With the 12th Annual Catalina Arts and Crafts Festival approaching on Easter Weekend, the posters advertising the event are popping up around town. The art used for this year’s event poster was actually done by a visiting artist at the September art festival event and the painting was done with a unique process, whereby the paint is applied using squirt bottles, similar to those old-fashion restaurant ketchup bottles.
The artist, Ron Libbrecht, is a Torrance-based artist and printer, who has been painting and teaching since the age of 12. Soon after his first art class at the Artist Cove in Bellflower, Ron’s art began getting noticed. His mother volunteered for a local Girls Scout troop and when she learned they needed a class to earn an art badge, Ron had his first class of students. And he hasn’t looked back.
“Teaching has always been a part of what I do,” Ron said in a phone interview from Hawaii, where he was working on new projects.
Ron got a bachelors and masters in Fine Arts/Drawing and Painting both from Cal State Long Beach and also studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. His father owned a print shop in Torrance and while working as an artist, Ron also helped his father run the shop. Eventually, Ron began to convert the front of the shop into an art gallery and when his father passed away he took over the business.
He continued to paint and much of his work has been sought by Southern California Hotels that like works that highlight the area around their properties. He also added classes at his gallery, now called the APC Fine Arts Gallery and he teaches at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center. He has a new piece scheduled to be unveiled at the Marriott in Del Mar, sometime in April.
Ron has travelled the world, Florence and Venice, Italy and Paris, France, among other locations, always capturing the scenery with is plein air painting and drawing.
The print shop also provided other new twists to creating art. He began to use the excess waste from toner cartridges to develop new paint mediums, mixing it with oils or acrylics to see how it changes the paint. Anything that makes a mark on paper can become a part of the work.
“Will it make a mark? Yes. Okay, let’s see what it can do,” Ron said.
Ron works with different drawing tools, watercolors, oils, acrylics and even mixed medium art, but in the end it usually comes back around to painting. That’s his eventual goal and whenever possible, he prefers to be out at the site, working in plein air style.
“It’s about movement and reflection,” Ron said.
To see more about Libbrecht, visit apcfinearts.com, or at turningart.com. Ron plans to return to Catalina for the September Arts and Crafts Fair.
The Catalina Arts and Crafts Festival will be March 29-31.
