A new artist in Qualicum Beach has quickly become well-situated in the arts community, with his paintings now up at the Gallery at Qualicum Art Supply, and a teaching spot at TOSH.
Teaching people to paint has been a passion of Gordon Wilson’s for years now, because he knows exactly what it’s like to struggle without instruction.
Born in Hamilton, Ont., Wilson said he was always excited to get cheap art kits from his parents for birthdays or Christmas, but he had no one to learn from.
“I got all those art kits, you know, sparkly stuff over here and some pastels. I never knew what to do with them but make a lot of mess,” said Wilson. It was magazines, and in particular, old illustrations of military history that gave him stylistic inspiration.
Finding out the illustrations were done in watercolour “blew my mind,” he said.
“Because I knew how hard it was with the Mickey Mouse kit I had and newsprint to try to create something that I had seen in a book.”
Nonetheless, Wilson’s work gained at least some attention, with one of his paintings earning a place at the war museum at Dundurn Castle in Hamilton, he said.
That painting would get Wilson’s foot in the door.
In 1978, the CBC was doing a 180-minute special on the 1942 Dieppe Raid, explained Wilson, and while at Dundurn Castle, saw Wilson’s painting.
They asked museum staff if the painter was till alive, and were told that Wilson was in fact 21, and working on an assembly line at Westinghouse.
“So I got the phone call. Blew my mind. This is storybook fantasy stuff,” recounted Wilson. “So they called me into Toronto and I went in and we sat down together and they said this is what they wanted, could I do it? Of course I said yes.”
Wilson painted 10 scenes for CBC cameras to pan across, requiring very specific knowledge of the raid itself, what was happening at what time of day, what troupes would be wearing and more.
They’re still reproduced,” said Wilson of his early work. “If you see a book on Dieppe, there’s probably one of them in there somewhere. It’s kind of embarrassing because I had no training. I used one of my mom’s dinner plates as a pallet. Anyway, pulled it off.”
Wilson would go on to study at the Ontario College of Art, and began a career as a commercial artist.
Finding that career was not what he had imagined, he eventually become a teacher of communications technology, and along the way, helped a lot of students with art.
It wasn’t until a student gifted him a set of paintbrushes (not suitable for watercolour) that Wilson tried his hand at oil and acrylic.
Having moved to Qualicum Beach in July, Wilson said the area is feeding his interest in landscape painting.
But the idea isn’t so much about finding the perfect scene to reproduce, he said.
Rather, Wilson looks for a detail in what could otherwise be a simple scene, make that the focus and create freely.
“The original things for these,” he said, gesturing to his work on the wall, “the references, the sketches or photographs, were not as interesting as what they’ve been turned into, because the initial reference is just an inspiration or a hint as to what you can do. Then once you start working on the centre, then you throw the reference away and then you start to have fun.”
“You have to know colour, you have to know values, light and dark, composition is important, and as an artist, you have to be very critical of yourself.” These are some of the things he’ll be looking to teach at TOSH come the new year.
“I think because I wasn’t taught this, I had to learn this the hard way, so I know all the sort of pitfalls,” he said. “The best way to go about this is to think, anything that’s a mistake, that doesn’t work out, is a study. You don’t have to tear it apart with your teeth… and have a tantrum. You just call it a study and you figure out what went wrong and what you can do better, tackle it again, don’t make the same mistake, and sooner or later it will become something and you’ll learn.”
To check out some of Wilson’s work, go to the Gallery at Qualicum Art Supply at 206 First Ave. West in Qualicum Beach.