Salt Spring Island Painters Guild

05/18/2026

One more day to check out the Guild Show at Mahon Hall. Take a May Long Weekend wander before 4:30pm on Monday!

05/14/2026

Every 6 months the Painters Guild members hang a Refresh of artwork at Lady Minto Hospital. Enjoy a wander through the halls to see the latest installation!

05/10/2026

04/13/2026

Spring Growth in Winter: A Mixed Media Workshop

Date: April 18, 2026
Time: 10:00-4:00
Instructor: Susanne Rutchinski
Location: SIMS
Levels: Open to all
Medium: Mixed media (water based)

In this workshop, I will share my process for creating wild flower scenes using all water based media. Starting with a textured substrate, together, we’ll work with inks, washes, rice paper and acrylics to create expressive art pieces.

We’ll begin by making marks and prints on delicate rice paper, which you can incorporate into your final piece. You’re encouraged to bring bits of nature—leaves, grasses, feathers, block stamps—anything that inspires you—to print from and add personal touches.

Throughout the day, I’ll share techniques for color mixing, layering, and composition, helping you discover new ways to bring depth and harmony to your work.

By the end of the workshop, you’ll have a unique, mixed-media piece that you love—a reflection of your own creative process and connection to nature. Plus a few new tricks and ideas to keep you inspired.

More info: https://www.ssipaintersguild.com/classes

04/03/2026

Painting Beautiful Florals

Date: April 8, 2026
Time: 10:00-4:00
Instructor: Betty Rideout
Location: SIMS
Levels: All
Medium: Oil or blendable acrylics
Max Participants: 14
Price: $55

As we all know, Salt Spring island is filled with creative people. Many of those love both to garden and to paint. This workshop will help to combine these two pleasant obsessions.

In this workshop you will learn how to paint lovely, luminescent flowers filled with light. Painting translucent objects, such as petals, is more difficult to achieve than painting opaque objects. As a result, it’s challenging to paint florals that accurately represent their delicate nature. This workshop will provide techniques about how to paint in a way that represents the fragility of a flower. Working with your own image, we will work step-by-step through to, hopefully, a completed painting. I’ll demonstrate modelling using the classical approach of chiaroscuro (light-dark) which creates a dramatic setting. We’ll then begin painting by starting with warm shadows and elaborating from there. We’ll also be working using the alla prima, or wet-on-wet, approach, which makes blending easy and gives us control over where we want hard edges. Most flowers have only a few hard edges. I’ll circulate to offer guidance, suggestions, and admiration as flowers begin to bloom via paint!

03/26/2026

Loosen Up - A Painting Weekend

Date: March 28 and 29, 2026
Time: 9:30 – 4:00
Instructor: Val Nelson
Location: SIMS
Levels: All levels - some previous painting experience is recommended, and even advanced painters will benefit!

Would you like to learn powerful strategies for injecting expressive energy into your paintings while retaining strong structure and recognizable form?

In this workshop we will engage in various modalities that will help you tune into and embody your fierce and joyful creator self, while advancing your painting chops! These include calming breath work and intention setting, drawing warm-ups, painting diverse subject matter, and other playful strategies to break you out of your usual habits.

What you will learn:
How to paint more loosely
How to break free from the inner critic so you can enjoy your studio time
Painting games to warm up your practise
Tips on brushwork, composition, drawing, and colour mixing, including how to avoid “muddiness”
How to tune in and learn to trust your unique artistic voice

What you will gain from this workshop:
Have fun making art with like-minded artists
Engaging strategies to get things moving in the studio
Clarity on handling your painting materials in a way that feels right for you
Better understanding of colour theory
Renewed confidence in your unique artistic practise

Although Val will be mostly demonstrating in acrylic paint, she is very fluent in working with oils, therefore oil and acrylic painters are welcome.

More info: https://www.ssipaintersguild.com/classes

03/10/2026

Next Class: Brilliant Layers Landscape with
OPEN and Fluid Acrylics

Date: March 18, 2026
Time: 10:00-4:00
Instructor: Denna Erickson
Location: SIMS
Levels: Open to all
Medium: Open and fluid acrylics

In this exciting workshop, students will explore the development of a mixed media piece and the true excitement of working in layers of Acrylic on a wooden panel.

We will begin with a gessoed panel. I use sand-able gesso by GOLDEN, which creates a porcelain like finish. I will introduce painting techniques with GOLDEN OPEN acrylics. Brayer, brush ,and bowl scraper techniques will be demonstrated. The OPEN acrylics will be applied with these tools, after a light wash is applied to the surface with GOLDEN fluid acrylic.

After the underpainting is established with a horizon line, white tissue paper will be applied as collage for texture.

We will then go in to specific colours with brush work techniques and glazes to establish luminous layers and depth to the piece.

