Local Artist Captivates Residents with Live Painting Demonstration

Last week we had the privilege of a visit from local artist, Tony Goldthorpe. Tony has an extraordinary pedigree in the art world, having been schooled in landscape techniques at the world-famous Bob Ross Academy near Daytona Beach, Florida.

Tony has been an artist for 30 years and has also been tutored by other famous artists to perfect the art of painting flowers and wildlife (including pets). Tony takes many commissions to capture peoples’ pets on canvas.

Tony’s story is a fascinating one, given that he changed the course of his life and followed his passion for painting after a serious car crash. Tony is an object lesson of following your dreams and that good things can come out of incidents that are seemingly bad at first!

Tony’s art demonstration in the main lounge of the Alexandra was one of the most interesting visits we have ever had. The ability to turn a plain canvas into a stunning landscape within 40 minutes (including putting a titanium white wash over the canvass and letting it dry) was incredible.

The audience could not take their eyes off Tony’s work as he calmly added layers and structure to the piece, explaining what he was doing at each stage. Tony’s demonstration was interlaced with jokes, which made the experience even more entertaining. It was intriguing to see how Tony manipulated paint around the canvass, used different brush stroke techniques and blending colours to achieve his desired impressions – such as shadows, snow, fluffy clouds, reflections on water, dappled light on tree branches, and so on …

Incredibly, Tony then carried out a demonstration of speed painting flowers using the limited colour pallet he had used for the mountain scene. This time, Tony laid down a black wash first, which made the vivid flowers pop off the dark canvas. The flower painting took less than 30 minutes to complete!

The stages of Tony’s art are posted on our Facebook page and also on Google My Business. It is worth taking a look to appreciate just how incredibly talented Tony is.

The mountain landscape and the flowers that Tony painted were kindly donated to the home and Ian, our activities coordinator, will be putting them up on display soon – they do take a few days to dry due to the linseed oil infused into the paints.

Tony will be back to do a class where some residents will be able to have a go at painting their own landscapes. We look forward to that.

Article by Kelly Farrington