Lost and Found

For the last 8 months, my husband, Peter Mitchell, and I have been working on an incredible community arts project called Lost and Found. In collaboration with St.Stephen's Community House and 12 talented Toronto teens, we collected nearly 200 personal stories of things or people lost or found.

Under our art direction, the participating teens created illustrations, based on some of the collected stories. Peter and I also chose stories to illustrate.

Ingram Gallery is graciously hosting the project's final exhibition next week! Many of the handwritten stories and all of our illustrations will be on display. The show runs Wednesday May 30th and Thursday May 31st. Peter, myself and the young artists will be in attendance at the opening celebration on Wednesday May 30th, from 4-7pm.  Please follow this link for Ingram Gallery info.  If you live in or near Toronto and want to see something remarkable, please come join us!

Here are some samples of the contributed stories- I'll save the illustrations for the opening!

Summer Workshop 2012

I am teaching an oil painting workshop this summer- July 20th-22nd. The workshop will take place in my studio(in the east end of Toronto) and runs from 10am-4pm daily. On the first day we will paint an object from life. The following 2 days we will paint from a live model. On the Saturday we will focus on a head study and Sunday we will loosely paint the figure in an environment. I will do demos daily and explore methods of painting naturalistically. The cost of the workshop is $325 if you bring your own materials and $350 if I supply the paint. If you have any questions or would like to register please email me at sara.sniderhan@gmail.com

Weekend With the Masters scholarship!

I have grown a pretty thick skin as an artist. I apply for awards and competitions and am often rejected- goes with the profession. Yesterday however, I experienced an awesome win! American Artist Magazine awarded me a scholarship to their Weekend With the Masters Workshop and Conference in San Diego this coming September. Over 4 days I will have the opportunity to watch, speak to and learn from a number of the best and most successful figurative oil painters in America. Jeremy Lipking, David Kassan, Michael Klein, Daniel E.Greene, Daniel Spricks, David Lefelle, Steven Asseal, Rose Frantzen and Stephen Early are some of the insanely terrific participating instructors. I feel like I'm in junior A and I've been called up to play an all-star game!

Book cover!

I am so thrilled and exited to announce that ÉDITIONS B O R É A L- a Montreal publishing house, has purchased the rights to use my mixed media drawing (Study of Margo) for the cover of this book. I should have a copy of the book in my hands the beginning of May. Can't wait to see it! The publishers have also used the work of fellow Ingram Gallery artists Sean Yelland, Ryan Price, Andrew Bell and Yann Leroux for previous book cover images. Yey Ingram!

Straight Edge

Straight Edge

8"x8"

oil on panel

2012

The past few weeks I have been working on small paintings of objects around my house. I needed a break from the large paintings for my solo show. It is really satisfying to get in and out of a painting quickly and nothing improves your painting skills like painting from life. I'll post some more as I knock 'em off.

Studies

Christmas portrait

In December I was commissioned to create a portrait of Betty Beresford, the lovely little lady below. Her dad commissioned it as a surprise Christmas present for his wife (and Betty's mom). What a nice guy that Tim Beresford is!

portrait of Betty Beresford

carbon and gouache on watercolour

2011

A year earlier I was commissioned to create a portrait of Otto Beresford, Betty's big brother. This commission was a belated wedding present for Tim and Barb Beresford- the lucky parents of these 2 awesome kids!

portrait of Otto Beresford 

carbon and gouache on watercolour

2010