For watercolour artist and painting teacher Carol Gordon of Invermere, the end result isn’t always the most important thing. Rather, Gordon believes in producing art as an expression of a person’s creative process, and is aiming to help people find their own with her watercolour classes at Pynelogs this winter.
“What I’m realizing is that it is the creative process that I’m interested in, and supporting people learning about theirs, as opposed to teaching them about something objectively,” Gordon said.
Gordon is running a winter watercolour painting session over five Fridays, beginning on January 11. Each session is roughly an hour and a half, and will take place at Pynelogs, although Gordon said she is flexible should someone be unable to attend a regular class.
There are two classes — one for children ages 8 an up and one for adults, each running at a different time. Adult classes run from 10 to 11:30 a.m. while the children’s classes run from 2:30 to 4 p.m.
“Teaching is something that I’ve always done; as a little girl I used to teach my dolls and stuffed animals,” Gordon said.
Gordon began her relationship with her own creative process at the age of 10, when she started to keep a journal. She describes journaling as a relationship with herself and with her own feelings. When she began photography at age 14 she began to find interest in learning more about other people that became subjects for her photography.
“My interest was capturing their essence so I could show it to them,” Gordon said.
Gordon began studying watercolour painting in 1975, partly thanks to a need to expand on her photography and explore a new medium. Gordon would go on to have her work shown at numerous shows and galleries throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including the Canmore Artists and Artisans Guild (an organization she helped form), the Peter Whyte Museum and at Pynelogs after moving to the valley full time in 1999.
“It’s been so important in my life to have my creative process alive and well, and I kind of have a belief about it that if more of us did have a healthy relationship with our creative process, we would have a better relationship with ourselves.”
As part of her classes at Pynelogs, Gordon will focus on allowing her students to express themselves freely by giving them guidelines as opposed to objective lectures.
She said she wants to create a studio environment for her classes where no judgement is passed, and her students can feel free to explore their own creative processes.
“It just seemed that this approach to watercolours just kind of emerged, because I was looking for a way to express it that went beyond words,” Gordon said.
Classes are $100 with an early bird price of $90.
For more information, or to register for a class, call Gordon at 250-341-6114, email her at artworks@carolgordon.ca, or visit her website at www.carolgordon.ca.