Get them HERE
or visit the box office at the theatre:
Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts,
10268 Yonge Street
Richmond Hill, ON – Canada
Over 150 of our finalists’ watercolours from over 80 countries around the world have been selected from both our ‘A Symphony in Watercolour’ and our ‘150 Ways to Celebrate’ Exhibitions and will be projected on a huge screen behind the Richmond Hill Philharmonic Orchestra as they play a selection of music inspired by art and nature, which embraces cultural diversity. We will also have two master artists Andy Sookrah and Bonnie Steinberg interpreting the music live as we listen and watch. It is an evening not to be missed!
Art and music bring people together regardless of race, religion, culture, or distance. Let’s embrace that together!
International Artists Gather For Cultural Event in Richmond Hill
Tomorrow, watercolour artists from all over the globe will gather in Richmond Hill, Ontario, just north of Toronto, to celebrate the opening of ‘A Symphony in Watercolour’.
The exhibition, jointly presented by the International Watercolour Society of Canada (IWS Canada) and the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour/La Société Canadienne De Peintres En Aquarelle (CSPWC/SCPA), will feature the work of 95 watercolour artists from Canada and around the world. From a total of 320 entries from 32 countries who entered the competition earlier this year, 80 finalists were juried into “A Symphony in Watercolour” by Anne McCartney CSPWC, Peter Marsh CSPWC, and Rainbow Ze (youth juror). The other 15 artists are winners from last year’s IWS Canada online exhibition and attending jurors, as well as presidents and vice-presidents of the presenting societies.
The five day festival opening the exhibit will continue the next day with a presentation merging painting, video and photography by renowned artist David McEown, winner of IWS Canada’s 2017 online competition ‘150 Ways to Celebrate’, a Canada 150 event. This presentation will take place at Richmond Hill Central Library as part of the Canada-wide Culture Days event. In addition, “Experiment with Watercolour” activities will be set up so the public can try it out.
Other activities for the five day festival include field trips to various places in the area for plein air painting, photography, and general tourist enjoyment, such as the Oak Ridges Moraine, Black Creek Pioneer Village, the David Dunlap Observatory, Toronto Island, and the CN Tower 360 restaurant. Some of these activities are free, others will have costs associated with them. Of special note is a field trip to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, which the gallery is providing to the IWS Canada and CSPWC/SCPA group as a sponsored event for this festival. Further information for all of these activities is available at IWSCanada.ca.
A very special part of this exhibition will be a live performance by the Richmond Hill Philharmonic Orchestra, called ‘Symphonic Watercolours’, which will take place to close the exhibit, on October 27, 2018, at 8 p.m. A slide show of the beautiful watercolour art in the exhibit will accompany music specially selected to enhance its viewing. In addition, live interpretive painting will be performed by Andrew Sookrah and Bonnie Steinberg. The theatre will also display a selection of actual paintings from the exhibit. It will truly be ‘A Symphony in Watercolour’.
Where: Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada – various venues – mainly Boynton House and Burr House
Who: The International Watercolour Society of Canada (IWS Canada) (A Branch of the International Watercolor Society (IWS Globe)) and the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour/La Société Canadienne De Peintres En Aquarelle (CSPWC/SCPA)
When: September 28 to October 27, 2018
What: ‘A Symphony in Watercolour’ – an international exhibit and festival of watercolour art
Why: To celebrate the medium of watercolour, and how diverse cultures can be brought together through their enthusiasm for common interests, while appreciating their differences.
The painting in the featured graphic at the top, Colour of Music, is by one of our jurors, Anne McCartney CSPWC, AWS, TWSA
The painting in this graphic is ‘Inner Symphony’ by Ona Kingdon, CSPWC, NWS, TWSA, IWS Master – President of IWS Canada. (Subject is Jessica Kun, the artistic director of the Richmond Hill Philharmonic Orchestra.)
IWS Canada would like to once again sincerely thank our sponsors!
Booths and exhibition will be open from noon until 5:00 pm within the garden area of Boynton House.
