Articles

The Look of Wood & Strength of Metal: The Cypress Frame

The Opus Cypress Frame is a metal frame created to look like wood, to give you the best of both worlds; durable strength to protect your art or photography with a stylish appearance.   The design is sleek, angular and... Read More

What Your Creative Community Has Been Re-Imagining & Experimenting With

Over the next few months we’re exploring the creative cycle, from inspiration through to final execution. Successfully cultivating artistic endeavours is a process, and throughout January, we’re examining step one: planting those seeds of creativity by Re-Imagining and Experimentation. Danielle... Read More

A Guide to Princeton Brushes & Tools

Princeton Artist Brush Co. is one of the largest brush-makers in North America. Since their start in 1992, artist brushes have been the sole focus of Princeton. Other brush companies make paint, paper, canvas, pastels, and easels. Princeton makes one thing: the best quality, most fairly priced artist brushes available today. In this article we have compiled resources to give you a comprehensive guide to using Princeton Brushes.

Tools of The Trade: Golden Mediums

Golden Artist Colors has created hundreds – if not thousands – of products since their initial startup in 1980. GOLDEN tend to think of their acrylic-based materials as tools. Like most garages, sometimes a few tools go missing. During the... Read More

Re-imagining and Experimentation with Danielle Krysa

Now, more than ever, artists are craving a clean slate and there’s no better time than the start of the year to reimagine and experiment fresh ways to express what’s within. Like staring out onto an open field, the creative... Read More

Williamsburg Chromatic Darks

Part Eight • Opus Unique Colours Series   When oil painters visit the Williamsburg factory, they always show them these colours. The response is unanimously positive, especially from those who use darker tones or blacks in their work. Williamsburg has... Read More

Step by Step Winter Mountain Watercolor Landscape | Ian de Hoog

Moonglow Extra Fine Watercolor by DANIEL SMITH is an amazing three-pigment blend. Watch with anticipation as Anthraquinoid Red floats, Ultramarine Blue settles and Viridian grays result in soft violet colour. Selectively blot and lift as well as wash to expose... Read More

Excite and GLOW with Golden Fluorescent Colours.

In the world of pigments there is history, consistency and refinement, and when fluorescent show up they make waves, they make themselves known.   Fluorescent colours are valued for a brightness that standard pigments don’t possess. While, as their name... Read More

Sennelier and the Picasso Story as told by Pierre Guidetti

  After WWII, after Paris had been liberated, Picasso returned to the city of light. As one might imagine, after fighting fascism in both Spain and France, Picasso and his friends were very much engaged in all forms of freedom... Read More

A Gem of a Colour – Emerald Green

Emerald green is a bright blue-green named after the precious gemstone, which gets its distinctive color from trace amounts of chromium and vanadium. Also known as Schweinfurt green, Paris green and Veronese green, it has been a popular color throughout... Read More

Sharing The Warmth – Holiday Makers Market Highlights

Over the past month, our Holiday Makers Gallery has grown into a thriving, vibrant epicentre of creative entrepreneurship. Yes, we might all be missing the festive sights and sounds of large gatherings – they’re a familiar antidote to the shrinking... Read More

The Legend of Rose Madder

    Rose madder is a distinctive rose-coloured pigment made from the roots of the common madder plant, Rubia tinctorum. It is a transparent pigment with granulating properties in watercolour. A natural organic lake pigment, it was first used as... Read More

Unique Colours: Ultramarine – The Blue Gold

Discover Ultramarine Blue!   Ultramarine is a colour that has appealed to people’s imagination since the early Middle Ages. These days it is impossible to imagine the standard palette without this intense blue with its excellent lightfastness. However, up until... Read More

Unique Colours: Quinacridone Gold

Discover Quinacridone Gold! This colour is not what it seems at first glance – it looks like a warm, rich brown straight out of the tube, but it is very transparent and lends a glorious glow to paintings. It also... Read More

Art Brings Us Together: Help Through The Holidays

Undeniably, 2020 has been a tough year. As the pandemic’s taken hold, our world has changed, causing pain and suffering across our creative community. We continue to confront ongoing uncertainties, and our hearts go out to everyone, already finding things... Read More

