New Work in Progress painting Trotting horse in Grassy Field

Recently I've discovered a new painting surface board to try, the Ampersand brand Aquabord. This product is a clayboard that's textured for watercolors, and can be displayed without glass in the frame. I actually haven't painted on it yet, so I'm starting with the small size (5"x7") to get a feel for how it's going to be to paint on.

For these small paintings, I wanted to keep the composition pretty simple, after all this is a first try on the Aquabord. Two ideas came to mind, a horse in a field and a horse jumping a creek/ditch in a southwest landscape. Off I go to the reference pic library on WetCanvas (where artists can use volunteered pics with permission for painting references). There are hundreds of pics to go through but it wasn't long until I found the first reference pic, a beautiful composition of a trotting horse in a golden grassy field in front of woods.

When I start a painting I like to do a little homework first. One of the first things I do is work out a tonal sketch in pencils. Keeping things simple, my mantra, I work out the darks, lights and medium tones in the composition with 2B, 4B and 8B pencils. All I do for this is just print out the pic on my printer and trace the outline on sketch paper. Sketch size is 7"x7" approx. I did not want the fenceline in the painting so I left it out.

Once that is done, I'm then ready to do a simple color sketch, which helps me to see what colors to start the first color layer with. This way I can get a "sneak peek" when the painting will go and how to start the tweaking process. The color palette I used was treeline: Indigo, May green, Olive green (derwent brand), pea green (cretacolor), dark pthalo green (faber castell), tree trunks are in sepia (derwent): horse in french grey (prismacolor)(I left the horse in neutral color on purpose): grassy field and shadows: ivory (cretacolor), burnt umber, blue grey,burnt sienna, primrose yellow, gold, deep cadmium, middle chrome and flesh pink (derwent).

By doing the pencil and color sketch, I start to get a feel for the painting outcome and a helpful guideline. Now the next step I will do the architecting of the painting; freehand transposing the sketch to the actual painting size and setting up a composition grid to make sure the painting objects are balanced. This way I can be sure to create a visual "flow" across the painting. So that will be the subject for the next blog posting.

They're ready for a new home, the mini journals that is!

After what seems like a revisit to writing college term papers, the listing descriptions of each southwest wildlife mini journal are complete! The journals are available for purchase in my Artfire and Etsy online shops. Although in Artfire, I could go more into the inspiration for each journal in the listing. I feel good that this step is finished, and the next step is hopefully shipping them off to a happy buyer soon! Have a great and blessed day!!

Southwest Wildlife Mini Hiking Journals are here!

The southwest wildlife design, handmade, original mini journals are finished!! Oh my God, I can't believe it's taken me this long to complete this project. *Sigh*, real life pulled my creative energy out of me for about six weeks. But I'm not going there, this blog post is about celebrating one of my original design of functional art!

Initially, I got the idea about making a mini journal to use when hiking or riding down the trails. For those of us who enjoy these activities, sometimes you can just get such a rush of feelings while out in country, you just want to write it down! I thought, why not make a small journal that can be put into a zip-lock bag but make it with an original watercolor pencil painting and theme it with corresponding natural beads/stones. Each of these journals has a theme as to selection of animal, background and beading.

For this journal, my theme is the feral mustangs on the north desert Nevada range. One day, I hope to see the Mustangs in this natural habitat, running the range where abandoned gold and silver mines keep them company. The background represents the mountain ranges typical of that area. The stones I selected to compliment the painting are turquoise and sterling silver beads, because of natural turquoise and silver mined in Nevada. The natural turquoise beads are from the Fox mine area in western Nevada. I am a turquoise nut, ahem, I mean collector and I try to choose southwest USA mined beads in my functional art creations (as best as from the source of info I can gather).

I know that I'm going to sound like a broken record here but when I saw the Grand Canyon south rim for my first visit this spring, I was so inspired!! I took tons of pics but I really need to go back and take more, for painting references you understand! LOL! I loved being there and lucked out and hired a semi private guide who was helpful in talking about the wildlife in the canyon. Elk are predominant on the south rim, and while we were there, I saw some elk scat (manure) pile really close part of the canyon trail edge. So this painting is my attempt to try to catch some semblance of the beauty of what is the Grand Canyon and one of the natural wildlife species that walks the trails as its home! I had a tough time choosing beads to match the theme of my painting, as I was looking for natural gemstones/minerals of the Grand Canyon or Arizona that would be small enough and affordable to use. After some research I came across info of the Arizona fire opals but didn't find the sizes needed available. What I did find, and decided to use was the Mexican fire opal beads as a close second choice . The colors and "fire" match those of the Grand Canyon walls. The other beads are antiqued copper beads, as there is some copper found in the GC, and I thought antiqued copper would represent the ancient history of the wonderful canyon. To the Grand Canyon I say, "I'll be back!"



