Colored Pencil Workshop with Toni James

Last weekend I attended a colored pencil workshop in Memphis.  The workshop instructor was Toni James.  She is an amazing portrait artist from Arizona, and I am fortunate enough to be friends with her, so she agreed to come to Memphis to do a workshop for our chapter.  I love to go to workshops and learn new techniques, but her techniques I really think that I will make use of.  I haven't done alot of colored pencil drawing lately, because of all of the pen and ink house commissions that I've been doing.  But colored pencils are one of my favorite mediums and I hope to get more practice using them and actually do some portraits. 

(and yes...I am tall and she is short! In that photo, it looks like I'm almost a full head taller! )

 Toni is a natural teacher and did a wonderful job explaining and demonstrating exactly how she creates the beautiful portraits that she does.  She is shown above starting her demo on the eye that we worked on day one.  I was very pleased with the results that I achieved. And I think that everyone there was too.

Memphis Chapter CPSA
End of Day 1
Toni James Workshop

On another note, school will be out in about 7 weeks for me.  I cannot wait to really get alot done this summer in my art studio.  I may even finish painting the walls in here.  But who wants to stop to paint the walls when you can create other stuff like portraits, houses, and just spend time thinking of new things to do!? 

Have a great weekend!

Beth♥