Arts and Entertainment

Former Orangeville teacher shares her approach and passion for creating art

October 15, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Artist Patricia MacDonald has a history of teaching art at Orangeville District Secondary School, but it was some years ago. She taught evening classes primarily attended by people who graduated from high school but appreciated her lessons.

That said, the course MacDonald was teaching did finish with a Grade 11 credit. During one course, attended as usual not by students, there was one teenager who actually was going to the high school. He was attending her classes because he needed the Grade 11 credit. 

As a memory, it makes her smile.

“I was teaching art — a watercolour course,” she recalled. “I was looking at the combination of water, trees and pathways.”

From that time, MacDonald has often come to the Caledon area from where she has lived most of her adult life in Guelph, enjoying looking for and photographing the scenery here during her country drives.

“My paintings are not a representation. I do travel locally to Mono Mills and take photos for later,” she said in a recent interview with the Citizen.

Not simply an artist, a painter, MacDonald has a long string of degrees: studies of Fine Art at university led to a B.A., B.Ed. and M.A. in Fine Art, Art Education and Art History, respectively.

She then pursued a career in that field, working as a museum educator, events programmer, curator and as a secondary school visual arts teacher.

MacDonald commented that she liked going to school and enjoyed teaching.

The interview with the Citizen was prompted by the art pieces she had displayed at the Headwaters Arts Fall Festival juried show and sale.

She described her winning entry, titled What the World Needs Now is Love, as “an amalgamation — a blend of locations on my travels. It has a universal appeal.”

Talking about her art and the self-appointed conditions under which she produces it, she offered that it be a little humorous, never very realistic — that does not interest her, were her comments.

“A tree might be different from what people see. I need to personalize what I see,” she defined her approach, wanting viewers to have a happy experience when they look at her work.

With her landscapes, MacDonald plays with colour and perspectives, pushing the boundaries. She expanded the idea by saying what she is doing is pushing these boundaries of distraction, in the sense of playing with traditional forms.

Her grandfather taught her the simplistic method of drawing a bird in flight — a curve with her pencil and then another to prove the wing, like hills overlapping.

Once she was nine years old, MacDonald’s mother began to encourage her. She purchased some oil paints when acrylics were not in the stores yet, but it was a short-lived time in her art life. Oil paints were a little too much for such a young person, it turned out.

As she went on in her life, attending schools, “I literally did every subject I could,” MacDonald said in her enthusiasm for her arts education.

“Now,” she said, “I am painting landscapes, and I am never bored. I am doing what I want. I have to have fun with it.”

Her paintings have been in many galleries, but by and large, galleries are looking for paintings that are essentially commercial.

Right now, MacDonald is more interested in applying for juried shows.

She participates in her local Studio Tour and can find venues to sell her work. MacDonald does not take commissions to paint a person’s house, as her vision of the building and grounds might be quite different from how the owner sees his home, but she has done a lot of dog portraits.

“I really want to experiment,” she declared, wishing for a large room with several large canvases where she can dash from one to the other, determined that next year she is planning something more exceptional.

Of her husband, MacDonald had only praise: “He is my biggest supporter — a man who gives me great advice.”

She added, “Painting for me is a joyful experience, and I want my art to communicate that sense of fun and pleasure.”

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