Take a look at vivid oil pastel drawings by award winning artist Brett Varney and feel the buoyant energy of his colorful world. The Edmonds Arts Festival is pleased to announce that his painting, Puget Sound Sighting, is the 2015 Edmonds Arts Festival poster.
As a landscape artist and outdoor enthusiast, Brett enhances a scene by applying his own unique vision and ideas in order to create something completely new. In Puget Sound Sighting, Brett is imagining himself hiking in the woods and everything drawn is “out of my mind’s eye.” The incredible colors in his drawings are the key to the intense emotion you’ll feel in his work. Each color decision directs him to the next, almost like the strategic positioning in a chess game, to a winning result. In addition to the specific effect of each color, the artist carefully considers its juxtaposition to each other color. His use of black surface water color paper and bold black outlines bring light out of dark.
A professional artist inspired by the works of the Impressionists and Abstract Expressionists, Brett puts a lot of love into each piece. He’s no stranger to the Edmonds Arts Festival. He became a festival booth artist in 1994, winning the first of his Edmonds Festival awards. As a child, he helped with his family’s showings at the Festival in the 1980s. “I’m honored to have this work as the Edmonds poster.” He has other awards to his name, but he really wanted to do something special for Edmonds. He’s very proud of this piece, stating, “I felt it would be a natural fit for an Edmonds poster.” His artistry has evolved from meticulously planned serigraph stencil making and printing. In recent years he’s embraced a new freedom, drawing in oil pastels with a more abstracted view.
The metallic technique he’s incorporated began as an experiment. It’s a laborious process, adding hand-cut metallic leaf which is gold-tone in color, but is actually a copper based variegated leaf. After applying the cut pieces of painted leaf, he trims them with a small knife. Brett discovered an ultimate brilliance in this technique, “like adding another color that has the added benefit of reflecting light back to you.”
You’ll reflect with delight on the colorful Puget Sound Sighting in this year’s festival advertisements, posters, website, and on sportswear and specialty items in the Festival Store.
Brett Varney currently lives in Sechelt, B.C. He sells his original art and reproductions directly to the public through juried art festivals in Canada and the U.S., as well as through private galleries and his home studio in Sechelt, B.C. He’s won multiple awards across the Pacific Northwest, in addition to Scottsdale, Ariz.; Saratoga, Calif.; and Salt Lake City, Utah. Visit his website at www.brettvarney.com.
Brett will have an artist booth on the field during the Festival, June 19, 20 and 21. Come enjoy Brett’s work, and the work of all our artists at the Edmonds Arts Festival.
For more information about the Edmonds Arts Festival, visit www.edmondsartsfestival.com.
LOVE the 2015 Edmonds Art Festival poster!