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.

Art in pastels, silk dyes and gold leaf!

There is nothing more inspiring to an artist than to try new techniques or experiment with current styles, colors or sizes!
I am fortunate enough to be one of those multi-faceted artists who thrives on challenges. Portraits have always been and will always be, my first love, but it's the energy that comes from trying new ideas that energizes me!
So what have I been up to? Portraits of course, but so much more :-) The 3 below are a few recent portraits-all pastels.

Pastel 14 x 18

Pastel 11 x 14

Pastel 11 x 14

I have also been creating my silk scarves in new techniques and dyes as well as a very cool art piece using aluminum and gold leaf (courtesy of hubby, Stephen Filarsky of www.Goldleafman.com)

8 x 54 scarf

These are soft pastel colors that come from a dye that not not need to be steamed or heat set-nice!


And finally I have the combined efforts of Stephen Filarsky  for our raised art relief.
(Sorry about the photo positioning-can't easily arrange anything on this blog!

8 x 72 scarf

9 x 12 metal relief

closeup of relief in metallic format

Sketching in Public

The weather in NC since Jan has been predictable. 65-70 on Saturdays and 35-40's on Sundays with snow, sleet and ice by the following Tuesdays. We have had thunder storms in the winter...and in NC that means, according to old wives tales, that we will have snow in 9 days. And it has happened the two times we experienced the thunderstorms.
The point has been that many of the shows we attend-art and horse shows- have suffered due to the weather. Let's face it-no one wants to go outside or even get in the car to go to any kind of event when the fireplace seems like a good place to be!

5 x 8 ink sketch of covered ring

Last weekend we were at a horse show in Wilmington, NC. We just went for the day although we arrived and set up the tent the night before. The weather was going to do just what I have said-change drastically by Sunday. But oh my the Saturday we had was AMAZING! 72 degrees, sunny and with a breeze swaying the spanish moss hanging from the oak trees. Too early for any bugs, no dust and a combination of both a covered and uncovered ring and lots of help made it a delightfully smooth running show!
So I did what I don't always get to do: sketch. Hubby, Stephen Filarsky painted, I sketched and totally enjoyed soaking up the vitamin D.

Horses at ringside

It's always a bit challenging sketching a scene live with people as obviously kids and horses do not stand still! So using a sharpie pen and 5 x 8 sketch pad I worked quickly, capturing what I could and filling in the rest after they moved.

The results are spontaneous, in the moment and a whole lot of fun!
And as soon as I find the photos I took of him painting on location I will add those!

Waiting for Spring

Waiting for Spring

It has been a long winter for areas unused to long winters. Spring has peeped out enough times to give us hope but then tucks her head back inside and the temperatures plunge (again!)

 Even the art studio struggles to get warm and with propane at record highs, we try to conserve and not have to buy a tank right before spring!

So my solution to the cold, the ice, the snow and the dark days was to create my own spring and I did that by bringing out my silk dues and creating my "Ode to Spring" scarf :-).

SO I have brought my as yet, non-blooming daffodils in my yard to full bloom in my silk piece-a nice place to be while waiting for spring :-)

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!

Creating your own designs

Adding my designs to a silk/wool blend shawl

I have always carved. Mainly wood and even earlier-block prints on linoleum blocks. Both are time consuming and labor intensive-not problem normally to an artist but sometimes I just don't have the patience!
So with a "softer than linoleum" product on the market (for years apparently!) by Speedball, I started carving my own stamps to use on my scarves. To say it was fun was an understatement-it went fast, I was impressed and most of all I was enthused! My own designs-not mass produced ones from the craft stores....what's not to love? :-)

Using Speedball tools to carve away my design

A few carved in just a day (and used!)

I realize with the exception of the heart, these are all horses but that's where my passion lies when I am trying new ideas. Plenty of time to come up with other designs as I become more proficient!

Using the stamps with textile paint was a blast! I have a new batch of scarves to play with so I can't wait to try them but in the meantime I have two collages of what I worked on so far!

Our frigid temperatures have kept me off the hiking trails until today but the cold is coming back around and I'll be ready!

Prototypes!

 

 

 

 

Overlapping the design in layers