Pearl Lorentzen
Lakeside Leader

“I just enjoy it,” says Cate Gongos, about oil painting. “It’s fun to do, and it’s fun to be able to put your work up.”

In September, some of her oil paintings are for sale at the Fix.

“I’m very grateful to the Fix,” says Gongos. “I would have nowhere to show them.”

Gongos has been studying and making oil paintings for around the last 15 years, but that wasn’t the beginning of her interest in art.

“I’ve been interested in painting or just drawing for a long time,” she says. However, her first experience in an art class wasn’t positive.

She was about 15. There was an evening class at a high school. At the first class she attended, everyone else was in their 30s or older and the model was nude. She didn’t take another class for a very long time.

However, she continued making art. She was drawn to portraiture, especially of people’s faces. Then in university she did some still lifes, many of beer bottles.

Over the years, she did different types of art.

She and her husband ran White Cap Motors in Slave Lake. Around 15 years ago, they stepped back from the company and she got serious about art.

They were spending their winters in Arizona. Gongos signed up for a watercolor class, because it was portable and something she could do in the RV.

“It didn’t resonate,” she says. However, she was wandering around the studio space and found some oil paintings done by students of another teacher.

“I want to do that,” she thought.

Gongos reached out to the teacher, who wasn’t taking any students. However, through persistence she found a place.

The first class was painting desert rocks.

“I had the best experience there,” says Gongos. “I had a flash – I am so in the right place.”

She was enjoying it so much she didn’t care how long it took her to get the painting of that one rock just right.

Gongos has worked with the same teacher since then, mostly painting oil on canvas, with a focus on realism.

Through the years, Gongos has learned a lot about colours, using light and darkness, and the correct brushes for each part of the painting.