It's an unusually quiet day in Wednesday Guided Open Studio Class at Hershberger & Huff Studios. Normally the air is full of gossip, laughter, recipe exchanging and oh, yeah, a little discussion of artwork. Today is silent until from one corner of the room a confident voice says "Damn, I'm good." Ripples of laughter fill the room and we all know that Diane Laws is giving herself a pat on the back for another good job.
And well she should give herself credit, although she tries to give a lot of credit to us. Diane has been one of our students for more than 15 fun-filled years and is a highly accomplished artist. Her favorite subject is animals and all the pieces you see here are colored pencil, her medium of choice, although recently she is turning out some very high quality landscapes in acrylic on canvas. She paints most all animals but her specialty is horses. Diane has loved horses as long as she can remember and it shows in the work. In her own words, she was "touched by a magic wand to pursue drawing."
Okay, depends on what you call an "animal."
Don't you just want to pet him?
Diane didn't really consider herself an artist until she moved to Florida and started studying with us. She says that we helped her resolve issues with her artwork, encouraged her and helped her develop her own style and according to her, that is the best therapy.
A published cartoonist and book illustrator, Diane also does animal portrait commissions. As a community service, she draws portraits of service dogs for no fee. You can contact her for pricing and more information at Maggieo2@hotmail.com . Her work is on the cover of "Fourteen Years With Buster" and is included in Horseman's Handbook.
We are very fortunate to have students like Diane. Not only is she a cheerleader for our teaching, she was instrumental in helping us get our new studio open. We are grateful for her help, her sense of humor, her artwork and her friendship. Thanks Diane and damn you ARE good.
Peace and creativity,
Kelli
2 comments:
thank you for the introduction! diane's work is stunning! her horses are so full of intensity and energy, the "aliveness" of them...love that...
I have seen Diane's art work one piece at a time as sghe is working on it. Looking at her work as a whole collection really speaks to her wonderful talent with the colored pencil. She has a gift for animals....and that cowboy too!
(And I concur, her teachers are pretty wonderful too.)
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