Winnipeg senior rediscovers love of painting

CTV’s Jon Hendricks introduces you to 80-year-old Chris Greaves, who has resumed his childhood hobby with gusto.

After decades of keeping his paint brushes dry, a Winnipeg man’s artistic output is exploding.

Chris Greaves, 80, has recently picked up painting again and has started showing his work at exhibitions around the city.

“I’ve got more pictures than I know what to do with them,” he said.

Greaves started drawing when he was a kid, with lessons from his father, and painted and drew throughout his childhood and high school years.

However, life changed and his career and family became his primary responsibilities, putting painting on the back burner. He picked up a few other hobbies, such as building boats and ukuleles in the interim, but painting stayed in the back of his mind.

“Sometimes on vacation, I would paint a picture or two, and then I just thought, ‘Well, when I get old and I’m unable to do the things that I’m used to doing, I’ve always got painting to come back to,’” Greaves said.

It was about one year ago that Greaves got back into painting. His wife was taking tai chi at the Transcona Senior Centre and noticed they had a watercolour painting class at the same time.

Now, he visits a group called The Silver Brushes weekly, where he paints and learns new techniques.

“That keeps me busy and keeps me interested,” Greaves said. “I learn things from other people. And there is a good instructor there, and I picked up a few things; I can always learn new things.”

Greaves said he uses photographs as the inspiration for his paintings. He draws the photos on his canvas, adds light paint first, and then finishes with dark paint which he said takes a few hours.

“When I come home, I usually finish off a painting or start a new one,” he said.

“I usually do a painting, and then I put it aside and I come back and look at it the following day and decide, ‘Well, I didn’t like this, or didn’t like that, or I need to touch this up or I need to start again completely,’ which has happened a few times.”

‘The cathartic release of creating art’

Jeremy Wat, a Winnipeg illustrator and block printer, runs art classes at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, teaching his techniques to students young and old, many of whom want to try something new and creative.

He said it’s important to keep creativity going in life.

“I think that helps people just stretch their mind a little bit, to take everything out,” he said. “Whatever they’re bringing into the class, they leave it at home.”

Wat said while teaching classes, he sees the pride people have when they successfully complete projects.

“You’re kind of like-minded, where you’re all coming together to make art and then being able to do it in a space where you get instruction,” he said. “We get to have the cathartic release of creating art with other people who are trying it out for themselves. There’s inspiration from people who watch others go from really struggling to really making their first one and being proud of it. There’s a camaraderie that comes with it.

“There’s this genuine, sincere, authentic reaction to people who create art together.”

Greaves said he is currently working on a calendar of painted Winnipeg scenes and said he has had some interest from galleries in exhibiting his work, which takes up large portions of the space in his house.

“I got them on the wall, and that’s one of the reasons I don’t want to sell them, because I like to look at them,” he said.

-With files from CTV’s Jon Hendricks