When you want more than a copy of a photo!

The Internet has provided opportunity for learning never experienced in the past! No longer do schools need volumes of books or shelves of audio visual  equipment. All one needs is an Internet connection and the time to watch videos and read stories on every conceivable subject!

There are huge benefits and huge pitfalls in this age of mass marketing and communication and in my area of expertise-the arts-everyone has become an artist! Now that's not a bad thing. In fact today's kids and adults have the tools to learn all kinds of art forms unavailable to my generation of artists :-). I was delighted to get the cardboard packaged in my dadd's shirts from the cleaners (yes they came folded!)  Now there are art toys that do all the drawing for the kids. Becoming an artists used to mean practicing over and over to become good at a subject (lol-horses come to mind with me) but now there is very little of that. Children (and adults) do not develop "the eye". In a class environment, kids can create wonders!

But what I am seeing today in adult artists are copyists. Few are "seeing" their subjects. Most have learned the technique of copying and pasting with their computers and printers and so longer seem to have a "hands on" approach to painting. Have they actually walked in the woods to see that landscape? Watched the clouds and the weather roll in?  Handled that dog or horse? Or more importantly, drawn "from life?"
When you compare art that is copied to art that is created from knowledge and goes beyond copying, then you are seeing a true artist at work :-). Think about that the next time you might be thinking of investing in a portrait. You really often do get what you pay for :-)

A few dog portraits

A few horse portraits

People and their pets

Often it is the moment and the feeling!

News from our studio and SHOW schedules!

Early Spring (March), 2016


March and there is SO much going on. Many art shows and horse shows coming up this spring. We  love to show and tell so scattered throughout this newsletter are some of the many art pieces we created for our collectors. 
Also meet our newest family member, Bella, our baby alpaca. Theresa is already deciding what to do with all of her fleece when she is sheared the end of March.


What's Happening:  Shows where you can find us, as vendors or on the grounds with our easels   (Remember to check back with us on our calendar as sometimes this changes)

March 12 Triangle Farms C horse show, Hunt Horse Complex, Raleigh, NC ! Look for us on just Saturday, March 12 at the show! At the Hunt Horse Complex. We'll be there with portraits and silkwork (oh the horses!)  http://www.trianglefarms.com/

March 17-20  Triangle Farms A horse show, Raleigh NC    Steve will be at this show part of the time with his paintings. Check with us for the dates!  http://www.trianglefarms.com/



March 18-20  Spring Carousel Gift Market  Raleigh, NC, At NC fairgrounds, Jim Graham Building  Theresa will be there with her all of her silk art. https://www.facebook.com/springcarousel

March 23-26  You will find us at the Spring Premier Horse Show at the Hunt Horse Complex in Raleigh, NC.  Portraits, paintings and silk art in our indoor booth!
http://www.raleighspringpremier.com/

April 23 Bynum Bridgefest!  A one day art and craft event (on the Bynum Bridge) between Chapel Hill and Pittsboro, NC that meshes with Earth Day.  Come see Theresa with her fiber and silk art!   http://www.bephilarthropy.com/

April 30:Cary Spring Daze!  Long URL to a long established one day art and craft show held in a beautiful park in Cary, NC!  http://www.townofcary.org/Departments/Parks__Recreation___Cultural_Resources/events/festivals/springdaze.htm

May 6-7: The Handmade Market    We're still waiting to hear back on this art and craft event but if it's a go, Theresa will be there with her silk and fiber art! http://www.thehandmademarket.com/site/



May 21 & 22 Keswick Horse Show: Like last year, Steve will make his annual jaunt to the Keswick Hunt Club (in Virginia) and can be found around the grounds with his easel painting the scenes at the show!

May 20-22  Artsplosure  A very busy, super fun art and craft show in downtown Raleigh, NC. Theresa will be there with all of her fiber and silk art! http://artsplosure.org/

Well that's probably enough to keep all of us busy! There will be our long time horse shows in June, July and August including the 2 weeks at Blowing Rock, NC and possibly  some Virginia shows. YOU can easily keep track of where we will be through our Facebook pages!

