A Woman and her Beagle: a pastel portrait

I'm shipping out a pastel portrait this week and I must confess that I love it :-)

Now as you can see, it is of a beautiful woman and her equally charming beagle! Wow-the memories....my very first dog, my buddy, my confidant...was a beagle. I was just 7 years old and she occupied a time in my life that no other dog ever will. At 20, I honestly thought my world was going to end when "Tippy" passed. It was serious grief.

Ah but years later, and many four legged best friends later, I know of course that wasn't true :-). So I totally understood the bond between this woman and her dog!

Her mother commissioned it and sent me a huge pile of photos and ideas! After looking through them, I said what I say to everyone "Got it. Now just leave it up to me to choose!" So she did.:-)

The result is this pastel portrait-about 14 x 18 of Sarah and Bella and it will be the family's treasure for many years to come!

Of course, no one ever says it better than a happy client:

 Theresa....I have just had to retrieve the Kleenex box.....this is absolutely perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am blown away....

Learning to Draw

Art is probably the ONLY subject (hobby, profession) where the average person has the attitude "you have to be born being able to draw" to do it.  Think about it-even in music the average musician learns a step by step procedure to reach a certain level of proficiency-same in ant profession from jewelry making to becoming a doctor.
This past weekend we had a group come to our studio for a "TREES" workshop and they had a blast! None were "accomplished" artists but they wanted to know "how to I draw a tree." What do I do first?
Steve demoed first with charcoal.

Oil Sketch and charcoal sketch by Stephen Filarsky

The key to learning to draw is learning to see and Feb 1 turned out to be a beautiful sunny day-not too hot (haha it IS February!) and not too cold.
Why a sunny day in winter? No leaves! Yep-just form, structure limbs and wonderful shadows.

Trees are very forgiving :-) A limb too high or too low, too fat, too skinny doesn't matter. It's not like a face or an object where the end result is usually to have it look like that object (or person) A tree is recognizable and not intimidating, so learning to SEE what you need to see to draw a tree can be employed with any other thing you would like to draw! 

I'll have some recent paintings I have completed up soon but below are some of the results of the TREES class. Enjoy!

And if you have a group interested in us holding one of our workshops either at our location, or yours, let us know!