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Nine-year-old’s work sells for $50 at gallery

An elementary school class visited the Artworx gallery in Qualicum Beach
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Not too many Grade 4 students can say they have sold their artwork in a real art gallery

A recent field trip by some young art students from Qualicum Beach Elementary School has resulted in one budding artist getting her first sale.

Robert Adamson has been a teacher for 28 years and one way he likes to inspire his students is to introduce them to local artists in the community.

On May 30 Adamson’s Grade 4 art class visited the Artworx Gallery in Qualicum Beach and met with Allan Dunfield, an artist who they have been recently studying.

The children enjoyed free time in the gallery to view the art works of Dunfield and other local artists.

The students participated in a Q & A with Dunfield and asked a lot of questions including: How long does it take to paint a picture?  How come they’re so expensive? How often do you paint?

Each of the children painted a picture to replicate one of Dunfield’s pieces and they choose three to show the artist.

Brooke Henson, Dagen de Waal and Serena Bruneau not only presented their pieces to Dunfield, the trio’s pieces were then put on display in the gallery next to Dunfield’s piece.

Nine year old Henson was then informed her piece had been purchased for $50.

On June 6 Henson popped by the gallery to pick up her cash and meet the buyer, Lawrence Setter a realtor with ReMax First Realty in Parksville.

Henson said she’s not sure what she will do with her first commission and for now it will be saved.

She acknowledged that reproducing Dunfield’s piece had some challenging moments.

“It was easy at one point but hard at some points.”

She said she learned a lot about the local artist in this project.

“He doesn’t draw the painting first.  He puts a different colour in the background and then he paints over it,” she explained.

Her teacher agreed that all of his students have done a phenomenal job and Henson should be especially proud.

“When we were coming here to meet Allan the kids went around and chose three pieces that they thought were the three best examples of the work and that’s how Brooke’s got chosen.   She was chosen by her peers not by me,” he admitted.

He said he picked Dunfield to study because he happened to run across a piece of his work on the internet.

“Then I saw that he had a show here and I came in and looked at his work and the reason I chose him is because he has very strong images and very simplistic shapes.

He said the details in Dunfield’s pieces are simplistic so it was easy for the children to talk about his work.

“We discussed how we would compose his work, what the shapes were and the colours he might have chosen.”

Adamson stated it was a really good way of introducing his students to a local artist.