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!

Time Travel through client's portraits

I have painted portraits for a long time now and in doing so, I watch my clients and their children grow up in front of me! I am always honored when they come back for new portraits of new family members and second and third generations!

One such example is  "Will" age 3. A 24" x 36" oil.  

The fun part? 
Scroll down and see the new 30" x 40" oil of Will at age 16 that I will be delivering later this week! I love my job!

Oil of Will. 24 x 36 by M Theresa Brown 1999

"Will" 30 x 40 oil by M Theresa Brown 2015

The clean Art Studio fantasy

Creating my artwork in all its various forms from portraits to abstracts to silk art to stick horses (a volunteer fundraiser project) has left little room for putting things back where they belong and on my list today are the deceptively simple words "clean studio."

It sounds so simple to just put back the art supplies, yet in the midst of creating and running out the door, everything gets moved around, set down randomly, put in and out of car, not empty trash cans, clean up messes, and not return items to their designated spots....multiply that by the 27 straight days of shows that we have also been doing and those two little words become a HUGE item on a long list! So crossing off just this one thing on my list can be an all day event and I have just two days before the shows begin again!

Some of the silk work and the volunteer stick horses (amazingly time consuming!)

Some images of just a few of October's artwork!

Both Steve and I paint a lot at the shows while we are there but once back at the studio, I personally need an uncluttered space to recharge and be productive! 


So without any more procrastination....off the computer and into the studio to tackle...well at least my half!

Maybe I'll post a photo of "after!"

Pastel Portrait Special! Ends Sept 1!

I am so pleased to be able to offer this again to my collectors and newcomers!
You asked and it's back! This is my 4th annual Pastel Special!  It ends Sept 1 or before when the available number is reached.

This is my popular pastel portrait special that I offer each year about this time, to my collectors, old and new, prior to my Christmas portrait rush! Thanks to my wonderful clients, I have created fine art portraits of all sizes in oils, pastels, pencil and watercolor for 25 years! The past few years I have been giving back by offering a special opportunity for you to have one (or more) of my small (cameo) pastel portraits of or for someone special in your life. You would normally invest $275.00 for my pastels of this size. For the Special, each portrait is just $95.00! Pastels are beautifully soft, pure pigment and once framed, your portrait will last for generations!

The details:
To get an idea of what others have ordered for their Pastel Special, take a look at the portrait examples All are 9 x 12 pastel portraits created by me from your best "head and shoulder" photos of your subject.
You may order as many portraits as you wish but each portrait will have only ONE subject in it. The available number of portraits is limited! So if you have 3 children, or 2 dogs, or a child and horse, you will be ordering 3 or 2 individual portraits.
Framing in not included. Shipping is additional and very reasonable. Complete instructions for framing are included in every carefully wrapped package. You may also arrange for pick up of your portrait upon my completion in the Raleigh NC area!

How to order your portrait!
1.Click on the number of portraits that you wish. Total number is limited. Etsy will notify me.

2. Email your best photos to me at ipaintportraits [!at] aol.com. Label each photo (you can send more than one of your subject and I will help you select the best portrait photo!) so I know who is who.
You may send old photos, recent photos, even black and white.


4. Upon completion, I will send you a digital of the finished portrait prior to shipping or pick up. Relax, I've done this for 25 years! If you feel something needs tweaking, no problem-it's YOUR portrait!

Unless I have questions, I will create your portrait within a 1-3 week time period! Because I work on the smaller portraits while also working on my large portraits, I find it easier to complete the cameos in the order in which I receive them :-) See my website at MTheresaBrown.com or find me (same name) on Facebook!

My Pastel Special allows you to give the ultimate gift to either yourself or a friend! Special ends Sept 1

Thank you so much!-Theresa

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

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?

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!