How can I call myself a southwest wildlife artist if I don't include at least one painting of a buffalo! This painting idea came from my goal of one day visiting Yellowstone National Park and seeing the natural buffalo that freely roam among the geysers. While gathering my reference materials for the painting, I was blown away by how painters of buffalo seem to portray the great beast with such reverence and presence. I like to think my painted buffalo here is small but mighty!! Now what turned out to be a real gem for me was in my research for a natural gemstone of Yellowstone river area I found Montana Agates. And was lucky enough to find a source of the Montana Agate in the bead size I could use from a natural stone cabber in Montana. The natural Montana agate beads are flanked by copper beads to reference the copper mining around that area. I really like the beads a lot!

So there they are, completed and they turned out just as nice as I had hoped! It was quite a journey getting these small journals finished, a lot of reflection in the time they took. They will be up for sale in my Artfire and Etsy stores soon. Thanks for visiting and happy travels!

New Painting, Black Unicorn Bust

After the lake painting I was ready for another horse subject. Here is my latest completed project, called "Northern Unicorn". Done in watercolor pencils, 136# watercolor cold press paper, size is 9" x 12". I worked on this painting for weeks, I had a stretch where I was either too tired, out of town, or uninspired to do any progress with it, which accounts for the length of time to get it finished. I'm just not one of these artists that does a painting a day! However, it feels good to call this painting finished.

I had the idea for this painting a while back. Sometime last year, I was looking through reference photos on WetCanvas Reference Library. When I saw this photo of a Friesian horse, a unicorn immediately popped into my head! So I filed it away, bookmarked it for another time! Sometimes a story unfolds in my mind when I see certain photos, and this black, strong, powerful, beautiful horse head somehow made me think of a unicorn in a Celtic forest, forging an adventure in a mystic land.

I worked on some other projects first for a while and then I got to thinking about my unicorn again. And so now it was his turn to come to life from my thoughts to paper. First I gathered some reference prints, close up of that mane and a pic of highlighted light sources:

From here I made a full size sketch using 6b drawing pencil, trying to get the perspective right and practicing my freehand sketching.

For my colors I used my favorite combination for a vibrant black which is ultramarine, pathlo green, and crimson red, with additions of burnt umber or indigo as needed. For highlights I used violets and turquoise, some peach or pink. Background is mostly warm greys, light ochre and sanguine orange, with lots of loose water to push the colors around. The horse is painted with a more controlled application of water on the pigments.

I'm happy he's done, I was ready . I plan on getting this painting, along with two others, listed on my Etsy and Artfire stores. I'll enjoy my Northern Unicorn until he gallops to another admirers home!

Painting Wet, Lake with Boat landscape

Sometimes I try my hand at painting other subjects outside my usual interest (horses, southwest themes). So I decided to stretch my art skills at painting a small fishing boat on a lake. Painting water is very interesting, from what I studied, water is a reflection of the surroundings but yet needs to yield a fluid appearance. To me, like moving shadows, layers of shadows. I found I needed to be in an abstract frame, colors that would flow directly into one another. I decided it would be fun to document this try at painting water as a WIP (work in progress).

Here is the initial sketch, on sketch paper, with a reference photo:

And a close up of the composition sketch:

Now I drew the sketch on to the watercolor paper. First color sketch of darks (indigo) and neutral green, painting size is approx. 10" x 6" on 136# cold press paper:

And the first layer of the landscape colors added, my focus on keeping the highlights blank, pushing more dark and middle ranges:

Next, I'm adding more middle values, filling in the boat and fisherman. I decided I wanted to add some depth to the background. I tried to recess the middle trees as a secondary treeline to imply the lake flows further between the initial treeline. I'm not sure it works splitting the treeline into two parts. Used more greys on the small back treeline.


Now working on the lake highlights. I used more greens and violets to accentuate a warm still quietness for the water. Fishing is supposed to be a relaxing activity!


With all three tonal values in now, (light, middle and dark), I went to work on creating more depth in the water, shadows of the treelines, punching the clouds and sky depth and color.



I continued to go back and forth on adding depth more blue to the water, more blue greens for the treeline water shadows and the fisherman and the boat. I then wanted to add some highlights to the water, adding those special reflective sparkles, making water like a faceted jewel. Finally, I decided that I had to finish, and leave it as is as I felt myself starting to over tweak the painting. And now, the finished painting:


I'm ok with the outcome; I learned a lot, like waterscapes just may not be my thing! But, I can't say that I won't do another water themed painting in the future. Funny thing though, I found myself thinking about all sorts of new horse painting ideas while thinking about painting water!

