The goal is the same for teacher and student alike: capture nature at its most serene.
Robin LeDrew’s Night Vision exhibition opens at the Village Gallery in Lumby May 1.
Based on the animal life of her home on Bessette Creek, LeDrew limits her series to the nocturnal creatures native to the area and uses acrylic transfers to add her photos of local plants and trees to charcoal sketches of animals. Painted in acrylic on board, mixed media effects were added to make the eyes appear to glow in the dark.
“I know each of the animals represented in this show have visited this land forever. I have only been here for 50 years. They see me more than I ever see them. Most often I only see the tracks or the droppings,” LeDrew said. “However, there is a story behind each visitation. Adding to my own stories by using, with permission, other people’s stories and other people’s photos as reference material, I feel like this is a collaboration.”
LeDrew has been painting “all her life” but only started to take herself seriously as an artist after retiring. She is a member of the Okanagan Artists of Canada and the Federation of Canadian Artists North Okanagan Chapter. She helped establish the Village Arts Gallery in Lumby and has supported and promoted other artists in the area through the Monashee Arts Council.
“Recently, I have been losing my own night vision. Surgery swung me from near blindness to 20/20 vision in less than a month several years ago but that brief miracle has been fading. Haunted all my life by a fear of blindness, I look at the world intensely. Since I have chosen to remain rooted in place, I look at where I live,” LeDrew said.
Accompanying this show are the paintings of Brooke Rudsvick, LeDrew’s student for several years.
Rudsvick has lived in Lumby her whole life and currently attends Charles Bloom Secondary School. She has a passion for nature and animals and portrays that in her art.
She has been drawing ever since she could hold a pencil and uses many mediums including pencil, pencil crayon, gouache and acrylic to tune in her focus on realism and her goal to capture nature’s beautiful moments.
Night Vision graces the Village Gallery walls for May and June. The regular hours of the gallery are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. LeDrew and Rudsvick can be found at the Gallery most Friday afternoons.
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