... ANCIENTS IN MY PERIPHIAL...

..dreaming & experimenting...
...recent works...


The concept of this shoot was based off a painting I did earlier this year. I am trying to create a link between what I do as a face/body artist and what I do as a fine artist.












Acrylic painting on canvas by April-Anna Bremers
Face/Body Painting by April-Anna Bremers
Models: Victoria-Kim & Kimberley
Photographer Pierre Simard

I welcome and encourage comments. Thanks for visiting!!

Just a few thoughts....

"The REAL REVOLUTION is a shift from competition to cooperation, from fear to love, a global awakening into our greatest potential." -Jeremy Williams

"Be the change you wish to see in the world..."-Mahatma Gandhi

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought, word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.” -Mahatma Gandhi

“When I despair, I remember that all through history, the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall.” -Mahatma Gandhi

In the spirit of... Winter Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah....

Happy Solstice!

Merry christmas!

Happy hanukkah!

In other words, merry winter spirit, celebration of life, exchange of gifts, spending time with loved ones; I wish you whatever it is you need the most in your life at this time....

I have been building gifts for my friends and family over the past week in my studio; take a look at some of the creations...

Progress... movements in the studio...

Busy busy like a bee, I am.... so here is a little preview of my world and what I am creating these days.... Asides from alot of computer work; answering client inquiries, preparing for bookings, preparing proposals, information & research.... In my spare time I am in the studio...

This art is not finished... seems I will prepare several exhibitions; as an artist should. I have had a recent meeting with an experienced and successful gallery owner whom provided me with some very real insight and observations of my work, strengths, weaknesses, areas of growth... Anyways, so it seems I need to narrow my focus... the big exhibition for 2009 is evolving; when I have solid plans, I will "let the cat out the bag" but for now, I shall experiment....

These works you see are just in the beginning stages with only the base looks having been applied; I have not decided which direction I am taking them in.

Weddings.... a little twist on tradition.... Photos by Pierre Simard

Forest Dreams; recent photo shoots with photographer Pierre Simard

This is from one of two photo shoots I have done recently with Pierre Simard.

Art dresses...

So one of my recent projects is exploring the possibility of offering art dresses. I am in discussions right now with three different designers about this possibility; one of which jumped on the experiment with full trust during a body painting session. Keera Sama, designer for LIA Fashions "Life is Art"

http://www.liacreations.net , was modeling for me on a collaboration with photographer Abbie Brand of "Excentria Productions" when we decided to go from painting her skin to painting her dress. I have discovered I really like making wearable art.

Keera has a show on right now "Wearable Art Show" at Nexus Art Gallery at 218 St Paul in Old Montreal. I have one piece of art at the show right now with two more pieces,

only recently finished, on their way. The dresses you see above are for sale. Each piece I have made is completely unique with no other like it.

Testing a dream...

I am currently started a new project series (playing with an idea). Of course this is material for the Exhibition in 2009; but also it is also potentially going to be part of a book I might do. If I do the book, it will require 50 images; so that might be a year or two away.

This image is currently in it's rough draft stage; I might leave it as is, or I might do alot more work on the original.

I welcome your feedback/comments.

Photoshoot tonight....

So we had the "mighty mighty blueberry super hero also known as a bum faerie", and a couple of pixies.... Ok seriously; I wasn't trying to create a super hero or pixies; but after some experimentation and a little reflection; we all observed the results could not be denied...

I did another photoshoot with Pierre Simard tonight. This was something we planned about three weeks ago. The purpose was multi-fold; experiment, collaborate, practice, & portfolio...

We had a blast! We invited my awesome and lovely friend, Jamie Brock "Advika Clothing; Sustainable Fashion", who had recently started her own clothing company. I invited LaSalle College fashion marketing student, Alison Hicks, to come model for us, as well as massage therapist. Our third model, the "super blueberry hero, also quite a bum faerie", was hypnotherapist, Patrick Luce (www.patrickluce.net) who is also a long time practicing martial arts student.

My focus was legs & neck corsets. With Patrick I was simply thinking to create a Chinese style men's shirt with body paint and some manor of design. Originally I wanted to work a dragon into Patrick's body paint but with time constraints and the way my creative flow was going, I did a different type of pattern of the "shirt". I choose blue on Patrick because it's his favourite color; I didn't realize how super hero like or blueberry like the whole look would be. As some of the models were saying, it was very "X-man" like (woops!).

Honestly, super heroes & comic books don't interest me; but I like the results all the same. It was such a fabulous and fun day! Thank-you so much Pierre, Patrick, Kaz, Alison & Ziggy!!

Preparations for my exhibition - 2009

So the cat is out of the bag... It's official; Fall 2009, I will have a full scale exhibition of my work; this means everything. Fine arts in multi-media on canvas, pen & ink on acid-free paper, "murals" on acetate, art installations, masks, & photography of my body arts.

Location is to be announced; but it will be in a high class venue. Guest list only; invitations will be sent out much closer to the date. We have to make a guest list for the vernissage (opening night) because the capacity will be limited.

Here are a few previews of the works I am currently twiddling with in my studio.

Oct. 2008 - Lassalle College Fashion Show - Club Soda

Lassalle College fashion marketing students hired me to do a full head to foot body painting imitating a canvas with paint splashes all over it for their recent Fashion Show for industry professionals at Club Soda in Montreal.

The Art of April-Anna
http://www.aprilanna.com

Recent Photo Shoot

Recent photoshoot with model Pierre-Yves Blain and photographer Pierre Simard.

-April-Anna Bremers
The Art of April-Anna
http://www.aprilanna.com

Teaching Teenagers: Ville de Trois-Rivieres

Nov 15th, 2008.
I was asked in the beginning of August to teach a group of teenagers in Trois-Rivieres in the fall. Festi-Art was a creation of high school teachers at Le Tremplin Ecole Secondaire & the surrounding schools. The festival of workshops covered the arts, music, comedy, sound engineering and more. I was asked to teach because of the diversity, style & quality of my work. Needless to say, I was very flattered to be asked.



This would have been my first workshop teaching teenagers. The workshop taught artistic face painting to students from several schools in the area. Festi-Art is program that used to run four years ago but had stopped; now they are trying to relaunch the program as of last year. Unfortunately this year many of the workshops got canceled because of low registration; but of the workshops that got filled, my own class "Artistique Maquillage " was quite a hit with a total of 16 students in my class.

The workshop I taught covered the basic fundamentals of getting into doing artistic face painting as a job. We went through many looks, first teaching a stylish cyborg, then we went into doing butterflies, tiger faces, skeletons and then finished up with teaching them about how to do my own personal style of artistry which is influenced by high fashion make-up.

By teaching the teenagers the basics involved in doing face painting, it was then easier to turn around and to try to teach them how to work conceptually, which is how I work. A client or myself, will give me a concept to expand into art, be it on the body or the canvas. My clients expect to see quality results. So I was trying to teach the students how to develop that ability within themselves.

It was a super positive day, the students and the teachers were happy and when class was over. The students didn't want to quit. Which is quite a compliment! The other teachers offered to keep an eye on the students; so when I left, the teenagers were still painting and practicing on each other!

- April-Anna Bremers
The Art of April-Anna
http://www.aprilanna.com

Welcome to The Art of April-Anna

I created a blog for my work as an artist to share what I am doing in more detail then you get on my website. This will be a more personal and honest representation of my journey as an artist, a bit of diary if you will.

This blog is complimentary to my website "The Art of April-Anna" which you can find at www.aprilanna.com