Eagle Trio Sketches and Painting

I know I alluded in an earlier post about an eagle themed painting I was going to do. Well, it's finished and made into a beaded bookmark that's available in my Etsy and Artfire shops. I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with how the finished product looks. This post will be about the painting process though, just my thoughts about how this miniature painting came about.

I have in mind for a series of bookmarks of southwest wildlife animals, such as eagles, cougars and bears to start. Eagles and birds of prey have always been a fascinating subject for me so I chose eagles to start. In researching my reference photos, I decided on a collage of three scenes, a young eagle bust, an eagle in flight, and an adult eagle bust. So I had the reference pics chosen and then set out to make tonal drawings and sketches. Since I don't have a lot of experience painting birds, the tonal sketches will help give a better guideline of where to push the dark values, the mid range values and light values. I sketched the eagles freehand from the reference pics as I need a very small size to fit on the bookmark size paper. Sure, I could have manipulated the reference pic copies to a small enough size and then just traced the outline, however, I wanted to work on my artistic skills and chose the long tedious way. And yes, my eraser got a good work out but I learned so much in the process.

The page of sketches:

Compiling this type of composition took some math skills, which I sorely have struggled with all my life (I'm also slightly dyslectic). It took some time to get the balance just right and then all the resizing of the sketches of the birds. I used the eagle eye as the balance reference, draw the eye first and then balance the rest of the bird around the eye. Seemed to me to be the logical choice of where to start! Now what gave me the most grief was getting the beaks curved and positioned just right!! I never knew . So I wound up breaking the beaks down to a series of stacked blocks to give me a better perspective of attaining the three dimensional look. You can see that in the lower right hand bust sketch. My eraser got the most workout here!

Pics of the finished sketches:

Once the sketches and composition was done now onto the actual painting! Doing the sketches gave me a great base to work from and helped me tweak some changes as I was doing the painting. I used mostly Faber Castell watercolor pencils, they have great color and flow with water, and some creata color and derwents brand pencils too. Unfortunately I did not keep notes or pics of my painting process so I don't have them to show here. So that's a project for the next wildlife painting! Here is the finished product with the sketch reference:

This was a wonderful learning process, it may have taken me a while, but when you insists on learning at your own pace, that's what happens!

WIP New Horse Action Painting Finished!

And it's finished! So you can see from the color sketch in the previous blog post I just really didn't add anymore color to the horses and riders. But I decided to add a bit more to the background. I added sepia and more yellows to indicate the dust flying especially on the center sliding horse. I also added more yellow and a cobalt blue "ribbons" behind the center horse to account for the energy of action around the horses and riders. I used the technique of wetting the tip of the pencil and then rolling the wet pencil tip on its side to lay the ribbon of color for both the blue and yellow. I then took a slightly damp brush over certain sections for some slight blending. Here are some closeups:








Compared to the more detailed paintings I normally do, this painting took only half the time to complete. I almost feel "lazy" to call this painting finished!! But I'm happy with it, very good exercise for me artistically. I may do a series of action horse events like this, with cutting horses or jumping horses or something!



Oh, I've titled this painting "Reining Riders Trio of Dreams".


This painting will be available for purchase in my Etsy Shop very soon. Now it's time to make more horse themed Christmas tags for my shop, already sold one set of eight! Yipee!

WIP New Horse Action Painting Continued

I truly did not forget about blogging the WIP, just been busy! But now I'm ready to complete the WIP. Once I had the initial sketches done, I made a few changes to correct proportions, like horses head size, legs and feet size, riders arm positions,etc.. and then used tracing paper to copy and lift the designs to the watercolor paper. Here you can see how I placed the drawings ready to be rubbed on the background.











So now the big decision, COLOR! I've decided this painting is going to be more loose in style and more contemporary in presentation as opposed to my usual realistic style. Every once in a while I like to go "outside the box" for me!! When I paint, I really enjoy painting using lots of complementary colors so that was my starting point. Found my trusty color wheel and went to work. Here is the initial color sketch for horses and riders.

I tried to chose colors that would all complement each other (according to my trusty color wheel) in some way or another. This was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together, which color would "fit" with another, I hope I pulled it off though! I used three brands of watercolor pencils, Faber Castell (FC), CretaColor (CC) and Derwent (D). So let's start with the left horse which is in a left spin manuever: horse, blue violet (FC) body, bluish turquoise (FC) mane & tail and receeding areas; rider, naples yellow (D) outline and recessed areas with ochre light (CC) and golden brown (D). For the larger center horse performing a sliding stop, colbalt green (FC) body outline with orange (CC) for eyes and forelock; the rider in madder carmine (CC). For the right side horse in a right handed spin manuever, horse in permanent red light (CC) with magenta (D) for mane & tail and eyes; the rider is in moss green light (CC) and earth green yellowish (FC). Yea, LOTS of color here! Well, this is what I think I want, LOL! So now time for water and painting!

