For many people a monkey loose in the powder room isn’t a dream come true - they leave the toilet seat up, and they are awkward with the toilet paper. But if you really, really need an Orangutan or a Siamang gibbon to liven up the guest bathroom, Steve Kenny is exactly the man to put one there.

Mr. Kenny is a muralist from Toronto, Canada. For several decades he has been bringing exotic animals, a racoon, the Canadian wilderness or whatever else people desire to brighten up their walls.

This week Mr. Kenny was on the island to give a mural workshop that is part of the Arts For All programme from today until Saturday.

Mr Kenny recently spoke with The Royal Gazette recently, accompanied by his beloved dog, Schmoo. Schmoo was about the only thing Mr. Kenny had that wasn’t mildly paint spattered.

“There is very little I don’t have paint on,” he admitted with a laugh. “Even my one and only linen suit has paint on it. It just goes with the territory. I remember years ago comedian Phyllis Diller said if you don’t want people to think you are a messy housekeeper just put an easel in the middle of the room. That kind of works.”

Mr. Kenny’s background is in architectural illustration, but he first made a name for himself painting flowers in Montreal, Canada.

At one time his floral posters could be seen from one end of the world to the other, and he even won a design award in the 1980s from Print Magazine. Then his interest in flowers wilted, slightly.

“I found there was so much backstabbing in the business,” said Mr. Kenny. “So I ran away to Los Angeles and I lived there for four years. When I came back to Canada a friend of mine said she knew someone who needed a mural done. So we met and I took to it like a duck to water.”

One of his first clients was a Canadian personality known as ‘Princess Fetoun’ in Toronto.

“That job took at least seven or eight months,” he said. “Basically, it just became one job after another. I didn’t have to advertise. It was just word of mouth. For several of the jobs I was in homes up to a year or a year and a half.”

Mr. Kenny’s murals of pavilions and tropical forests not only livened up a house, but also raised the sale value. One mural that wound up an elegant staircase actually made it into the Sotheby’s catalogue when the house went on sale.

Given his popularity, Mr. Kenny could afford to be a bit picky about his clients.

“I guess I am a bit fussy,” he said. “If I meet a client and we don’t click then I won’t take the job, because you are in their house for a year.”

Now he is focusing on canvases more than his murals, although he is still interested in interesting murals outside of Canada.

“I ended up getting a job here in Bermuda,” he said. “When I came down unfortunately, the work papers hadn’t been arranged. So it became a two week holiday. In the meantime I heard about Tom Butterfield, and his interest was in people doing canvases of the island.”

Mr. Kenny said that is how his interest came to swing around to canvases.

“I am really not interested in doing murals in Canada anymore,” he said. “I am interested in work out of the country in Bermuda or the United States. I have worked in Florida, Jamaica, Los Angeles, England, among other places.”

He recently painted a mural on the wall of a daycare centre in England, in memory of his mother who lived in England for a long time.

“I had to paint the main focus much lower, because it was for children,” he said. “I was sure to put a lot of cows and animals into the picture. I imagined the children would enjoy counting the animals. I have since heard that that is exactly what they do.”

No matter what climate he is working in, his materials are basically the same. He uses acrylic paint for small details and housepaints for the rest. He finishes off with a protective coating of Varathane.

“This is non yellowing so that the art is protected,” he said. “It protects it from the sun and ageing. So I found out there hasn’t been any problem. If you leave it unprotected, it will get damaged over the years.”

Although his Masterworks workshop is open to adults, so far mainly kids 11 years old and up have signed up.

“I just want to be able to show the kids the basics of airbrushing, because that is part of it,” he said. “When I do a mural I would say ninety percent of it is just painting by hand. Ten percent would be airbrushed. It just brings it to life. I would like to be able to show the children how it is done.”

He hopes to impart several art secrets to his students, such as, ‘a shadow must always be darker than the thing that is in shadow’.

“I have a saying, ‘see the good and praise it’,” he said. “What I would like to instil in the students is to think positively for one thing no matter what it is. Then hopefully, they can transpose that onto paper or canvas. I feel like artists have been around for a long long time but in days gone by before we had cameras, it was the artist’s role to depict royalty, battles, scenes in history. We have the 11 o’clock news for that now. As far as I am concerned, my role as an artist is to get people to look at an image and hopefully touch their soul. That is important. The best compliment I ever had at shows is when I see people crying.”

In addition to the workshops, Mr. Kenny will also be holding an exhibition of his canvas work at the Masterworks Gallery from March 16 to 23 next year. The show will be inspired by William Shakespeare’s reference to Bermuda as ‘Paradise On Earth’.

“I am really not interested in the Artist in Residence aspect of Masterworks,” he said, “but I would just like to have a show. I haven’t had one in many years.”

In each of the Bermuda inspired canvases he has created there is a little creature, sometimes a rooster, sometimes a cat or a bird.

Mr. Kenny is an animal lover and is known for his whimsical animals in both his canvases and his murals.

“I tried to focus on the critters of Bermuda,” he said. “In each one there are chickens, lizards, birds. Horseshoe Bay. This canvas I call stairway to paradise, because Shakespeare described Bermuda As Paradise on Earth.For more information about the Arts for All programme go to the Masterworks website at http://www.bermudamasterworks.com or telephone 236-2950 or email mworks[AT]ibl.bm .