12:00 – 12:15 pm: Welcome speeches and official ribbon cutting ceremony by the Presidents of IWS Canada, IWS Globe & CSPWC/SCPA on the porch of Boynton House
The following events will then take place in booths in the fenced garden area of Boynton House or on the main porch of Boynton House: 12:15-12:45 pm Demos of products/talks by QoR and Da Vinci 1:00-1:30 pm Demos of products/talks by Winsor & Newton and RockWell
1:45-2:45 pm Demos by IWS Master watercolour artists Ze Ze Lai (vice president of IWS Globe)
and Rainbow Tse (youth juror for our show)
2:30-3:00 pm Live music by the Hill Chamber Players on the porchway of Boynton House
3:00 pm Award presentations and speeches on the porch of Boynton House
3:45-4:00 pm More live music by the Hill Chamber Players 4:00-4:30 pm Demos/talks by Daniel Smith and DeSerres
4:30-5:00 pm Chance to talk to people at booths and see exhibition at your leisure.
6:00-8:00 pm: An informal gathering of artists and art lovers; a time to relax, socialize and see the rest of the exhibition. Watch the Burr House spinners, weavers and potters at work. Tea and scones will also be available at a small charge.
Saturday, Sept. 29.
Richmond Hill Central Library, 1 Atkinson St., Richmond Hill, ON L4C 0H5
10:00- 3:00 pm 3rd floor of library: Try your hand at watercolour, an activity sponsored by DeSerres, where we can give back to the local community. Connect with people from Richmond Hill and experiment with simple techniques for painting in watercolour. 10:00-10:50 am Watercolour demo by Michael Solovyev, IWS Canada International Director. Watch him create a painting and ask questions.
10:55- 11:50 am Watercolour demo by Atanur Dogan, IWS Globe President and Founder. Watch a painting come to life before your eyes.
12:00-1:15 pm Take in David McEown’s presentation: ‘Water & Light, an Artist’s Journey from Antarctica to the North Pole”. David narrates an entertaining digital show that merges painting, video and photography inspired from travels in the Great Bear Rainforest, Africa, Antarctica and the North Pole. Stories of chance encounters with many creatures including polar bears and emperor penguins are woven together with reflections on the environment, and the inner creative process of painting with watercolour. 2:00- 3:00 pm Watercolour demo by Vera Bobson, CSPWC
As you can see, there is plenty to keep an artist interested. These watercolour artists that are demonstrating, are some of the best in the whole world. Almost like attending a workshop only without the fee! Both days are registered Canada-wide Culture Days events.
Those are just the first two days of the exhibition. All information that you could possibly want, including maps, are on the home page of our website iwscanada.ca.
Gather a friend or two and have a fun field trip!!
We have three more very exciting awards to announce for our Symphony in Watercolour Exhibition. Thank you to RockWell and Eureka Global Art for donating these generous awards!
The RockWell/Eureka Award 1- will win the Award to participate in an event in China, with other International Masters. The trip will be totally free (some conditions apply), and a free Rockwell Master solid water color set of 24 colors.
The RockWell/ Eureka Award 2- will win the full accommodation Award to participate in an event in China, with other International Masters, (some conditions apply), and a free Rockwell Master solid water color set of 12 colors.
The RockWell/Eureka Award 3- The 3rd top Artist, will win a free Rockwell Master solid water color set of 12 colors.
For more information on our ‘A Symphony in Watercolour’ Exhibition visit our home page.
Located on 100 acres of forested land along the Humber River, the McMichael is a major public gallery uniquely devoted to collecting The Art of Canada.
The McMichael’s permanent collection consists of over 6,500 artworks by Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, their contemporaries, First Nations, Métis, Inuit and contemporary artists who have contributed to the development of Canadian art.
We will be visiting the gallery on Monday, October 1, 2018 as part of our Five Day Celebration Event to open our exhibit ‘A Symphony in Watercolour’ at Boynton House and Burr House in Richmond Hill, Ontario. The gallery has generously sponsored this field trip for us – thank you McMichael Gallery!