ART classes and workshops (March-August) 
These are classes held at our studio location and others. If you would like us to set up a workshop with your art group, just drop us a note. Sign up for our separate art student academy newsletters that are just for our painting students!
Theresa is teaching some new classes with the Vance Granville Community College (http://www.vgcc.edu/coned/personal-interest) in the Personal Enrichment program, including some Heritage Programs coming up. Make sure you are signed up for our Art Student Academy newsletters to stay on top of all art classes!   http://artstudentacademy.com/

SHOP with US!
A great landing page to branch into the areas we have that interest you is http://www.OnRoadArtists.com  From there you can read our blogs, see what we are painting and so much more! But additional locations are below:
Theresa's  portraits are online, is: http://www.etsy.com/shop/mtheresabrown
Theresa's abstracts and silk art: http://www.DreamHorseArt.com....go to the shop section to see what is available!
Visit Steve's store with his paintings is:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/sfilarsky




To reach us, all you have to do is go to ONE page:
http://www.OnRoadArtists.com 
There you will find links to our blogs, Facebook pages, various websites, phone numbers and emails!

New work images posted regularly on our Facebook pages! Watch for our updates!
Until next time!
Theresa and Steve

Art Show Opening Tonight June 13!

              ART SHOW TONIGHT! June 13 from 6-9

Wake Forest Art & Frame Shop
Join us Friday for Art After Hours from 6-9 pm
Featuring artwork by M. Theresa Brown
About the Artist:
M. Theresa Brown is a long time professional portrait artist who specializes in realistic fine art portraits of people, animals and places in oils, pastels, watercolors and pencil. A multi-faceted artist she also has collectors for her abstract art pieces and fiber art. Together with her artist husband, Stephen Filarsky, they have worked together in the art field as Filarsky Brown Art Studio since 1994.
Theresa's portrait works as well as abstracts and a selection of her hand painted scarves will be on display through the month of June.

Blackberries and Cobbler and...ART?

Blackberries and Cobbler and.... art?

juicy blackberries

It took me 30 minutes to collect 4 cups of blackberries. The old pasture was full of heavily laden bushes and the previous year I had vowed to cut trails among and around them in order to access the lush fruit.

Paths around blackberry bushes? For those of us old enough to remember Song of the South and Brer Rabbit, there is an apt line in the story where Brer Rabbit pleads with the bear "Please don't throw me in the brier patch! Please don't throw me in the brier patch!....." and the bear does, not knowing that it's the rabbit's safe hideaway.  I can tell you that IF you were able to get into these bushes, you would never get out...they were the thorns from hell and I picked them with gloves on!  I seem to have two varieties. One is now almost through producing. The other, the one with killer thorns and huge berries is in the midst of producing.

Rosie the Corgi following the path around the thorny bush

So why go to all the trouble to pick berries such as these, over and over when they are obviously a lot of trouble?

For the TASTE! How can it not be inspirational to head out on an early morning, before the summer heat sets in and, followed by happy dogs (who also like the berries!) spend a quiet hour communing with nature? I mean after all, plucking nature's free harvest is....liberating!                                                                                

Thorns from hell from a 10 ft high bush!

 But it was not just for the immediate gratification of eating the blackberries-it was for the later treat: Blackberry cobbler!

Now I confess that the image below is not mine but the cobbler is identical in looks and OH SO EASY!' What my mother used to make!

Preheat oven to 375.

4 cups black berries

1 TB lemon juice

1 cup flour (reg)

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

6 TB melted butter

Lightly grease bottom and sides of an 8 x 8 pan/baking dish

Add 4 cups blackberries, sprinkle with lemon juice (1 Tbs)

In an medium bowl, mix sugar, regular flour and one egg until mixture forms a crumbly mix. Scatter over blackberries. Dribble melted butter over flour/sugar mixture. Bake 35 minutes until brown and bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes before serving! Sure you can add ice cream or whipped cream and it is good hot or cold!

Blackberry Cobbler!

And what does any of this have to do with art? Let's just say that cooking is an art so I have, in onefell swoop, captured ALL the sensory elements of art :-)

Work in progress-the Kenyan oil

Progress continues! Well actually I am further along than this image depicts as I have since lowered the structures, added dates and tweaked the background-will finish off suits, etc today. The client has already seen the painting in person which is important if it can be achieved as there is NO way a digital or printed out digital of an art piece will look the same as the original. My clients are always blown away when they receive the "real thing." And they tell me so!

The completed portrait will go up this evening. In the meantime, I am sketching out the face of one of the boys for the large oil-impossible to see details of it on a soft focus photo but it is the thing photographers like to do to keep clients happy-just enough detail to know it is the subject but not enough to see any "HDTV" details.

The studio has been busy with a number of portraits on easels right now.

Work in Progress-heading to Kenya!

The fun of being a portrait artist is that I never know what's around the corner-no two portraits are alike! 
Recently a client came to me and is returning to her native Kenya for a visit that coincides with the 50th anniversary of that country's independence. So, we came up with the idea of a portrait of the 4 presidents who have held office during that time period.....plus the addition of the Kenyan flag and several monuments. 
The only way to create this portrait idea and make it reality is as a collage...but the surprise was that it was flying to Kenya in a suitcase which nixed the first choice medium-pastel!

