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David Clendining 

Owner and Founder of Summit Studios Inc.

          David Clendining is an artist and has always been an artist. As a young boy in Calgary Alberta, David regularly was awarded top prizes in the Calgary Stampede’s Student in the Arts competitions. In his early teenage years, he and his family moved to Toronto where David became involved in theatre arts, designing and helping to build sets for several theatrical companies. During his late teens to early twenties, David worked as an illustrator and had several art shows of his painting and sculptural works in many well known Toronto galleries. 

David at Summit Studios with pieces from

Hopewell Rocks, Newfoundland

          In the  mid 1970's, David attended the Ontario College of Art (OCA, now OCAD) where he studied commercial art, illustration, and bronze sculpture and casting. He also audited Sheridan college's animation diploma program and University of Toronto's medical illustration program. While in School, David worked at Nelvana Animation Studios in Toronto on several features such as Rock and Rule and Heavy Metal. He later also worked for Dick Williams Animation Studios in London, England as a background illustrator and SFX animator. David completed his formal final year arts education with OCA with a scholarship to study in Florence Italy. While living in Italy, he was invited to apprentice at the prestigious Anichini Sculpture Studio Firenze. He was introduced to wood carving, and antique building restoration through this apprenticeship. While working at his apprenticeship and completing his final year off campus at OCA, David produced many illustration, paintings, and sculptures that were shown in several galleries throughout Europe.

          In the early 1980's David returned to Canada where he became a part time student at Lakehead University. He completed his BA in Historical and Social economics. At the same time he continued to produce illustrations for advertising firms and children's books, and worked as the art director for CKPR/CHFD TV. Set design, illustration, advertising, production art, and film production were his daily disciplines. While working at CKPR he was approached by W5 to do some court room illustrations for a particularly "newsworthy" murder trial. That trial and those illustration led to his being employed by CTV as a court room illustrator for many trials across Canada. This let a job as Art Director for the CTV network at CJOH TV Ottawa.

          David remained at CJOH as Art Director / Production Designer for the next ten years where he was responsible for set design, illustration, special effects, animation, promotional advertising, court room illustration and developing broadcast technologies. In the latter years of employment with CTV, David started his own small company called Summit Studios. Summit Studios did very well. In 1993 David left CTV to focus exclusively on Summit Studios' endeavours.

David at in Sydney, Nova Scotia for the installation the Merchant Marines Monument

Today David Clendining-Summit Studios International works in all aspects of artistic creations, but primarily focuses on three things:

     - The design and fabrication of museum displays, murals, sculptures, models, sets and FX around        Canada, the United States, parts of Europe, and Asia. Examples include Founder's Hall PE,                Hopewell Rocks NB, Signal Hill NL, Military Museum AB, Museum of Nature ON, and the                Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC.

 

     -The design and fabrication of bronze monuments including all the bronze works along Canada's       Capital Confederation Boulevard, the Canadian Centennial Flame, the Animals in War                       Monument in Confederation Park, the Garden of the Provinces and Territories, Jaques Cartier           Park, as ell as stone carving, including the gargoyles on Parliament Hill, Christ's Cathedral and         much more. 

     -The design and fabrication of movie sets and SFX for productions such as Chasing Rainbows,             Interview with the Vampire, Grey Owl, H2O, The 13th Warrior and Decoys.

David Clendining has spent his lifetime pursuing and mastering a wide variety of artistic disciplines. He has been taught many things from many masters and in turn has passed this knowledge on. David has been a part-time teacher for at least twenty years in learning institutions across Canada, including Confederation College in Thunder Bay ON, North Island High School in Port McNeill BC, Algonquin College in Ottawa ON, and the University of Ottawa. David is presently teaching at the Ottawa School of Art.

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