Greetings from Pennsylvania
 

Hi! My name is Cynthia Feustel. I live in a small town in north central Pennsylvania. We moved here from Pittsburgh, PA where I had worked as a graphic designer (before computers) and also freelanced from my home while I was raising my children. My son is now 23 and my daughter is now 18 years old. She will be attending RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) in the fall as a glass art major. My husband is very supportive of my art with ulterior motives I might add. He works very long hours and says that when I get famous he can retire and I can support him. Poor man, he may have along wait!

When we moved to DuBois, about 8 years ago. I finally began to pursue fine arts, something I had wanted to do all my life. I took a class with a local watercolor artist and in a very short time found myself selling portraits and landscapes.
I also saw a lack of art in the schools so I began to teach after school art classes in my home.

The turning point in my career came in 2002 when the local Harley Davidson dealership bought an old factory warehouse in town and transformed the interior into a small town. I had done a portrait for the owner and he asked me to do a mural. A year and a half later I completed the work that had turned into a huge project for me. I became the design consultant for the project as well as artist and painted a 13 x 30 foot mural, faux finishes, signs and other misc. paintings. I am currently working on my web site and will post a link to the project when it is complete.

As a result of this project I now have a studio on the second floor of this building, a fabulous 1300 sq ft factory loft studio with an entire wall of north light windows. This is both my painting studio and where I teach. I also have a home studio.

I have been painting portraits in watercolor for some time and recently made the switch to oils. I was using oil for still life and plein air paintings but was unsure of using them for portraits. I had an out of town client that wanted an oil portrait and right as I was stressing out I found this forum. I used every bit of info I found on here as a tutorial to get me through this commission. I will post it here along with my latest watercolor commission. ( I will also post the oil for a critique soon).
I want to add that I used Marvin's palette on the oil painting but when I did this recent watercolor I also made the switch to cadmium free and used Indian red and light red. I could not believe the difference in my flesh tones. It made the watercolor almost effortless to paint. Prior to that I was always fighting the too orange, too red, too brown syndrome. Thanks Marvin!!!

I have a long way to go in my painting but I am so thankful to all of you who nurture people like me along. I respect and covet all your words of wisdom. It is so great to be a part of this forum.

(Just a note about the images: I am using an older 2 mp digital camera. Hope the images are clear enough.)

Thanks again,

Cynthia

Hi! Welcome to the forum. My husband suffers from the same delusion of grandeur, poor man! I look forward to seeing more of your work, these are very nice.

Hi, welcome to the forum! My husband does too, this must be some kind of virus. I look forward to seeing more of your work and envy your studio!

Jean

Very nice work Cynthia and Welcome.

Du Bois!
 

Hi Cynthia,

Welcome! Is it "Do Bwa", or "Do Boys"? I live in PA too, and drive by Du Bois several times in a year (I - 80, or Rt. 322). Although I'm in Philadelphia, the family homestead is right by the Pymatuning Resevoir, just east of Ohio.

Nice portraits! Is that second one a watercolor? I wish I had a studio like yours, is there any space left in your building?

Its good to have another Pennsylvanian in the bunch! I look forward to seeing more of you work.

Garth

Very nice work, Cynthia. The arm on the first one really comes right out at you.

Delusions aren't just relegated to the husbands. My wife suffers from the same.

Welcome to the forum. I look forward to seeing more of you.

Thank to everyone for the welcome. I'm glad to be here!

Garth, Howdy neighbor! I can't believe that someone heard of Du Bois! That is "Do Boys". We don't have that refined French accent here. Please let me know if you will be passing through some time. How fun it would be to have a visit! My studio is about two miles from the I-80 Exit.

Yes, the second one is a 13" x15" watercolor.

Space is filling up fast. There is a karate studio and HD is putting in a meeting room/reception hall. I have reserved an additional 1300 square ft. Not sure what to do with it . Maybe move the classroom so my studio would be a separate space. Actually I wish I could cut back on the teaching and spend more time on painting. Life can be so busy!

Hi Cynthia,

Welcome to the forum, I'm a little late but just saw your portrait of the yound girl in another thread. I'm not qualified to give any critiques on it, as I stink in oils, but am replying here to say how impressed I was that it was your first one.

I'm with John, my wife is planning our life based on me being rich and famous. I'm waiting for my wife to do something big so I can quit my job and paint all day! We're gonna be homeless.

Hope you enjoy yourself here and looking foward to your participation and the website.