Award winning artist Nola cannot remember life without pencil and paper close by, making pictures.

Nola makes pictures, of almost anything interesting, every day. Any subject can, will and does make a picture. She needs to make those pictures, to achieve her goal, be a full time Visual Artist. She works in watercolour, pencil crayon, graphite or pen & ink.

In1967 an elderly horse, drawn from life, sold, making the visual art career goal decision easy. A part time position at the Robt. Simpson Co’s Queen Street Riding Shop paid for four years of studio based Ontario College of Art for her 1974 Communications & Design AOCA. A career in the North American retail world followed, as she kept depicting domestic animals, horses, dogs, cats and Muskoka for private clients across Canada or for those in other countries or continents.

In the early 90s she discovered a new goal, how to help others achieve their visual art goals by creating pictures of subjects they love. Th goal enhanced in 1996 with an Adult Education Staff Training Certificate (AESTC). “Making Better Pictures” workshops introduce all sorts of subjects to adult artists of all skill levels, helping them create works that explore and express their creativity making pictures of the subjects they love.

Heritage Sports Art images have allowed her personal devotion to accuracy and detail in watercolour to develop even further while she learned about the history of the sports venues and equipment from the late1800s to 2024.

Jury submissions have often resulted in awards.

Living in Toronto, East York she’s a member of the Toronto Heliconian Club, the American Watercolor Society, the Colored Pencil Society of America, the International Watercolor Society, and Canadian Coloured Pencil Artists,

A Herstory Tale

Growing up two pictures faced the dining table. Two sisters agreed, the “better”one was “Beautiful Green Trunks”. The other was “Ugly Worms”. Both were signed M.E. Carr.

They knew that grandmother’s lifetime family friend Emily was an Important Artist. And, she had really liked their father. That they had an autographed book, “Klee Wyck” on the shelf. That in 1918 she had given the two pictures in her hall to their then 9 year old father when he visited with grandmother. Many years later those pictures came to Toronto.

Those paintings taught Nola a lot of things. Women could be artists, even if being “ahead of your time” can be discouraging. Colour does not have to be real to be effective. Real should not slavishly attempt reproduction of a photograph. All very good things to know.

After their father passed, their mother packed up the two paintings, took them to Toronto’s Robert’s Gallery and sold them. Years later Nola found “Beautiful Green Trunks” in the Ken Thomson Gallery. Mr Thomson invited her to make the copy above.

Questions? Please contact Nola through the contact panel or by e-mail merriweather@sympatico.ca

Mission:
Make better pictures everyday.