Now pastel can take a fair amount of abuse. And once it is framed and behind glass, it will be around for generations!  I ship pastels all over the world but I do not ship them with glass! 

So right now I am hustling! The only photos are random AP news footage that she had pulled off the Internet and since it is for her own enjoyment and as a gift to a friend, it's OK to use them. But that also means there are few good ones for our purpose! The hustle part comes with deadlines vs an oil painting.......of our most popular mediums-pastel, pencil, watercolor and oil...., oil takes the longest to dry. So today I am back out in the studio, trying not to procrastinate in what promises to be a sterling day outside....ah well, I'll just open up the studio doors!
Here's a peek:

The gentleman at the upper left is Jomo Kenyatta, the first president. The upper right man is his son, many years later who is the current president, Uhuru Kenyatta. And waiting to be completed (well actually they all are-this IS an unfinished oil!) is Daniel Arap Moi and  Mwai Kibaki.

The space between the top two figures will be filled with the Kenyan flag and two popular monuments-soft focus as the emphasis is on the 4 men.

Somewhere I have to figure out where to put the "50 years" that the client wants included.....the real fun of this at times is the "winging it" part! No photoshopping or printing on canvas for me. You can see the pencil lines on the gray background of Moi who is unstarted, but I will step back to see where I want to add the other elements and apply my 25 years of wisdom there! Now that's MY idea of freedom of art! Keep an eye out as I have several other works in progress without quite the tight deadline! 

A Child's Portrait as a Family Tradition

I love it when clients have a family history of portraiture and they come to me for a portrait to continue that tradition!  I know that a family portrait is valuable to them. They understand the emotional and long term appeal of capturing a moment forever in a way that a camera cannot! 
Often the earlier portraits have something in common-an expression, a pose, medium or a location. In this case, with the 16 x 20 pastel portrait of little Harper that I just completed, her expression and the fact that it was created in pastel, mimic the earlier portraits of her father, uncle and grandfather! How fun!

The cameo pastel

The cameo pastel

I love Fall! People are actually more organized...maybe because there is so much more (it seems) to do!

Lots of small portraits have been ordered from my clients right now so I am busy creating memories for many people. This time of year everything is starting into the secrecy stage :-)

 cameo pastel

 This cute baby was just 2 weeks old when her photo was taken as was her brother (who is now 2). I suggested to their mom to do separate portraits simply because each one at 2 weeks, put together, will look like a set of twins!

 cameo pastel

There was a little coordinating of clothes and colors of course-but all timeless!

Bella, cameo past

This small pastel was photographed on my easel but is a popular size for gift giving. They frame out to around 12 x 15 (with mats) Almost any kind of photo will work-even the old black and white ones pulled from a relative's album :-)
I call them "cameos"...the face (of a person) is usually around the size of roughly a saucer...then of course I add a bit more to balance the portrait and...Walla!, a cameo  portrait





So did everyone order pastels? No. Another popular medium is pencil. Yep. Soft, black and white pencils :-)

3 separate pencil portraits, cameos

I have combined 3 pencils together for display purposes but each one is a cameo. Pencil is super hard for me to photograph as you can see! Each background is white but the soft, subtle shades of gray get lost in a photograph! So enjoy by using your imagination!

Coming up later-more cameos featuring dogs and h

Making the News :-)

News - Wake Forest

On the road: Franklinton painting duo make art pay

By Chelsea Kellner - ckellner@newsobserver.com

Theresa Brown’s first career was as a dog trainer running a 100-pen kennel in Raleigh. Steve Filarsky was a sign painter from Philadelphia, specializing in gold-leaf hand-lettering on fire trucks and antique boats.
Now, the couple is married, earning a living as traveling portrait artists for the past 15 years, crisscrossing the country to sell their work at art shows and returning to home base in Franklinton in between. Making it work as a self-employed household has taken flexibility and business savvy, but both say it’s worth it.
“As times change, you have to adapt what you do,” Brown said. “The biggest thing is, yeah, you can do it, but it’s hard work.”

