North Shore Artist Spotlight: Ted Hamel

“My favorite thing about being an artist is it makes me feel happy. Art makes me happy, I feel less overwhelmed when I am making. After I finish a piece I am tired, exhausted and proud. I put a lot of work into my pieces.”

Ted Hamel is one of the artists that joined the North Shore studio community this summer. He has quickly become a wonderful addition to the studio and has surprised us with his wit, dance moves, and how quickly he volunteered to pie Hilary Marshall in the face for a fundraiser.

“I love creating pictures of trains, cartoons, and Harry Potter. I like them because they are fascinating. They make me feel happy. I usually use pastels, watercolor, and paint brushes. I use sketching paper. I sketch on canvas and then I paint on it. I usually find my images on the Internet. I Google them.”

[Image: Ted’s artwork featuring trains and cartoon characters surrounded by pastel color fields]

Ted’s art is a mixture of color fields and doodles. The doodle-like drawings usually reference some popular culture icon like Harry Potter, railroad trains, or Looney Tunes and more often than not feature speech bubbles housing an original joke of Ted’s. His drawings are then surrounded by cloudy, pastel color fields. A border is left around the drawing that creates curiosity in the viewer about how Ted uses negative space.

“When I am not at The Arts of Life, I love to play soccer. I am the goalie. Before The Arts of Life, I was at Clearbrook. I have always made art, I can’t remember when I first started. I was young. I plan to continue making and selling my art for a long time.”

When asked what he would like people to know about him, Ted replied he would like everyone to know that he is a kind and helpful guy. We, at the studio, can attest to that and are looking forward to Ted’s continued contribution to our community.