There’s usually a great story or adventure behind a painting by Errington artist D.F. Gray.
Gray loves to work in soft pastel and has been capturing his surroundings, painting outdoors from life for close to four decades.
“When I’m painting with my subject and my tools, I’m really living. I’m really alive,” he said. “I’m using the best parts of me — the parts of seeing and working and it’s good to be alive.”
His latest exhibition at the Old School House Arts Centre (TOSH), Retro Perspective, is focused on the shore of the Salish Sea.
Gray is a big believer in getting out and painting in nature — rain or shine. In the last 20 years, he can only recall two works done based on photographs.
“Plein air is a fancy American term for working from life,” he said. “There’s so many artists that are working from a photographic image as their guide and I think they miss the weather, they miss the odd person that comes through to talk to me out there, they miss the excitement.”
Dealing with the elements is all part of the fun for Gray. He recalled meeting some friends at Rathtrevor Beach to paint on a blustery, stormy day.
“It was just pouring rain,” he said. “We went out anyway and it was so cool — we’re hunkering over our work.”
Gray said he tips his easel forward against the rain, sheltering it with his jacket, to avoid the canvas getting wet, although water will still drip down onto his tools and pastels.
The group later retreated to a picnic shelter to finish up their art.
“Nobody got colds. I got a good painting. I don’t know what they got,” Gray said.
Not every painting turns out, and that’s okay he added, since he still had the pleasure of working on it.
“A musician has to like to play, and an artist really should be enjoying themselves if they’re working,” Gray said.
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Gray grew up interested in drawing and sketching, especially when he saw an illustration of a Second World War battle in a copy of Reader’s Digest.
He wrote to the artist to tell him how much he liked the work, and a few months later he received a reply.
The artist even sent him a copy of the initial drawing and the colour separations, so nine-year-old Gray could see how he had turned a photo into a colour illustration.
“It was so cool that the fella took the time to dig out the colour separations and send them back to me as a gift,” he said. “So that’s really the first time I remember getting that encouragement to carry on.”
Gray has painted pastel throughout his life, while also making a living painting signs for the City of Vancouver.
He’s won numerous awards over the years and even has a trophy named after him in Steveston, B.C. Gray and his wife started the Grand Prix d’Art exhibition in Qualicum Beach approximately 30 years ago.
For his latest exhibition he has chosen pieces created between 2017 and 2022, with a strong theme of Vancouver Island shoreline running throughout.
Gray likes to paint with friends and meet people while he is out with his brushes on the coast, but he also enjoys the solitude of being alone on a beach.
A good story is part of what makes certain paintings memorable for him.
One such occasion found him happen across an old 1972 Honda Scrambler motorcycle in the bush near Oak Leaf Drive, before it became Es-hw Sme~nts Community Park. Vehicles are one of Gray’s favourite subjects to paint.
The bike was grown over by the Salal, Gray said, but he could see the motor had been replaced with a rototiller motor, and the forks with straight pieces of iron.
“It was beat up, old and had been there for a long time and it looked so cool I did a drawing of it,” he said.
“And eagles were mating over here, flying above and over head, and a storm. That one turned out pretty good.”
A lot of the places Gray has painted have changed over time.
“These are all painted from life the way things were and so I think it shows our area,” he said.
Retro Perspective is at TOSH (122 Fern Rd. West) until May 4.