Theresa Brown and her husband, Steve Filarsky, are the featured artists at Wake Forest Art and Frame Shop for Art After Hours on Friday. - CKELLNER@NEWSOBSERVER.COM

Filarsky and Brown are the featured artists at Wake Forest Art and Frame Shop for downtown Wake Forest’s Art After Hours event Friday. Shop owner Beth Massey recently commissioned a portrait from Brown of her own children, marveling over Brown’s ability to capture the essence of each child’s personality.
“You can make something look like a picture, but to capture how people in that family see that person is amazing,” Massey said.
The idea that you can’t make a living as an artist is relatively new – artists have been tradesmen working on commission for millennia, Brown said.
“Even the greatest of artists had to go, gee, I’ve got to finish this – I have bills due,” Brown said.
A life in art
Art show season is cyclical, so Brown and Filarsky have developed a lifestyle that follows the weather like migrating birds: drive the camper down to Florida for a month at a time for winter art shows starting in November, then head to the northern shows in spring and summer. It helps that they work well together; last Wednesday, Brown was scheduling art classes in Wake Forest while Filarsky set up their booth at the state fairgrounds in Raleigh.
The road to self-employed success was a winding one for both artists.
For Brown, the catalyst was a divorce that left her a single mom of four kids between the ages of 3 and 13. She needed money, fast.
Her three years of art school at East Carolina University had left her with the mindset that painting portraits on commission was somehow lesser, not truly “art.” She shoved those feelings aside and set up a booth at the N.C. Flea Market, “where most artists wouldn’t be caught dead.” The first weekend, she came up empty. Her second weekend, she netted $90. The two following weekends brought in $250 apiece, and she knew she’d found a viable career.
In the two decades since, she has illustrated books for New York publishing houses and other projects, but her focus is portrait-painting with a special niche capturing people and their horses or dogs. She first holds a photo session with a client to get natural, relaxed photos in the setting of their choice. She then creates a pastel portrait, with special care to capturing the spirit of her subjects.
Filarsky started out with an architecture degree from Penn State University, then moved to North Carolina to start a sign business in Wake Forest, where he met Brown while investigating the local art scene. He specializes in watercolor portraits, in addition to hand-lettering gigs from across the country.
Having a business-owner’s mindset is crucial to succeeding in a notoriously difficult field, Brown said. There’s no waiting for inspiration to strike – the work has to be done according to client specifications on deadline.
The couple is able to live comfortably; their house and cars loans are mostly paid off, and they used to maintain a beach getaway spot. Brown’s kids are grown, but the couple has two ponies, five dogs and a goat.
“When it comes to ‘making a living,’ you determine what you want,” Brown said. “Aim for what you want, and you can do it by hitting the right market. Luck doesn’t enter into it.”

http://www.northraleighnews.com/2012/05/08/13189/on-the-road-franklinton-painting.html

Portrait of Massey children

Creating the dog portrait

Penny, Mixed Breed Dog Portrait in Pastel

Dog Portraits are popular with my collectors and none so much as my pastel paintings!

This 11" x 14" portrait is a good example of using a pastel medium called PanPastels and it is wielded much like a palette knife.

I love the loose effect that can be achieved!

Notice how I begin? I want those eyes looking at me while I work!

More on the Bridal portrait

Still working on the Bridal oil in between the other commissions.
I've spent many years working from life and photos and the one thing I know for sure is that photographs are often inaccurate.
New artists think that if they paint verbatim from a photo,  the client will be happy.  Nothing can be further from the truth!

They are both tall but the illusion was that they were the same height from the photo-nope- so we decided to raise her husband (so I am re-doing his face, lol)
I also added length to both subjects. Beautiful full length gowns have a way of shortening the height actually so in this 24 x 36" portrait, I added almost a full inch of "leg" length to my bride and groom...and it works!

Lots of tweaking to do yet but the gist of it all is here and  the next photo of this will be a completed one!

I need to get a move on now as my daughter will be having her baby on Feb 27....amazing how babies are scheduled now a days! So balancing art and real life is part of the job description!

Bridal portrait in progress

Creating a bridal portrait in oil is nothing new for me. Creating portraits from very old photos (even tintypes) is not new for me. But to create a bridal from 50 year old photographs is!

In this 24 x 36 oil portrait, the client asked me to use her husband's face from another photos...which I have roughed in. There were numerous small changes to make from the original photos and all very do-able.


At this stage the client has seen it and loves it and I must confess to being relieved as showing a partially completed portrait is always an "iffy" prospect!

Keep an eye out for updates!

Working on portraits at the Horse Show

Clients and their horses are a big part of what we do! So January and February are those "getting back in the saddle" shows after the holidays. When it comes to some of our clients, this is the start of the Florida shows down in Ocala and Wellington. I have traveled to them all!  This image shows our art booth at the current show going on in Raleigh, NC. It's a great way to get work done all the while enjoying the show, greeting our clients and friends and in general, doing our job!