Materials note - $60 materials fee per person, payable at class.

Learn more about Denna: https://www.dennaerickson.com

To register: https://www.ssipaintersguild.com/classes

03/03/2026

We have 4 spots open for Landscape Painting on March 14th.

Our goal is to understand techniques that are used to create compelling landscapes. The focus is on design, and styles, that are applicable to all mediums.

So, here’s a slightly different approach for this workshop. I’ll circulate a bunch of images of landscape paintings that illustrate key concepts you need to know. I’ll do this a few days before getting together on the 14th. You can then look at the images, select a few that really appeal and determine what makes them so strong. We can then start on the 14th with a brief round-table discussion of your favourite and why you think it works well. I’ll do a summary of 5 key take-away points.

You can then select a reference photo (that you bring) and make a quick design sketch incorporating a design/style ‘strategy’.

I will answer questions, do a few demos, and provide a little guidance as you paint.

Those of you who wish to rescue a painting in need of help, bring it along. I think you’ll find the concepts we cover will go a long way in this process. Regardless of the subject matter.

I’ll provide the example images in .pdf format, and in Google docs (no account required) with a link on my website (https://donhodgins.ca bottom of home page).

Instructor: Don is a signature member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and has successfully entered over forty juried exhibitions at the FCA, and has had his artwork in the Sooke Fine Arts Show and the Sidney Fine Art Show on several occasions. Don also shows regularly in the Guild Shows, at ArtCraft and with League 181. He has been a juror for the FCA for several years.

To register, please visit our website: https://www.ssipaintersguild.com/classes

02/25/2026

Next class: Conquer a World of Mediocre Landscape Paintings

Date: March 14, 2026
Time: 9:30 – 15:30
Instructor: , AFCA
Location: SIMS
Levels: all
Medium: Oil, acrylic, watercolour

Landscape painting presents one of the greater challenges to any artist. To capture and hold the viewer’s interest, to convey emotion, to create a narrative, to provide context all require thought and planning. Good landscapes don’t just happen by copying photos, or working on location! You think it through first.

The idea in this workshop is to explore the elements that go into a satisfying landscape. We’ll review some ideas on design – decisions that you make before you begin to paint: centre of interest and how to create one, placing the key shapes, editing your reference, and more. Then we will look a few aspects of style: choosing a colour palette, establishing values, exploiting your medium to maximum advantage (how loose, or how accurately representational you want to be), adding context and so on.

Don will do this with a brief slide show with a bunch of examples. Following which you will select a reference photo (bring a few) and work through a design making a thumbnail sketch (while you make not like doing this, it is mandatory!).

And then to work: transfer your design, squeeze out and paint. Don will wander around providing essential advice and demos.

We can finish the day with a quick review of these stimulating new pieces.

Visit our website to register.

02/17/2026

Next class: Discovering Values with the Grisaille/Underpainting Technique

Date: February 25, 2026
Time: 09:30 - 4:00
Instructor: Wendy Wickland
Location: ArtSpring
Levels: any and all
Medium: Acrylic underpainting, choice of oil or acrylic for colour in finished painting

This one day workshop is for oil and acrylic painters of any level. We will use an acrylic
burnt sienna to create an accurate underpainting on canvas that reflects the actual values of the subject we are depicting. We will have a completed grisaille on the canvas before we move to colour.
Participants should choose a photo to work from that has strong values and contrast.
Please bring a black and white photocopy of this photo enlarged 200 percent. It is
much easier to see values in black and white. Think about which parts of the photo are important for you to paint. It may be the whole photo, or just a certain point of interest. Then we will compose a monochromatic version of the painting to come. The completed grisailles are often very beautiful and provide a roadmap to the finished painting.

Visit our website to sign up:
https://www.ssipaintersguild.com/classes

02/03/2026

Next class: Heading for Disaster – Rescue it!

Date: February 14, 2026
Time: 9:30 – 4:00
Instructor: Don Hodgins, AFCA
Location: SIMS
Levels: all
Medium: Oil, acrylic, watercolour

We all have paintings that simply don’t work. Or don’t work as well as we thought it would (well should have anyway). So spend a Saturday in the company of painterly colleagues and see if we can rescue a few of these duds. Or progress something you’re working on and would like a little input.

Bring a painting in progress, or one you’ve abandoned for a while but would like to continue on. You can also start a new one from reference material and would like advice on approach, design type stuff. If you work in watercolour it usually works best to begin afresh, especially if you already have several layers of paint on the dud. Bring the dud, but go anew too.

We can kick off the day with a little show and tell (what went wrong, what you are trying to achieve type stuff), and I (we all) will provide suggestions on where to go from here. I’ll also help you with colour mixing, painting techniques, values, etc. – the style and method input that might help!

We can finish the day with a quick review of these newly rescued puppies!