FRED TIPPIE



Click Here to View Fred's Watercolor Paintings

Fred Tippie was born and raised on a farm in Stettler, Alberta. Vivid colors bold contrasts, sentimental subject matter and humour are part of his distinctive style. As a young school teacher in the cowboy town of Black Diamond, south of Calgary, in 1963, he fell under the spell of the Foothills scenery and artists A.C. Leighton, A. Y. Jackson and Roland Gissing who painted it. Fred is self-taught but came to admire Paul Cezanne (color), Winslow Homer (drawing/composition) and westerner Charles Russell(realistic detail). Fred earned a B.A. degree at the University of Alberta (Calgary) in 1996. He has worked at construction, geology, sales, personnel and social work that took him acreoss Canada from Dawson City to old Montreal and Halifax. After settling in sunny Kamloops, BC in 1976, he and his wife Bridget, a maternity RN, raised two talented sons, Brett and Jake. Fred happily taught school at all grade levels for 30 years before retiring to focus on his art.

As a child, he was encouraged by his father to study closely the many design and color variations of postage stamps in the elder's huge world collection. Fred's mother shared her love of pictures through her collection of interesting newspaper photos, the Regal greeting cards she sold to neighbors and colorful calendars of local merchants she gathered each New Years. On the farm, Fred saw big, black, cloudy skies and tiny raindrops quivering on rusty barbed wire; gray snowdrifts; blue-purple lilacs, crocuses, and saskatoons, and golden buffalo beans. Early pencil sketches, tinted with Cottman's watercolors (blue tin box set) were thumb-tacked proudly on the walls of Grandpa Jesse's shack.

In 2002, Fred won first in the Kamloops Cattle Drive poster contest. Stories have appeared in B.C. Cattlemen's Beef in B.C. and New Trails, U. of A. alumni magazine. He was recently featured twice on the cover of Country Register, a Western Canadian arts/antiques paper published in Calgary. He's done art shows in Kamoops (Art in the Park/Canada Day and Sun Rivers) and Calgary )Millarville, Bearspaw, Crossroads, Eau Claire, and Heritage Village). His work is on display at numerous Kamloops businesses as well as Quaaout Resort in Chase, Tree Line Studio in Sun Peaks Ski Resort and Edwards on the Walk (antiques) in Nanton, Alberta. Fred was honored in December to be voted Kamloops "Best Local Artist, 2005" in Kamloops Daily News annual Readers' Survey.

Fred enjoys meeting people and welcomes any interest in his art work.


1413 Pine Crescent
Kamloops B.C.
V2C 2Z2
Tel: 1-866-241-4222
e-mail: fredtippie@shaw.ca