Olaf Schneider – Friday Night Guest – January 27, 2023

(Submitted by Taline Kavoukian)

Olaf Schneider is a Canadian painter who studied art at the Ontario College of Art and Sheridan College. He began his career painting large scale outdoor advertising billboards and murals for Mediacom. His diverse subject matter took him to large paintings of racing car drivers, horse racing, landscapes, portraiture, and still life paintings. Olaf has won numerous awards, more recently including first prize at the 2019 Colour and Form Society’s Annual Juried Competition.

Olaf  begins with an under painting, often by airbrushing. He then uses a grid and draws from an image projected onto the canvas. He paints in the lights and dark with the Grisaille method and glazes with a limited palette of colours. Olaf says the secret to realism is all in the details and says that one should “Paint what lights you up!”. Olaf believes in the importance of a mentor to push one’s work forward.

Olaf is represented by a number of galleries in Canada and the Unities States. He does his own marketing, and advises that artists should leave their fear of rejection at the door and show their portfolios in person to galleries that are a good fit for their work. He accepts commissions and can be contacted at olaf.ca