Art League Hosts Special Weekend Seminar

The Art League of Long Island is hosting a special weekend workshop with renowned colored pencil artist Laura Westlake.

The Dix Hills-based organization will present Westlake on Saturday, March 9, and Sunday, March 10, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. each day. The workshop will teach participants the technique of working in colored pencil to create lifelike works of art.  This workshop will focus on how to mix and shade color on the paper's surface to achieve a painterly look.

A native Long Islander growing up in Stony Brook, Westlake is essentially a self-taught artist drawing and painting since the age of four. Her love of nature and the outdoors has always been the inspiration for her work.

She studied at Santa Barbara College in California, and the School of Visual Arts in New York City where she developed an interest in commercial illustrating, which lasted for 15 years. Westlake later turned her focus back to the fine arts in the late 1980's painting subjects, which came from personal experience.

With colored pencils she recreates the rich colors and moods of still life and landscapes through a slow layering process, with some works taking up to 100 hours to complete.