Local artist’s work gains international recognition
“I was totally stunned when she asked me to do this,” says local artist, Alyson Champ, of being asked by UK-based artist, Katherine Tyrrell, to submit some of her work for consideration to be included in a book about Drawing that she was working on.
The book is titled “Drawing 365: Tips and Techniques to Build Your Confidence and Skills” (the UK version goes by “Sketching 365: Build Your Confidence and Skills with a Tip a Day”) and was published on January 8. Champ is the only Canadian artist whose art was selected to be featured in the book which compiles the work of Tyrrell herself as well as more than 50 artists from around the world.
Tyrrell was approached by a publisher to do the book. Considering the fact that she has nine years worth of almost daily posts on her blog “Making a Mark” which is one of the top-ranked art blogs at #3 in the UK and #7 in the world, it is not surprising in the least that she was approached about doing a book.
The blog is in fact how Tyrrell and Champ came to interact. Champ had been following the blog for a long time, but when Tyrrell came up with the weekly Sunday “Who Painted This?” feature, she was compelled to participate in the challenge. An admitted art history buff, she ended up winning multiple consecutive challenges and that is how the two initially began to communicate. “[That’s] the glory of the internet; you never know who you’re going to meet”, states Champ.
Tyrrell states of Champ, “I’m an absolutely huge fan of her collage art ... I love her tales and images of her animals and Canadian winters!” When working on her book, Tyrrell says that she “really wanted to emphasize the point that drawing isn’t just about using a pencil and paper” and so when it got to Tip 73: Draw with Scissors, Champ’s work served as a prime example.
Though she had been an oil painter forever, seven years ago the course of her work was forever changed. She works as a children’s art teacher and is constantly trying to find interesting projects to keep her students engaged. She finds this endeavor to be a stimulating environment for her artistic senses as states: “I find working with them is really inspiring.” It was while they were working on a collage project that the idea struck her to venture off into an exploration of the craft in her own artwork. She says she became obsessed with it and has since then the predominant pursuit of her work has been devoted to collage with coloured paper. The career shift garnered a positive response from those who appreciated her oil work beforehand and of the galleries that have welcomed showing it, Champ says that the work has sold well. Her work was limited to North America before she gained international exposure through being featured in Tyrrell’s book.
Champ’s piece featured in the book is called “Winter Blues” and in Tip 73: Drawing with Scissors, Tyrrell encourages readers to give coloured paper collage a try saying that it “will require you to think hard about shapes, values and colours.” Champ’s method of doing this it meticulous; there is a lot of planning put in before making the first cut of paper. Tyrell states of Champ’s work: “Alyson is brilliant at design and using colour. I guess it’s because she has to think more than most about exactly which colour to use where before starting to paint and cut her coloured papers.”
Though she plans each peace carefully, past a certain extent she allows her creative liberties to take over. She doesn’t know of anyone else who does quite what she does and consequently she says she is “still figuring out the optimal way of doing this.” At the end of the day, one thing is for sure: “It’s always an adventure!”