Neilson Park Creative Centre in Etobicoke is currently exhibiting the work of their many instructors, including me, and the work (and its range) is wonderful to see!

If you missed my show at the Culinaria Restaurant in Mississauga, six of the new paintings from that are in this show, along with several of Kal Honey's beautiful pieces.

​I hope you get a chance to see it and if you do please leave a comment below and let me know what you thought, what your highlights were.

ONE DAY GALLERY WALK
It's baaaack!!
My Almost-Famous Gallery Walk & Talk!
Sat March 25, 2017
11:00am – 4:00pm
$50 (just for the tour, all food, drink and TTC/parking costs you pay directly as needed).

Many people have asked about/clamoured for the return of my Gallery Walk & Talk, so here it is! 

In these tours, aside from selecting the galleries and exhibitions we visit on the basis of what artists and venues are interesting and worth a visit, I also act as a resource and guide to the work, offering background, insight and a "way in" to the contemporary art which these Walk & Talks focus on.

As usual, I will pick a gallery area in Toronto for us to explore, we'll meet at a coffee shop where you'll receive a copy of the itinerary, we'll have a cup of tea or coffee and chat about what's planned for the day. Then we'll head off to our first gallery.
We'll likely visit a couple before lunch, have lunch at a moderately-priced restaurant or café in the area then continue on to more galleries, probably with a short coffee break in the middle.

These have proved very popular in the past, with many people returning again and again. Good, thoughtful and congenial company and conversation, makes for a very interesting and stimulating day.

Can't guarantee accessible access to all venues I'm afraid. Group size will be limited (to the benefit of everyone I think). Payment in advance, no refunds.
If you're interested, please contact me directly.

ONE-DAY WORKSHOP
Back by popular demand (the Fall workshop had a long waiting list)!
​The Art & Science of Image Transfers for Mixed Media
Weds March 29, 2017
9:30am – 3:00pm
​Markham Group of Artists (link)
In the latest version of this always-evolving workshop, we’ll discuss what makes a good image for transferring; zero in on transfer techniques and materials that produce interesting and versatile results; look at some creative strategies for integrating the transfers into mixed media artworks. $30 Materials fee and list. Contact me if you'd like an easier-to-read (much less overwhelming!) materials list than the one on the website. (Btw, ignore the "soft gel" listed, just bring polymer medium.)
​
JURYING
Oshawa Art Association's 50th Anniversary Juried Exhibition (for members)
Sat April 1, 2017
​Oshawa Art Association (link)
It will be an honour to act as co-juror (one of three) for the association's 50th anniversary show.

NINE-WEEK COURSES
Drawing the Tough Bits 
(Face & Head & Hands & Feet)
Apr. 5 – May 31, 2017 (9 weeks)
9:30am – 12:30pm
Neilson Park Creative Centre (link)
Registration opens March 6 for members, March 8 for non-members.
Are you relieved when you can avoid the face, head, hands and feet of the people in your drawings and paintings? It's time to put an end to that fear! In this supportive environment, you'll be given the tools and knowledge to understand and work with the structures that give the face, head, hands and feet their defining characteristics. You'll learn to see them more clearly and get lots of practice drawing them, working from a live model. Small materials fee and list.
 
It's back! Figurative Art: Drawn and Beyond
Apr. 5 – May 31, 2017 (9 weeks)
1:00pm – 4:00pm
Neilson Park Creative Centre (link)
Registration opens March 6 for members, March 8 for non-members.
Not a classical life drawing class! Work with a life model as a doorway to exploring artistic thinking and approaches, expression and ways of seeing. Learn how to get more out of your tools and materials and try some you haven’t used before, or in ways you haven’t tried. Each term is different, each week looks to stretch your creative muscles, build your skills and abilities, help you see in new ways. One week leads into the next with an occasional sharp turn. Drawing-based but includes some other and mixed media. $10 materials fee payable to the instructor. Check NPCC website for materials list.

WEEKEND WORKSHOP
Shake It Up! Contemporary Approaches to Abstract Painting
Saturday/Sunday Apr. 29/30, 2017
9:30am – 4:00pm
Neilson Park Creative Centre (link)
Registration opens March 6 for members, March 8 for non-members.
Get a creative workout with Kim-Lee Kho to refresh and shake up the starting points and sources for your artwork and ideas. See what contemporary abstract artists are doing, how they mix things up and how the vocabulary of paint has changed. Stretch your art-making muscles by trying fun and adventurous processes – Kim will be there every step of the way! $35 materials fee payable to the instructor covers a host of specialized and unconventional tools and materials you will need. Check NPCC website for materials list.

