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I got back last night from Aiken, SC, where I delivered the painting of Namon in Hitchcock woods. It was being presented to him after I had left, so I haven't yet heard what his reaction was. The client who commissioned the painting came up with the idea of offering Giclee prints on stretched canvas. The proceeds from the sale of these would go toward Namon's retirement fund. We will be doing it, so check back for the details.

If you saw the video of my thumbnail painting Two Cows in my last post, here is the finished painting 9" x 12", based on the 2.5 x 3.5" painting


The Plein Air Painter's version of Murphy's Law - While you are driving or working in the studio, the sun will shine. When it's time to paint, rain and wind. Tuesday started out cold and rainy, just like Saturday, Sunday and Monday. By the time I had driven to Beaufort NC, through thunderstorms and tornado warnings, it had turned into a beautiful spring day. But... I was in Marshallburg NC on the coast on Core Sound near Cape Lookout to letter boats. 23 kt gold leaf lettering on mahogany transoms of beautiful electric boats made by Tom Hesselink of Budsin Woodcraft. Here is Talley Ho, still in the paint shop


Here are two more, ready for delivery

Wednesday morning, I loaded my paintings, paints and canvases and drove to Aiken. It started out cloudy, then sunshine all the way through SC, until I got of of I20, when the clouds covered the sky. I delivered the painting, stopped at the Equine Divine Gallery in downtown Aiken leaving paintings with them. Ate dinner, found a room and woke up to rain and fog. So off to the old Shooting Club to discuss a commission with the owner, got some coffee and headed down the road. A stop in Camden SC, rain continued, so back home. Today I went to the Village Gallery in Raleigh and worked on the above painting of the cows.


Tomorrow--storms coming through, work in the studio and on our websites....



Here is a painting of Taylor's Creek in Beaufort, NC. Not to far from Marshallburg. Still has some old homes and work boats. On the other side of the creek, is Carrot Island and the Rachel Carson Reserve, home to some of the Wild Ponies of the Outer Banks.

Someday.....

Exciting news...

The Devon Horse Show will be using the abouve painting on the cover of this years program. The ticket committee had contacted me in November asking if they could us it for the ticket brochure and labels. It seems to have become popular up there on the Main Line and will now be on the program. The painting is now in the collection of Bill Schaub.
See you at Devon.
Two projects finished this week. A painting of Namon Corley, who retired as woodsman after 49 years at Hitchcock Woods in Aiken SC. He is pictured with the Aiken Hounds (Namon was the fox) and his Ford tractor.

After one beautiful day, the much needed rain has hit North Carolina. Friday was 82 and sunny, Saturday,44 and rain, the same Sunday and Monday. Since I was stuck in the studio, I videotaped the painting of a small thumbnail painting. 2 1/5 x 3 1/5 inches. These little paintings can become the basis for a larger painting and/or a complete miniature painting in their own right. So here it is.



If you got our email newsletter, you probably noticed that the Barn of the Month was a boatbuilder. Budsin Woodcraft creates fine Mahogany and Ash Electric Boats. For civilized boating. I am going down to Marshallburg NC to put 23kt gold leaf lettering on three boats for him this week, then home, down to Aiken to deliver Namon's painting and paint homes and farms in Aiken and Camden SC. Back to NC for a horse show on Saturday and Sunday... (if it doesn't rain)

Updating this blog....

I have added a slide show on the blog with recently completed paintings. On our portrait website, www.portraitsnc.ocm, we have been adding slide shows galleries to archive your portraits. It seems that everyone wants their portrait on the web so they can show it off. I'm happy to accomodate, but the images were getting a bit overwhelming. At this point, I have the equine portrait page broken into 3 pages, one introduction with a few images and two pages of images. Of course, when setting up the slide show on the web, I realize what paintings aren't there. So go and find the file, ( a laptop crash followed by a back up hard drive crash (one of the dogs managed to get tangled in the powercord and the drive actually crashed...to the ground.) a while back still has me looking for images on old zip disks and old website files.....

Then the Plein Air Painter site...www.sfilarsky.com Organize the various horse shows into separate galleries and keep Recent Works and Paintings for Sale a little more uncluttered...

Gone to the dogs

I am painting quite a number of dogs lately, so here is a mini-gallery of dog paintings. Some of the paintings were based on photographs collectors brought to me, others brought the dogs and some photographs I took at shows. (The "Dogs in Golf Cart" Series) Currently I am working on Blowing Rock Horse Show paintings (still), and a number of commissions of barns, homes, boats, horses and yes, dogs. If you would like to commission a painting as a Christmas present, please contact me soon. I will be in Chevy Chase, MD at Meadowbrook Stable this coming weekend, the in Raleigh NC for the Duke and UNC horse shows or you can reach me at sfilarsky@aol.com

Two Jack Russell's at the Rose Mount Horse Show

This wire haired fox terrier guard the porch from passers-by and dogs on walks

These corgis came from Pennsylvania to NC, helping to deliver a horse

At the Blowing Rock horse show, with the wind in your hair

Dogs in Golf Cart, Blowing Rock

Blowing Rock again. It's 105 down in Raleigh

Dog in Golf Cart, Deep Run

This painting was from a couple of photographs

This painting started the whole dog thing.

Of course, we can't forget the Beaver River dogs

New Paintings

September 13th. I can't believe that summer has gone. It seems that we were just getting ready for the Upperville Show. Traveling to the shows seems to take bites out of time. You come home and time has kept on marching while I've been standing at the easel. Well, anyway, I am displaying new paintings here rather than on my website until I get that organized a bit more. In addition to seeing new paintings here, you can subscribe to my yahoo group, and I will send emails with my most recent paintings. Paintings for sale will be first shown there.

