Thursday, December 28, 2006

Latest Commissioned Portraits

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and was able to enjoy the festivities with family and friends. The month of December is especially busy for us artists who accept commissioned portraits as gifts for the holidays. I promised to post the ones I completed for my clients for you to view. Below are the three I completed in Nov/Dec. The first one is a 11x14 memorial portrait of a dog named Katherine. This portrait was painted with soft pastels on Moorman suede board with Mt. Katahdin in the background.


The next memorial portrait below is a 11x14 pastel pencil portrait on Canson paper, commissioned for a client in Vermont of his White Shepherd named Cain. The last portrait completed was a 11x14 Charcoal portrait of a young boy named Chase and his dog Jaxson for a client from Washington State. I hope you enjoyed viewing my latest work as much as I enjoyed painting them for my clients. Wishing everyone a very healthy and Happy New Year !

Friday, December 22, 2006

Loons of Tacoma Lakes book

Hello Everyone, hope most of your Christmas shopping is complete. Only a few days left before Christmas! Surprisingly, we still do not have any snow here in Maine. That is very unusual for us Mainers, and has been very hard to get into the Christmas spirit, but it has been nice to have 40-50 degree weather in the afternoons and easy driving conditions for traveling. Maybe Christmas Eve we will have a little dusting just to put us more in the spirit......

For those of you who would like to purchase a copy of my book Loons of Tacoma Lakes (ISBN#0-9785143-0-0) as a Christmas gift, please call your local bookstores or gift shops to see if they still have a copy on hand. I have restocked my book in 30 locations throughout Maine, NH and VT . If you are unable to locate my book and still wish to purchase an autographed copy please email LoonsofTacoma@aol.com and I would be happy to mail you a copy. Enclose a check for 24.95 plus 5% tax (Maine residents only). Mail to my studio: Animals in Pastels, 162 Main Street Lisbon Falls, ME 04252 . For those of you who enjoy viewing loon and scenes of New England photographs please visit my new gallery at www.animalsinpastels.com/gallery here you will be able to view and order a selections of my new photographs captured in 2006 as prints, greeting cards, photo magnets and book markers.

For school librarians looking for a new book for their students, my book has been very well received not only with the adult nature lovers of this area but also the student photographers as well. The following is a review written for the Winter issue of the Maine Audubon Habitat Newspaper by Luke Seitz, a ninth grader at the Falmouth High School in Falmouth Maine. (permission to reprint courtesy of the editor:Marie Malin, of the Habitat Newspaper)

Loons of Tacoma Lakes is a spectacular book documenting a single family of common loons in the Tacoma Lakes region of central Maine. The author, Sandra Lee Huston, kayaked the lakes photographing and observing the loon family, and the book's wonderful, full-page images- over 40 of them-record the lives of the chicks from late summer through fall.
My favorites aspect of this book is the spectacular photography. On every spread, there is a full- page color photograph showing another stage in the breeding life of common loons. All images are extremely sharp and well exposed.
Natural history information about the loons is included in many of the photograph captions and descriptions. Some examples include the stage of molt the bird is in, feeding behavior, and the interactions between the adult and young loons. There is also basic life history information scattered throughout.
As a beginning photographer, I found the chapter explaining the author's photography process very rewarding. It was helpful to learn how Huston photographs the birds, and her tips on developing film. Overall, you can see that I enjoyed Loons of Tacoma Lakes immensely. The spectacular photographs, photography pointers and great information regarding the life of common loons made it a pleasurable read. I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in photography, loons or natural history in general. Luke Seitz - Falmouth, Maine

For librarians who are interested in purchasing my book, I offer a discount of 30% off the 24.95 retail price, your discounted price is 17.46 + 1.95 s&h for each book ordered (for two books ordered s&h would be 2.95). For more information on ordering books email: LoonsofTacoma@aol.com If you would like to view more information about my book just visit www.animalsinpastels.com/loons-of-tacoma.html here you will be able to view 12 of the 40 photographs published in my book, read the preface page, bio and a sample of other review comments.

Soon after the holidays, I will post my new commissioned artwork completed this past month, for you to view. Until than, Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Sandy