LECTURE-PRESENTATION
A Contemporary Language of Paint
Weds May 10, 2017, 7:00pm
​Oshawa Art Association (link)
Much of contemporary painting is very interested in and pushes the vocabulary of paint, using and modifying its properties in diverse and unexpected ways to create paintings that surprise, wonderful optical effects and rich tactile experiences.

Anyone who is painting in a way that is not about replicating the camera or following a specific tradition, needs to grapple with the material of the paint itself. Most artists do so in a pretty limited way if at all, so I will show a range of contemporary work (including my own) that really makes painterly vocabulary and properties a central focus of the work. I will follow up the presentation with a concise demo to show a few ways of working with acrylic paint and modifying its behaviour to achieve some different effects. 

WEEK-LONG INTENSIVE
In downtown Toronto (OCADU campus)!
Mixed Media with Photos & Image Transfers
Monday June 12 – Friday June 16, 2017
9:00am to 4:30pm
Haliburton School of Art + Design (link)
Re-energize your painting and mixed media, and give it a more contemporary flavour by exploring methods of integrating photography and image transfers.

Working directly with photographs, learn various image transfer methods – what they're good for, when to use which, and how to work with them creatively.

In a combination of structured exercises and personal exploration, you'll layer, distress, work into, and interfere with your mixed media and images to better integrate and reveal contrasting visual material. Work with and against the rectangle, enriching your work with meaning and association. Materials fee and list. Suited to most levels, including advanced, but some previous art-making experience is required.

WEEK-LONG INTENSIVE
One of my most popular courses
Acrylics – Explore, Express, Experiment
​Mon July 24 – Friday July 28, 2017
9:00am to 4:30pm
​Haliburton School of Art + Design (link)
The most versatile of all paint media, acrylics can do almost anything you want.

Through the magic of acrylic mediums you can change the appearance, behaviour and characteristics of acrylics in surprising ways, from pourable glazes to texturized and transparent impasto, layered encaustic-like effects to sculpted surfaces.

In this intensive, materials and process-based course, a variety of acrylic mediums, physical processes and techniques will be explored. These may include drip, scrape, scratch, scumble, tickle, pour, squeeze, sculpt, roll, collage, layer, making skins and embedding objects. You will also investigate tools - how to select, use and customize them, with particular emphasis on unconventional choices. Materials fee and list. 
All levels and abilities are welcome (including advanced or pro), the only prerequisite is an open mind and an adventurous spirit.

​LECTURE-PRESENTATION
New & improved!
THIS ISN'T PHOTOGRAPHY:
The expanding (and sometimes surprising!) use of photos by contemporary artists
​Weds July 26, 5:00pm (I think!)
​Haliburton School of Art + Design (link)

Using photographic material and playing with how to use it, is a deeply contemporary way to work with imagery and perception and the way we experience the world now.

Starting with photography’s development, what we tend to believe about it, what it made possible, we will move into the uses of photography by contemporary artists, including in visual artworks that are not “photography”. 

While not well-understood, photography’s role is rich, lively and and incredibly diverse part of contemporary art in sometimes surprising – even hidden – ways. 

As a multidisciplinary artist, presenter Kim-Lee Kho works in various photo-based mixed media forms herself including prints, video, sculpture and textile. Kim also teaches photo-based mixed media for HSA+D and elsewhere – exploring the various technical challenges as well as the vast creative possibilities.

WEEK-LONG INTENSIVE
Brand-new!
Acrylic Glazing & Encaustic Effects
​Mon July 31 – Friday August 4, 2017
9:00am to 4:30pm
​Haliburton School of Art + Design (link)
From the Old Masters to cutting-edge contemporary artists, the use of transparent paint glazes is a tradition that has come a long way. In this process and materials-based course you will learn the language of transparent colour in acrylics, how to mix and work with glazes, which mediums to use when, and the importance of dilution, sheen and thickness.

Glazing will be complemented with the rich surfaces and translucent depth of encaustic effects in acrylics. In structured exercises and your own creative explorations you will work with layering, blending, painterly marks, impasto surfaces and combine acrylics with other media to create depth and invite light into your paintings. Materials fee and list.
​
Very suitable for students who have taken acrylics courses and workshops with me in the past, particularly involving the use of mediums. In this course we can focus more and get more in-depth with glazing and encaustic effects in particular, and explore the creative potentials of them.