Blowing Rock Horse Show, looking down "the hill." You would think that after two weeks I should be running up the hill. This is a very popular view of the show and I did a number of paintings from here. (Next to EMO Stables barn)

A 12 x 24 painting of Hunter's Lane Barn.

Looking across the arena to the boxes and an approaching storm. Blowing Rock just spoiled me for the rest of the summer. Back to the flat land, temperatures in the 100's, no rain. Yesterday a front came through and we have only had highs around 90.

Click for larger image

A long time ago, 10-12 years or so, we traveled through Faquier County, leaving my wife's uncle's family to visit my sister's in upstate PA. Route 17 between I 95 and I 81 was like traveling through a bit of heaven. Since we have been at shows the last couple of years, I wondered what happened to the farm that was on Rt 17 as you went into Warrenton. We have been taking the bypass around town, but at the Warrenton Horse Show earlier this month I got my answer: Walmart. Oh well. When we got home, pulled a photo from years before out of the file. From that I created this painting. It is 11 x 14, a bit larger than the majority of my horse show paintings. Will sell for $3,45.00, and a gold frame is available for $75.00

Click for larger image

This painting is from a photo I took at the WBTA horse show at Meadowbrook Stables in Chevy Chase back in July. Dobbin is still at Meadowbrook, but Emily has gone on to study at Penn. The painting will be going with her to Philadelphia to remind her of those wonderful years.

We are off to The Plains, VA for the Middleburg Classic at Great Meadow. I am looking forward to cooler weather. I hope to get a chance to do some paintings in Middleburg and Warrenton before hand.

Raleigh, Fourth of July

We are back in Raleigh, after a week at the Deep Run Horse Show near Richmond, VA, or as one woman at the show told me, "the Hotter than Hell Horse Show". Setting up on Tuesday and Wednesday, the temperature reached 98, with that wonderful southern humidity. But it was a good show. I taught a plein air painting workshop at a nearby farm one evening which was a great fun. I met with collectors who I hadn't seen since last year's show. Met others who I had seen at last week's show. And others who have seen my work or me working and decided that now was the time to aquire a painting.

Below is a painting of the schooling ring at Deep Run. Rocking chairs in the shade. What a civilized show...


This week we are at the NCHJA Horse Show in Raleigh, NC. I had planned to be at the Warrenton Pony Show, but a show near home was too tempting. We brought the camper to the show even though it is a 40 minute drive home. It is wonderful to be able to leave the show and sit and drink a cup of coffee in air conditioned comfort. Not to mention that it helps me get to the show earlier in the morning. We sat and watched fireworks being shot off at the State Fair Grounds across the street and got together with friends for a wonderful cookout/party. I have been working on a number of commissioned pieces while at this show, including the house below. It is newly built and I helped the landscaping out a bit.


The other paintings I am working on include two children at the beach, a horse, and two paintings of dogs. I will be adding these paintings as I finish them in the next few days. Including some of the Keswick Horse Show.

Charlottesville, Va Keswick Horse Show

Finished setting up at the Keswick Horse Show, near Charlottesville, VA. An old grandstand, oaks and cedars throughout, it is a beautiful setting. I finished a painting of the main ring, which will be in the silent auction held at the country club later in the week. Met again with old friends and new ones while we all suffered through the heat. An exhibitors party sponsored by BJ's Hunt Room was a great end to the day.

Thunderstorms last night, cooler today but cloudy and chance of rain. I will be working on a commission at our booth until the sun comes out.

Here is the painting I created while at the Upperville Horse Show. It is the view from a farm on Atoka Road in Middleburg. I set up my easel and canvas and blinded by the sun directly in my eyes. Then, in what seemed like an instant, the mountains turned blue and the sky lit up. Only a short time to paint. I went back a couple of evenings to paint. I worked on details of the landscape from photographs during the day.

Ashby's Gap, Sunset from Inisfree Farm

The Upperville Horse Show

It's been almost two weeks since I last posted any paintings. Theresa and I had been getting ready for, going to, exhibiting work, painting, meeting clients and leaving the Upperville Horse Show.

We finally got everything situated in the van and travel trailer. Theresa drove in the car with Rosie the Corgi and I followed in the van with the trailer. We arrived in Upperville late Saturday afternoon. The only campsite available was at the end, under the trees. Being the last site in the row, we were able to park sideways, with a view of huge old oak trees and Salem Farm from the front and the polo field in the back.

Saturday evening and Sunday morning were spent setting up tents and display. The rain picked up in the afternoon and the final touches had to wait until Monday morning. After all that was finished, I got back to work on the two Jack Russell's from Rose Mount. At this point, I was ready to paint and paint I did. There are no photographs of the progress of this painting, so here is the finished painting....

Jack Russells at Rose Mount, oil on canvas, 9 x 12

I don't think that it was hanging for an entire day, before a girl walking by did a classic double take, "That's our dog!" She was on her cell phone to her mom, who came later and bought the painting. The puppy is their's and the bigger dog belongs to her trainer, Winn Alden. The painting was hung in the tack room at the show.

Below is the view from our campsite at the show grounds, across John Moseby Highway to Salem Farm.

Salem Farm, oil on canvas, 9 x 12

Tomorrow I set up for the Keswick show, then start painting. I will have more from Upperville then, including a larger painting "Ashby's Gap, Sunset from Inisfree Farm"