Portrait of Chloe in the Flowers

How weird to have Blogger go down and this post disappear!
So here it is again-a completed 30 x 24 pastel on Art Spectrum paper created with NuPastels and PanPastels.
Chloe was originally in her home sitting on the steps-the beauty of being an artist is that all of that mundane stuff can be changed!
So I added the flowers that seem to epitomize little girls in the Spring (a good thing!) and now we have a charming memory of being 5! 

Adding a new slide show

I love it when I play with technology and something finally clicks! LOL

So I have had fun putting together this slide show. Enjoy!

The ultimate family portrait!

The Family Dog is such an important member of the family that clients love to include them in portraits of the children!

I created this 30" x 40" oil on canvas for the family and Roxie, the yellow lab, was right in on the action! 

We delivered the framed portrait a few days before Christmas and other than the older son seeing the prints the children managed to keep quiet (amazing in itself) until Dad opened it on Christmas morning. Originally they were going to prepare a place to hang it but portraits such as these deserve to be in a place where they can be viewed daily! Mom emailed me with:

"HE LOVED IT! absolutely loved it.

kids were so excited to give it to him...

and i was right, he thinks we should hang it on a different wall than where i planned!

Thanks"~ Amy Walsh, Raleigh NC

Portraits by M Theresa Brown

Working on the oil for Christmas!

This large, 30 x 40 oil is for Christmas and since I am right handed, I work it in stages from left to right! Many artists work all over the canvas and often I do too, but with a Christmas deadline, the children are being created first and the background (scene from their porch) will be painted in with muted and soft focus detail!

People do love to see it in this stage and I am glad to show it. But I usually wait until all the faces are done before the client sees the portrait so they get a  complete feel for the expressions, rather than a partial one!  Any changes are then easier! 
The canvas has shadows from the backlight of the window.

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

1st PLace in the Professional Division

Ah, always good to have a brag or two !

"Will" captured the first place spot in the recent Kerr Lake Art Society Show. Nice little check with it as well :-)


Complete write up here:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Art-Career-Experts/281201728760?ref=sgm#!/notes/vance-granville-community-college/kerr-lake-art-show-on-display-at-vgcc-through-june-11/395530336509

Child with Rabbit

OK so it's a stuffed toy bunny ! Still, anyone with a child knows the attachment that children form with their little stuffed animals!

This cameo pastel was created from a client's supplied photo as a present for the dad. Big success!

"Everyone loved it! The problem was everyone was thinking the pastel was for them!. So yes, I will need some prints!. Thank you again!"  J. Morton

Me and My Pony

I love images like this and had fun creating this 14 x 18 pastel! What says summer memories like a child on her pony? And on a trail ride no less? The total horse experience!
This is available as a print on our website at www.PortraitsNC.com!

Girl with Quarter Horse

A large pastel of Samantha and her late Quarter Horse, Sonny.
An emotional painting that had the whole family in tears. Ah, art!

theresa

Little sisters

I created this pastel of two adorable sisters from a supplied photo. The parents were delighted with the results and it was great fun to go traditional with the girls!

Cameo Pastel of child

My cameo portraits are super popular and this one was created from some photos that I took of my subject. Grandma commissioned one of another grandchild several years ago and now it was Lilly's turn. :-)

Portrait of Teen Sisters

An 18 x 24 pastel portrait of two sisters.
Big smiles can be a definite challenge but I have created many smiling portraits and the key is to know the personality of the subjects. Neither of these girls were the serious, moody sort when I met and photographed them and the teen years need to be remembered as not always enveloped in "teen angst!"
But the important part is what the client thinks!

For years I have dreamed of having a portrait done of my children and like many of us I “never got around to it”. When Theresa Brown became a resident artist at The Cotton Company and I got a chance to not only view a good variety of her work but also talk to her about how she works and the whole process, I realized I had finally found the right person to do this portrait.

I gave the portrait of our two daughters as a surprise birthday present to my husband and he and I are both so happy with the results. When the girls go off to college this portrait which has captured not only their likeness, but also their spirit, will be a reminder of so many happy memories!

Thank you, Theresa!

-Elizabeth Johnson, Wake Forest NC