SOLO EXHIBITION
Heart of a Wanderer
Mon Sept 11 – 24, 2017
Reception: Thurs Sept 14, 7:00–9:00pm
Otto Art (in The Junction area of Toronto)
Very excited to be presenting a whole new kind of work at this charming gallery in one of Toronto's most creative neighbourhoods! Heart of a Wanderer will combine drawing and text, narrative and heart-based work, originals and (affordable!) multiples. Stay tuned for sneak peeks in my blog and on social media in the coming months!

ONE-DAY WORKSHOP
Acrylic Painting: Thick & Thin
Sat or Sun, October 14 or 15, 2017
Quest Art School + Gallery (link), Midland ON
With the remarkable range and versatility of acrylic paints, you can enrich the visual and tactile qualities of your paintings by pushing out from the flatness of your canvas or panel and making delicious relief surfaces or working thinly and transparently. Best of all, you can combine the effects to create the richest results! 

In this workshop we will discuss ways to thin and thicken the paint, (trying out some of the most useful and reliable), technical considerations, and look at some of the creative possibilities as well, through a combination of recent and contemporary art history, show & tell, demonstration, hands-on exercises and “playtime” (aka open exploration).

Instructor Kim-Lee Kho will provide some materials so you can fully enjoy the content of this workshop and benefit from it. A basic materials fee of $10 will cover that. The necessary acrylic mediums will also be available at a cost of $3 per 4oz for acrylic polymer gloss; $5 per 4oz for gloss gel (prices subject to change depending on supplier costs of course). We will work with both. Please read through the materials list to make sure you are fully equipped!

I am thrilled to invite you to visit me at In Situ, a three-night multi-arts event located in the gorgeously dilapidated, abandoned industrial space called The Small Arms Building.

Back in World War II it was used to manufacture small arms (the mother of one of my students actually worked there!).

The big spaces have very high ceilings and fabulous factory-style windows. There are many other rooms too, from welding booths to offices. 

I will be among 30 or so artists, including dancers, DJ, musicians, pop-up performances of various kinds, video art, visual art and conceptual craft... who knows what else?

I have been given an entire room to work with, about 20ft by 50ft, and I can hardly contain my excitement!

One brand-new work
will be a photo-based sculpture and light installation. I've been wanting to make it for
a few years now and realized this event
​would be the perfect opportunity.

There are some existing pieces that link thematically, at least one of which hasn't been shown in Ontario before.

And there are other new pieces, also linked thematically, that I have dreamt up especially for this setting.

I will be working night and day on this project because I think it will be really special – the setting alone! – so I am taking on new approaches and formats that extend but grow from the work I've been doing.

If I have any strength left I will also be doing live, large-scale drawing for some of the time.

Please join me.
​It's a special event at an extraordinary location – an opportunity that doesn't come along very often!

​Let me know when you know when you'll be attending and I will do my best to be there in person for you. (It's a lot of hours, so I can't be there for all of them.)

Three nights, 7pm–midnight:
Thurs, Fri & Sat, October 27, 28 & 29, 2016

Location:
Small Arms Building
1352 Lakeshore Rd East
(at the foot of Dixie Rd)

TICKETS (discounts for students, seniors and artists):
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/in-situ-tickets-27937520877
​
More information:
smallarmssociety.wixsite.com/smallarmsbuilding/insitu

What a weekend! We started on Saturday morning by setting up Kal Honey's booth in the rain at Trinity-Bellwoods Park for the Queen West Art Crawl. Poor Kal was operating on only one hour of sleep! 

We had a couple of hours of rain but it was grey and quite cool so there was not a great turnout. Outdoor events like this are so dependent on the weather.

Despite discouraging conditions we had friends  and other visitors to our booth, especially later in the afternoon when things picked up.

After packing up all the art I dragged poor, exhausted Kal over to Red Head Gallery so I could see my brand-new piece (which I had barely managed to look at before delivering it) hanging in their Nuit Blanche show Bright Lights at Night.

The gallery was already busy when we arrived but not packed the way it typically becomes during the peak hours – we were there a little early on purpose.

There was a lot of work (and a real variety) so it was hung salon-style. I could have wished for more even light on my piece but I could also see the challenge they had lighting the show in general. It was nice to see it out in the world. Many thanks to those who paid it a visit!

On Sunday we arrived at Trinity-Bellwoods to glorious sunshine and our first spotting of the famous albino (or more likely, white genetic variant) squirrel there (see photo bottom left). 