For more information about our entire event please visit our home page.
Some very lucky artist is going to win the DeSerres Award at our Symphony in Watercolour Exhibition which opens September 28th at Boynton House, on Richmond Green, Richmond Hill, Ontario. It includes a wealth of Fabriano and Arches paper and several other goodies too.
Thank you DeSerres from all of us at IWS Canada and CSPWC/SCPA!
DeSerres will also have a booth on our opening day and have supplied some paper for our visiting master artists to use for their plein air painting that day. They are also helping to run the ‘Let’s try Watercolour ‘ Activity at the Richmond Hill Central Library on September 29th.
For more details of our Five Days of Celebration event please visit iwscanada.ca or view our 5 day event pdf.
We are really excited to count down the days to go until the festival begins! In case you haven’t visited the website lately, we have a whole bunch of information available on the home page, and also on the exhibit page. But we thought we’d put a lot of it in this blog post anyway!
First: here is the poster our sponsor Focal Designs designed for us. Thank you Focal Designs!
If you click on the link above you’ll see the poster – these will be on display all over Richmond Hill and further afield. We are hoping that some kind souls might choose to print one copy themselves and help us out with our advertising!
Second: A map of where it is all happening can be found here. The map includes the two exhibit locations:
Boynton House & Richmond Green
1300 Elgin Mills Road East
Richmond Hill, ON L4S 1M5
Burr House Gallery & Tea Room
528 Carrville Rd,
Richmond Hill, ON L4C 6E6
The ribbon cutting occurs at noon at Boynton House and Richmond Green on September 28. We will have some music at 2:30, then awards and speeches at 3:00 pm. The exhibition paintings at Boynton House will of course be available all afternoon until 5:00 pm, and many of the master painters will be attending. Throughout the afternoon there will be opportunities for plein air painting. Also, there will be representatives from Winsor & Newton, QoR Watercolours, Daniel Smith, DeSerres Art Store, Da Vinci paints and RockWell Art Supplies demonstrating products.
At 6:00 pm, the opening day will continue at Burr House where the rest of the exhibition paintings will be on display. Tea and scones will be available, and you can observe the local spinners and weavers at work in this heritage building. Our opening day will end at 8:00 pm.
You’ll find the locations of all the festivities happening during the Five Day Celebration Event (September 28-October 2), and the location of the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts, which is where the concert “Symphonic Watercolours” is being performed by the Richmond Hill Philharmonic Orchestra on October 27, to close the show, on the MAP.
Third: here is most of the event information briefly summarized in one graphic suitable for sharing on social media.
Painting is ‘Inner Symphony’ by Ona Kingdon, CSPWC, NWS, TWSA, IWS Master – President of IWS Canada. (Subject is Jessica Kun, the artistic director of the Richmond Hill Philharmonic Orchestra.)
Fourth: here is a summary of the information for the Five Days of Festivities:
Painting is ‘Colour of Music’ by Anne McCartney, CSPWC, AWS, TWSA – one of the jurors for ‘A Symphony in Watercolour’.
Fifth: A more detailed outline of the Five Day Celebration Event is here.
Remember – you are invited, and so are your friends, and their friends… please tell them all about it.
Escoda brushes have very kindly donated 3 of these awesome travel brush sets as awards for our ‘A Symphony in Watercolour’ Exhibition. The awards will be announced at our opening event on September 28th at Boynton House on Richmond Green, Richmond Hill Ontario, Canada. (MAP of all event locations here)
Thank you Escoda for your generous sponsorship from all of us at IWS Canada and CSPWC.
For more information about our five day event visit our home page at iwscanada.ca or view our 5 day event pdf .
This is our second exhibition venue and is also where local spinners, weavers and potters create their masterpieces. You can see them at work when we visit the part of the exhibition there.
Burr House is another heritage building within Richmond Hill. It has plenty of parking at the back and is located beside a ravine. Traditional tea and scones will be offered from 6-8 pm on the evening of September 28. They also have a store selling local artisans’ work.
IWS Canada 