About Paintworks Art Studio
The best supplies for your needs
Knowledgeable and superb customer service
Custom framing, Digitization, Fine Art Prints and Custom Puzzles
Art instruction
Experienced teachers for every medium
Spacious studio available for rent
Paintworks Art Studio is located in downtown Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. We supply quality art materials to both established and beginning artists as well as art instruction.
For those needing your art framed or reframed, we provide this service. Come in and select the frames and mats that look best and we’ll do the rest. For the do-it-yourself framer, we have all the supplies you need.
Digitization of your own artwork and printing is available. We can even create puzzles from your works.
Our knowledgeable and helpful service will ensure you receive the best supplies for your needs.
Classes are scheduled to be as convenient as possible and are held in our in-store studio. Teachers are selected for their expertise in a particular medium as well as teaching experience. We also provide private lessons and homeschool activities may be arranged. Special weekend workshops are regularly scheduled.
Our studio is available to rent. If you are an instructor and would like to use our studio for delivering a workshop, or would like to rent it for a artsy special event, please contact us. Our studio has room for up to eleven adults.
Meet Our Artists
Barbara Kiddle
Life should be a series of learning and growing experiences. Exploring is never complete and that everyone has the ability to express themself artisticly. She enjoys teaching and sharing her knowledge with others.
Since childhood, art has been an intigral way in which Barbara has expressed herself and experienced the world around her.
As a new owner of Paintworks Art Studio, she will share her experience with those looking to discover the world of art, learn new forms of expression and learn or develop new skills.
Rani Crawford
Rani Crawford was a classroom teacher for nineteen years and now spends her time painting and teaching the joys of fine art. She has been an active artist for over thirty years. From 2003 to 2018, Rani owned and operated Paintworks in Okotoks, Alberta.
Her interests include all fine art mediums, and she finds her muse in natural subjects such as landscapes, seascapes, florals and wildlife. She thinks of her art works as small treasures. Each art piece is unique to reflect the individuality of her subjects and every aspect of nature is an opportunity to use pure color and bravura brushwork.
Always inspired by her surroundings, it is hard for Rani to run out of ideas for new paintings. Each painting is a synthesis of plein air sketches, memory and imagination.
Over the course of her career, Rani has worked with a number of charities in support of both humanitarian and conservation initiatives. Her works are in collections both in Canada and Europe.
Rani is based in Okotoks, Alberta.
Website: www.ranicrawford.ca
Ashley Gaboury
Even before graduating with a BFA in Studio Arts in 2003 at The University of Lethbridge, Ashley worked as an instructor at The Prairie Art Gallery in Grande Prairie, Alberta. Over the past fifteen years she has established herself as a 2-dimensional art instructor, while simultaneously developing as a professional artist. Exuding enthusiasm and passion about drawing, she continually pushing the boundaries within her artwork. She creates in a myriad of mediums including watercolour pencils, alcohol-based markers, and acrylics. The bulk of her work has spiritual undertones, often playing with the dualism of light and dark, and the dichotomy of good and evil.
Website: www.ashleygaboury.com
Erica Neumann
After graduating from the Ontario College of Art, Erica worked as a waitress at the Ontario Legislature. A beautiful old building, full of painted portraits, landscapes and sculpture. Painting was an after hours pursuit, and she co-owned The Surface Gallery, on Spadina, for a brief time.
After visiting a friend in Jasper, she fell deeply in love with the Rockies, and moved to Canmore, Alberta, in the early nineties. She would stay there for six years, painting, waitressing, cycling and enjoying the company of great friends. Erica’s first big break came with representation by the Sunny Raven gallery, when owner Meg Nicks asked if she would sell her small pastels there. They are friends to this day.
It was in Canmore that the wildlife paintings began. Eventually she moved to Calgary, found employment at Swinton’s Art Supplies, and then moved to a beautiful old street in Okotoks, where she is to this day.
Website: www.ericaneumann.com
New Artists will be joining us this fall.