Get Inspired With Sennelier

The Prominent, Top Performing Pastels with Roberta Combs Like many Opus customers, Federation of Canadian Artists Spilsbury Medal award winner and Gold Medal recipient from the International Associations of Pastel Societies, Roberta Combs, has been asking us to stock the... Read More

Painting During a Pandemic – Gamblin

  Oil Painting from Home  Over the past several months, countless artists and educators have had their scheduled workshops and classes moved online to maintain distance and paint remotely. As fall approaches, this trend continues for many of us.   The... Read More

Art Entrepreneurship as Creative Endeavour

Over the past month you’ve been sharing your artistic projects and the Creative Endeavours Gallery is teeming with inspirational work. As well as taking new ideas to the next level, many of you are successfully making a living or supplementing... Read More

An ART HUB update – A Creative Endeavour That’s Picking Up Speed

At the start of September we published a piece about mixed media artist Stacey Dallyn and her Creative Endeavour, the youth arts therapy programme ART HUB. Over the past month, Stacey and her team have been working with Opus and... Read More

Mastering The Art of Creative Entrepreneurship & Flourishing From The Ground Up: Camilla d’Errico

Manga-influenced, Italo-Canadian artist and Opus alumna, Camilla d’Errico has amassed a huge, loyal following whilst carving out a unique niche in her target market. A pop surrealist painter and comic book creator, she also contributes to the vinyl art toy... Read More

Who are Studio 101?

Studio 101 supports artistic experiences for Vancouver’s inner-city youth. Studio 101 is an Eastside Culture Crawl program dedicated to supporting diverse and engaging artistic experiences for Vancouver’s inner-city youth. Many Eastside schools are designated as inner-city and have limited exposure... Read More

The Role of the Studio

Creative Endeavours and the Role of the Studio    What is the art studio? Some might see it solely as the place an artist reflects, researches, stores and produces material, but the potential of the space doesn’t need to end... Read More

Small Trade Ups for Big Results: Trading up to Artists’ Oil Colour

Trading up to a professional level can seem overwhelming. A few small changes to your palette selections can make a big impact and allows for a more manageable transition while offering cleaner mixes and greater tinting strength. Generally there are... Read More

Elevate Your Art Through Prints by Les Picker

  Ansel Adams famously said, “The photograph is the score; the print is the performance.” I’d like to elaborate on that theme for those of you contemplating fine art printing and for experienced printers looking for new perspectives. I grew... Read More

Exploring Stacey Dallyn’s Creative Endeavour, The ART HUB

Producing something fresh and unique through any form of art offers a sense of self-worth and purpose, so as summer turns to fall amidst the upheaval and change of 2020, we’re focussing on Creative Endeavours. No matter how you do... Read More

Creative Summers – Round Two

With Labour Day just around the corner it’s nearly time to close the doors on our Creative Summers Gallery, but not before we show off one final round of some of your spectacular work! It’s been brilliant to see so... Read More

Creative Summers Round One

Art classes, staycations, daily challenges, memories, gardens, family, escapism … despite the challenges of 2020, all different sorts of things are inspiring you this August! It’s really uplifting to see such an extraordinary array of fabulous, imaginative art pile into... Read More

Artist Taka Sudo Teams up with HYPHA Project & Opus

  Tokyo-born, BC-based artist, Taka Sudo emblazoned the cover of our first Create in June 2019. Inspired by human nature, his surroundings, and current affairs, Taka combines neon tones of spray paint with neutral colours of newsprint to amplify the... Read More

Cultures of Canada, Oh Canada – A Virtual Art Tour Grand Finale

Our Oh Canada Virtual Art Tour has ended. What an epic, seven-week adventure! From Faces to Food, Landscapes to Landmarks, we travelled coast to coast, finishing back where we set off in Old Hazelton, at the heart of Gitxsan territory.... Read More

Canadian Foods

This week we’ve been served some sizzling, steaming and scrumptious submissions. What a delicious and diverse celebration of Canadian cultural identity! Dishing out colour, flavour and pizzaz, your snapshot of our national plate couldn’t be more varied. We’re on the... Read More