Set-up was so much easier in that weather and with a lot more sleep under our belts, and except for one shortish period of rain, the weather remained excellent all day. As a result the crowds arrived so we had a very busy afternoon, lots of interest, some sales and more visits from friends and family (photo lower right).

In addition to all the art and craft on display there was a stage where a wide variety of live music was performed, by bands and djs, with the gaps filled by the radio station Indie88 who was on-site the whole weekend.

The beer garden was located very near the stage and there were always people dancing in front of the stage, especially when the TD Dancers (provided by the key sponsor) were out onstage or interacting with the audience.

All in all a pretty good first experience doing an outdoor art fair. Maybe next year Kal will apply for the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition...

This Saturday/Sunday (October 1, 7pm through to October 2, 7am) is Nuit Blanche in Toronto, the amazing annual contemporary art event.

Along with the official event there are other things going on, including the Queen West Art Crawl which itself features original art & artists, live music, beer garden and a kids zone. The heart of QWAC is the outdoor art exhibition in Trinity-Bellwoods park.

​I will be helping out my husband Kal Honey at his booth (J11) in the outdoor art show, 11am–6pm on both Saturday and Sunday. Please drop by and say hi!

Also, already up and showing at The Red Head Gallery (401 Richmond Street West), I have a new multi-image photographic piece entitled "Winter Storm, Canadian Highway". The gallery will be open until 1:00am Sunday morning for Nuit Blanche.

TWO-DAY WORKSHOP:
June 22 & 23, 2016
9:30am – 4:00pm
​Neilson Park Creative Centre
​
​Enrich the sensory experience of your paintings by pushing the paint out from the flatness of the canvas or panel into delicious relief surfaces we can feel with our eyes, (like work by post-impressionist Vincent Van Gogh through l’automatiste Paul-Émile Borduas to contemporary painter Kim Dorland). 

In this two-day workshop, build vivid surfaces in acrylic paintings by developing your skills to create rich and varied textures, sculpt the paint and build up impasto marks. Also learn how to extend the open time so you can work back into the existing paint layer.

Instructor Kim Lee Kho will guide you through creative and technical – and fun! – aspects of working with and modifying acrylics to enhance the third dimension in your work.

Materials fee of $40 (payable to the instructor) includes the acrylic mediums you will need for this workshop, custom-packaged and bought in bulk to save you money and hassle.
​
Click here to register.

FALL EXHIBITION:
October 17 – November 13, 2016
​Constantinople Bakery & Coffee
536 Queen Street West, Toronto
​
Joint show of paintings with
​Kal Honey
(as yet untitled)

More details to come!

On the weekend of June 18 and 19 I will be among 16 local artists and craftspeople showing and working live at Clarke Memorial Hall in Port Credit. Located very near the Waterfront Festival which is on at the same time!

The vaulted space is perfect for my large triple-scroll piece “Double Happiness, Three’s a Crowd” to make its Ontario debut. It was first shown in Burnaby BC in 2012. Each of the three digital mixed media scrolls measures 16ft x 4ft! City staff will be assisting me with the installation of the scrolls.

My plan is to work on drawing portraits for my #dailyheroes series on and off during both days, and display a digital slideshow of the ones I've completed so far.

There will be so much more going on as well: poetry readings, music, a large public collaborative piece that you can make your mark on, and of course a lot to look at.

So please drop in and say hi, ask me about the scrolls or the #dailyheroes or whatever else. 

​If you're on Facebook, visit our event page which has details, photos and ongoing updates from all the participants.

Saturday (11–6) & Sunday (11–5) June 18 & 19, 2016
​
Clarke Memorial Hall
161 Lakeshore Rd West
Mississauga (Port Credit) L5H 1G3

Yes, they invited me back! "They" being Ry Howitt, producer of Night Time, the talk show I was on this spring. You can catch my segment if you have Rogers Cable and live in the Peel Region of Ontario; Rogers Cable 10 this Friday at 11pm.

This week I talk about my social media portraiture project #dailyheroes, something I intend to write about on my blog as well, in time for the airing of that show, so stay tuned!

I only wish I could watch it myself, but we have no Rogers Cable TV at our house.

​

Today was takedown for my Chains Unlinked exhibition at the Art Gallery of Mississauga. Hard to believe 2.5 months has passed so quickly!

After the sculpture installations were taken down the biggest job was washing off "Boxed In #21", the big charcoal figure that occupied almost the entire marquee wall.

It was sad to see her go and I had to record her passing into history with some time-lapse photography. I also did the first wiping away, with a wet mop. Thanks to Van for doing all of the real de-install work and to Shellie for inspiring the face.