Nora MacPhail – Thursday Night Guest – April 30, 2026

(Submitted by Christina Luna)

Nora is a well known and loved artist based in Toronto for over 25 years.  She teaches watercolor classes to various art clubs and schools around the city.  Her style is unique and often called whimsical, with lots of color and lines,

She began her presentation in the DVAC studio by showing her tool kits, including choice of paints and brushes for plein air painting.  She carries all her supplies in a backpack along with a folding, light weight chair that can be strapped to her backpack for easy transportation. There were many examples of her work on display that showed her styles of painting.

Her demos of painting a streetcar with people lined up to board showed us two techniques of painting.  In the first demo she starts by blocking in color using Princeton brushes (3 small sizes) and creating various shapes to create a lineup of the people.  She has a sketchbook of reference drawings depicting people walking, standing, sitting, and of bicycles and cars that she draws from to keep it simple.  Then the lampost, streetlights, signs, and other objects are painted in.  She uses a fine lined black marker and a thicker lined marker to draw in the outlines. 

In her second demo she drew quick gestural lines with paint of various colors.  This technique lends itself well to persons who cannot (or believe they cannot) draw by using paint as a pencil.  Her preferred paper size is 6” x 8” as this size allows her to paint with the paper inside her portable tool box on her lap.  She sometimes uses a larger size of 8” x 10”.  Cold pressed paper has texture so the watercolor paint does not run too much, whereas hot pressed paper is smooth and better adapted to having it flat on a surface.

We all enjoyed her unique and joyful approach to painting and valuable tips and information.

Thank you Nora!

https://noramacphail.blogspot.com

https://www.instagram.com/noramacphailart