Gilbert Visual Art League
Welcome! We’re glad you found us! The Gilbert Visual Art League strives to increase artistic awareness and appreciation in the community. GVAL offers area artists fellowship and support through monthly meetings, which include professional artist demonstrations. Throughout the year a variety of sales venues are available exclusively to our GVAL Membership.
GVAL normally hosts monthly membership meetings September through June on the first Thursday of the month at 6:30 pm in the Neely room at HD South, Home of the Gilbert Historical Museum.
Our meetings generally consist of:
- Critique of member’s Works in Progress
- GVAL Announcements and Current Events
- Guest presenter
- Voting for Artist of the Month
Meeting location: HD South, Home of the Gilbert Historical Museum, 10 S Gilbert Road, Gilbert 85296 (located just south of downtown Gilbert). Click here for a map and directions »
Due to safety concerns, we will be offering our members an excellent online presentation in place of our May Meeting. See our Calendar Page for updates. The Board is in contact with HD South and our members will be notified by email as plans unfold.
GVAL MEMBER DIRECTORY
Enter HERE
Members, would you like to be added to the directory? It’s easy.
Just fill out the form HERE
Dear valued member, we are an organization that cannot run without our volunteers. Please think about helping out by joining the GVAL Board. Recently emails were sent with job descriptions and an easy form to fill out for nominations. You may nominate yourself or someone else, with their permission by April 15th. If you missed the email, contact us at hello2@gval.org and you will be sent a link.
GVAL Monthly Member Meeting
Our March 6th Monthly Meeting will be a virtual one with John Priddy as our presenter. John’s presentation is titled, “Take Better Pictures with your Cell Phone!” Below are some comments from John. Be sure to look in your email for the Zoom invitation link as the date approaches!
One of my favorite cameras was a small ‘point-and-shoot’ Nikon. Simple to use, small, lightweight, with phenomenal results. But when Huawei produced the Google Phone, everything changed once again…and every couple of years, with each new cell phone introduction, the camera built into them produced results that rivaled the best cameras on the market. I now have an Apple iPhone 7S, not the latest, but one that can get the results far beyond anything I could have imagined even a few years ago. I seldom use a stand-alone camera anymore. Cell phone cameras are that good…
But there’s the catch: you have to know how to properly use the camera in order to get the best results. I’ve heard people say that their cell phone doesn’t take very good photos and it didn’t come with (printed) instructions. That caught my attention. Thirty years of lugging around multiple cameras and lenses taught me a thing or two about light, focus, composition and paying attention to detail. It occurred to me that with a little bit of instruction with a minimum of technical jargon, most cell phone camera users can dramatically improve the quality of the photos they take.
So that’s what I’m going to do for next month’s presentation: Take a Better Picture with Your Cell Phone. So grab your cell phone, make sure you have your password, know where the camera icon is located and we’ll go from there!
John Priddy
At our April meeting, we enjoyed a wonderful presentation by Gini Heywood. If you missed the presentation, you can use the link below to watch the recording. Gini showed us how she begins a painting and gave us many useful tips. As promised, she finished the painting and has shared it for all to enjoy! Please use this passcode vyB76$CX
GVAL Artist of the Month
Artist of the Month for her watercolor Mary Love.
Members, to enter the Artist of the Month competition, send your entries by the 1st of each month by filling out the form HERE. Entries will be voted on by GVAL members and will be eligible for the Artist of the Year competition in June.
GVAL 18th Annual Juried Show and Sale
Thank you to all who entered to make our show a success! All of the winning entries can be viewed HERE. Join us in the fall to participate in our 19th annual juried show and sale, which will take place in the spring. If you are not getting our monthly newsletter, Art Vine, you are invited to fill out the form at the bottom of this page. Enjoy!
Student Fine Art Award:
Each year, Gilbert Visual Art League extends an invitation to all qualified high school juniors and seniors who either attend a school within the boundaries of Gilbert, or are residents of Gilbert and attend any school in the area (public, private or home school) to apply for the annual Student Fine Art Award. The student chosen to receive the award is highlighted at the GVAL Annual Juried Fine Art Show and Sale and given a $250 award. For more information, go to the Student Art page HERE
GVAL and it’s members support the House of Refuge. Recently, members donated 239 pieces of art! Go to our Event Page, HERE to find out more about the House of Refuge. Please note that the next drop off has been rescheduled for the Fall.
Art Vine Newsletters:
To View Your Entire Art Vine CLICK HERE
If you have something that may be of interest to our readers, contact our Newsletter Coordinator Jane Bradley at: janegvalnews@gmail.com You can see past issues of Art Vine HERE
We want to see what you’ve been working on! Did know that our Publicity Coordinator, Donna Finter, updates our Facebook and Instagram pages almost daily? You can send your images and let us know what is happening in your art world by contacting Donna at gvalnewsfbig@gmail.com. And don’t forget to visit our social media sites often to see what our members are sharing!
Visit and Like us on Facebook and Instagram!
We would love to hear from you. Follow this link to view a list of our Board Members and fill out the Contact Form