front range meetings

DATE: Saturday, October 11th, 2025

TIME: 10:00-10:30 am, socializing with coffee and snacks

10:30-11:00 am, meeting

11:00am-12:30 pm demo, with room available till 1 as needed

Location: Wheat Ridge Center for Music & Arts (currently also Wheat Ridge United Methodist Church)
7530 W. 38th Ave.

DEMO ARTIST: Patrick Kochanasz

Kochanasz studied at the Baum School of Art in Allentown, PA from 2001-2005. He continued his studies in Visual Arts at Penn State University. After moving to Colorado in 2012, he became enthralled by the vast terrains of Colorado and the American West. As an avid backpacker, his paintings soon became the embodiment of his backcountry excursions. His works are heavily influenced by the traditional Japanese woodblock art form, ukiyo-e, leaning heavily toward whimsical, illustrative, imaginative, and colorful in their approach. Each painting is uniquely edge-treated, providing unusual nuance and depth to the composition. His works have been collected and awarded both nationally and internationally, most recently achieving Best of Show at the Beulah Valley Fine Arts Exhibition in September 2025.

DATE: Saturday, November 8th, 2025

TIME: 10:00-10:30 am, socializing with coffee and snacks

10:30-11:00 am, meeting

11:00am-12:30 pm demo, with room available till 1 as needed

Location: Wheat Ridge Center for Music & Arts (currently also Wheat Ridge United Methodist Church)
7530 W. 38th Ave.

DEMO ARTIST: Sarah Blumenschein

Sarah Blumenschein makes her home in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Many are surprised to find out that even though creating art was her first passion and first choice of a degree, she ended up earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering.  As a result, she spent 14 years working in industry as an engineer before “retiring” to raise children and start working on her art again using pastels as a medium. 

Initially, Sarah thought she wanted to paint landscapes, but eventually found herself more interested and excited about painting still-life due to the variety of colors, shapes, textures, and reflective surfaces possible.  She enjoys painting both and often experiments with mixing a still-life with a landscape.

The pastel medium is appealing to Sarah because of the immediacy of the color, and the ability to build layers of colors.  Her selection of subjects is often based on a desire to find and replicate the way light bounces around a scene or setup.  For that reason, glass, china, and other reflective surfaces are often featured in her still life paintings.  Flowers are also a favorite subject, whether as part of a still life or as found in nature.  Sarah enjoys the challenge of capturing a strong sense of light and creating the illusion of 3 dimensions on a 2 dimensional surface.

Sarah entered her first Art exhibition in 2003 and was honored to be awarded 2nd place.   Since that time she has won many local, national and international art competitions, including 1st place in the Still Life Category of The Artist Magazine 2009 Annual Art competition, The Grand Prize in the Pastel Journal’s 2010 Pastel 100 annual competition, “Best of Show” in the 2014 New Mexico Masterworks competition and the 2015 Pastel Society of New Mexico National Exhibition, “The Pat and Bob Suggs Award for Still Life and Floral” in the 2021 Pastel Society of America “Enduring Brilliance” Exhibition, and 1stPlace in the Open Division of the 2021 International Association of Pastel Societies Web Show.  In addition to awards, Sarah has also earned Signature status in the Pastel Society of America, Distinguished Pastelist status in the Pastel Society of New Mexico and Pastel Society of the West Coast, and Master Circle Status in the International Association of Pastel Societies.   Her artwork has also been featured in magazine articles in both the Artist’s Magazine and the Pastel Journal.

With each painting, Sarah hopes to inspire an emotional reaction in the viewer of joy or happiness.

DATE: Saturday, December 13th, 2025

TIME: 10:00-10:30 am, socializing with coffee and snacks

10:30-11:00 am, meeting

11:00am-12:30 pm demo, with room available till 1 as needed

Location: Wheat Ridge Center for Music & Arts (currently also Wheat Ridge United Methodist Church)
7530 W. 38th Ave.