Come by and watch me work Jan 26-29!

The beginning of a large pastel portrait!

A work in progress: 30 x 40 Pastel Portrait

Here is a sanded 30 x 40 pastel that I have begun of a whole family-the two daughters, along with their horses or first to be seen......mom and dad, along with the two Golden retrievers and a former horse,  are still way-y-y-y in the background waiting to emerge from their anonymity :-).

Keep an eye out for the completed version!

The timeless appeal of babies

Molly giving hugs. Pastel: 10 x 12

In the long world of art there has never been a subject more appealing than babies unless it was mother and baby images (think Bible)
So when the opportunity comes to create a pastel portrait from an adorable photo, what artist can resist?


1 year old Baby Molly had just given her mother the "Barney hug" when her mom snapped this charming image with her cell phone (who would have thought) and I created a 10 x 12 pastel portrait of the image to capture that moment in a timeless manner!


Now who wouldn't love Barney as well?

The beauty of GREY

Waiting for the Class

I love to create portraits for my clients and this gorgeous Grey is no exception!


I photographed him, per her request, at one of the shows and later created this 18 x 24 pastel based on a selection from the group.


You simply have to know horses to know what photos are the best to work from and which are not :-)


The tiny roan flecks are difficult to see in the image but are more obvious in the actual piece!

Adding a mini-gallery in Wake Forest, NC

Wow, hard to believe that I was the first artist to set up a studio in downtown Wake Forest back in 1991! I was a single mom with 4 children, working as an artist but only able to afford a small rental to live in so I needed the studio space to work!

Later, after my artist husband, Steve Filarsky and I married, we built a huge studio next to our house, about 12 miles away. Since then we have had studios in the charming little town off and on but our travels kept us from being there as often as we liked. 
Add to that the obvious fact that we already HAD a great working studio where we could walk out the door in bathrobes and coffee in hand to go to work has some envious perks (our friends like to point out!) 

But it made sense to have gallery space as we partner with the Wake Forest Art and Frame for art classes! So now we have our art back in town on their walls as a sampling of what we create!. Go visit, enjoy the art, the amazing framing and gallery they have and stop in one of the little area shops for lunch!

Further progress on the oil

Another day of progress in completing this oil! People have told me that they enjoy seeing the children emerge....it was Michaelangelo , who, when asked about his marble sculptures, commented that inside every large chunk of marble was a person waiting to emerge......sounds right!

But is not just this portrait that I am completing. I will be delivering an pastel today of a little girl and her horse which I will post after Christmas as it is a surprise! And I have a dozen more commissions to complete.

More progress on 30 x 40 oil

This, by the way, is the real life of an artist. Work. And if you are not creating your art for your clients, you are going out and finding it! That's how all businesses operate. LOL which is why I am behind in getting out my newsletters! I'm picking my challenges :-)

I will deliver a portrait today, paint more on this, work more on some of my other orders and get ready for art mini workshops in our studio tomorrow!. Yikes, it will be only in the 40's but with 15 attendees for each of the two classes, Steve and I will be spending the evening...LOL straightening the house and studio...OK maybe I'm feeling just a little pressure........:-)

It gets crazier!

Oh my, Thanksgiving came and went and I am thinking only of how behind I am! Running a business of any type requires self motivation and above all, discipline....OK maybe I shouldn't have played 5 games of Spider Solitaire, but I was determined to beat the thing!

I am painting, painting and Thank God that if I have anything to whine about, it is only being busy!

So what have I been doing?

Well first let me say that we hiked NC mountains Thanksgiving Day in Brevard! A beautiful day (started with rain) and my son was with us...many families enjoying the great outdoors in this land of the waterfalls!  

So I have added a photo of the stunning Triple Falls in DuPont Forest and one of my latest pastel cameos. Enjoy! Now, back to my studio!

9 x 11 cameo Christmas portrait

Triple Falls, Brevard, NC

Studio Tour! Oct 2-3

STUDIO TOUR!

We're easy to find at 2109 Old Mill Farm Rd in Franklinton NC 27525

Last weekend was hot and humid and with the incredible rain that came through the last few days...... well this weekend will be perfect! Cool, sunny and FALL at last!

Our studio was built by us from the remains of a 1910 house that was being torn down in Wake Forest. We salvaged the front doors, windows and the hardwood pine floors. The ceilings are 10' high and all we need is a steeple to make it look like the little church that people think it is at times!

Come on by and visit with us Saturday from 10-5 and Sunday from 1-5. We have a few specials going on inside the studio!

If you think you're lost, call us at 919-528-9703!