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Painting is his ultimate passion
Friday, May 30th, 2008 by GetawayBC.com
Ron Hedrick, cover artist for this year’s Discover The Peninsula, doesn’t doubt he made the right choice when he decided to pursue art as his career.
“I’ve got to be one of the luckiest guys in the world,” said Hedrick.
“I got into something good – I love what I do, I love the life and I love the lifestyle.”
The artist, a staunch devotee of oils as the medium for capturing the subtleties of light shade and colour in the world around him, has been painting full-time for some 27 years.And he said he’s never regretted leaving behind his previous job as foreman of a plant making truck components.
“The other part of this whole business is I get to meet a neat kind of people who appreciate art, whether they’re clients or students; really nice people who love to see the artistic side of life.”
Based in his home in Mission – where he has his own 1,000 square-foot studio – Hedrick is almost a Peninsula resident, judging by the frequency with which he has been inspired by typical White Rock and South Surrey beach scenes for his work.One such is featured on the cover.
“It’s a view from Crescent Beach, looking north,” Hedrick said.”Beach scenes are something I’m really getting a handle on. What I enjoy the most is the light and the high-key values – it’s fun to play around with them.”
Hedrick does a lot of plein air painting in Pitt Meadows as well.
“Usually when I paint plein air the paintings are quite small – eight by 10s,” he said. “But if I like a painting I will take it back to the studio and work it into a larger piece.”
Most of his beach paintings are taken from photographs, he said, although he works meticulously on compositions, including bringing his own models.
He’s now onto a second generation of these – he and his wife Sandra’s two daughters, Jessica and Debbie, who used to be the children in his paintings, have given way to grandchildren, including Debbie’s daughter Rheanne, who has appeared in a lot of his later paintings.
“I’ve been more and more intrigued by colour when I paint – not the way the camera takes it, but the way it really looks.”
Light and reflected light have everything to do with how we perceive colour, Hedrick said.
“When you paint outdoors, just by shifting the easel you can change the whole scheme of colours.”
He’s also been painting more figurative studies, he said.
“I’m trying to paint more from life,” he said.
“I’m trying to do more of what I want to do, these days, and I’ve been finding it’s working pretty well for me. I think I do better stuff. I’ve been able to do my beach scenes even better. There’s more freedom somehow.”
In addition to his own painting, Hedrick teaches classes at his studio in the spring and fall, although there’s usually a waiting list.
“The classes are for all levels, not just advanced painters. I usually put them all through the same program, derived from classes I took in the U.S.,” he said.
“The program is all about looking – I set up a still life in the studio and they have to paint it in black and white, to help assess the values.”