With their bright colours, almost cartoon-like faces with their comical grins, the sea lions in Linda Skalenda's oil and acrylics art show West Coast Residents would be at home in a children's room or a cozy pub.
They're also at home at the downtown Nanaimo Art Gallery where Skalenda is the feature artist for July. A meet the artist reception will be held at the gallery July 13 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Skalenda, who usually works on landscapes, said the show was a fun departure for her.
"I was inspired to paint sea lions after every summer we sail out to Nanaimo Harbour and past Harmac and there's where I took hundreds of photos of all the sea lions," she said. "With their facial expressions and body language they seemed to be very humourous and I just couldn't help paint them in more of a whimsical design rather than realistic way. I could just see the humour in them."
Skalenda said it was fun to try a different style of painting. There are 21 pieces in West Coast Residents.
"I'm primarily a landscape artist, I love to do landscapes but this was a departure from what I normally do," she said. "It was really exciting, the first couple of ones I came up with, it's interesting to see what you can pull out of yourself."
The show also includes colourful depictions of seagulls and arbutus trees. There is also a painting of a white bear, something Skalenda said she was inspired to do after being commissioned by the Lions Club in March to paint a spirit bear, now on display in Victoria.
Her bear has pieces of West Coast residents on it. It was a fun, but challenging project, she said of painting the huge bear.
"It was a huge challenge, I'm used to working on canvases and have this 3-D seven foot high fibre glass canvas come into my studio was different," she said, laughing. "I needed a few days to get to know him and his dimensions."
Skalenda lives in Lantzville and has a studio in Qualicum Beach Old School House Arts Centre. Her work has appeared in the Federation of Canadian Artists Nanaimo Chapter shows, the Brant Festival and the Oceanside Community Art Council shows.
Previously she worked as an interior decorator in Victoria, Nanaimo and Vancouver and said using vibrant colours in her paintings came naturally to her. She went into art searching for a creative outlet.
"I needed something more for myself, I needed to satisfy my own soul and picking up a set of watercolour paints did that for me," she said. "I never looked back once I started."
She went from watercolours to pastels and ended up finding oil and acrylic paints working best for her. Skalenda is continuing to photograph and paint scenes of the West Coast.