WIP New Horse Action Painting

Ok, I've decided to start a WIP (work in progress) here, testing to see how I handle it schedule wise! An idea came to me about starting an "action" series depicting various horse sports. Somehow, I decided on a reining horse scene. Don't really know why, I enjoy watching reining horses but I was never that interested in actually riding in reining sports. But this is what came to me from Him so I'm doing the smart thing and going with it!



I'm thinking about a loose, more contemporary style, with lots of bold color to create a sense of action, speed and grace. As I'm looking to be original and different in composition I didn't want to depict more sliding reining horse side views that is very common. So I went with a left hand spin horse, a right hand spin horse and in the center a front view sliding stop. Here is a working sketch drawn freehand from references:











And I've started on the background using wet pencils and washes on dry paper, size is about 6" x 10" :


Next I'll "tighten" up the sketches, refine the lines and get them where I want to transfer onto the painted background. Then the color will begin!! Stay tuned....

More Paintings Finished

Well, have to say I'm proud of myself for getting these miniature bookmark paintings done, I'm gitting, oops, getting, more disciplined about my time during the day to devote to creating some artwork. Plus, it's actually fall season here in Texas (hey, when the temps are 90 degress or less in September and October, it's Fall! LOL!), so I'm not tired from working out in the heat around the farm.

I want to start with the bay horse and the hand painting titled "The Polite Offering". This depicts a natural horsemanship concept called the horseman's handshake, which is all about approaching and inviting the horse to seek the human first, not the human just taking over the horses personal space and grabbing and pushing the horse around (which is rude to the horse, and they know it!). The hand in this position shown is placed to simulate another horse's muzzle in a friendly non-threating position. There are volumes of thought that go along with this, and for me, learning about it opened up so much more depth in my horsemanship! The style of the painting is rather controlled, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. Takes a lot of patience to work a lot of detail in a small (2"x2") space! I will put this is a vinyl bookmark sleeve and embellish it with a beaded/leather cord.

The next bookmark I went in a different direction stylisticly, looser and more abstract. I don't have a name quite yet for this one, so it's working title is "Bold Spirit Horses of Color". This painting is based on a vintage Navajo sterling silver pin I have. I love collecting and wearing Native American artisian made jewelry, and have a special interest in horse pins. The horse colors represent the stones often used in NA jewelry; turquoise, coral and spiney oyster. There are stories from several native indian cultures about how the horse was created and was used by the dieties. I found a very interesting story about a horse of turquoise color that was ridden across the sky every morning and thus the reason for blue skys! ( Thanks to Twin Rocks Trading Post of Bluff, Utah for sharing this info online!!) The ruddy colored background is an abstract representation of the red rock sandstone formations that I've seen ancient petroglyphs on. With this painting it will give me the opportunity to embellish with some genuine natural Kingman turquoise and spiney oyster beads (once my bead order gets here) for the bookmark cord.

The very top painting is called "Practising the Good Hack". Here, something a bit more traditional in equestrian painting. While I live in the mecca of cowboy country, there are a fair number of English style riders and activities around. In fact, I know several riders from the UK across the pond who have been riding among the cowboys and wannabe cowboys here for many years! All of my barn boarders are english riders and I myself, ride either english, western or bareback. Depicted in the painting is a rider on a proper turned out horse working on their form. I could just hear the rthyhm of the trotting footfalls across the arena sand and the rider quietly counting, "one-two, one-two" in posting up and down. I think it turned out to be a very plesant looking little painting! This one also will be put into a vinyl bookmark sleeve with a beaded leather cord, perhaps gold embellishment on this one!

I'm planning on getting these in my Etsy shop by the weekend I hope, as I will also have some little notepads ready to list by then too! Now, back to the day job....

"The Inviting Path", first of a series

Don't you love it when you finally get going on something you know you should be doing? Finally, I finished my first bookmark painting. I call it "The Inviting Path". After all these years of trying all kinds of horse riding activities, my absolute favorite riding endeavour is heading down a trail in the wide open spaces. There is such a bonding experience between rider and horse from doing something so simple as going from point A to point B down a path, whether it's for an hour or 24 hours!

As this painting is for a bookmark purpose, I wanted to tie in the theme with purpose. Reading a book takes the reader on an adventure for fiction or fact. If you will, taking the reader down a path. So here is a path painted that I hope folks find just as inviting as the book it's in to read! Notice how the horse has the right ear facing back; he's listening to the rider or reader in this case to keep going forward!

This is a freestyle painting, I used no reference photos, just what I saw in my imagination. My watercolor pencil palette was pretty simple of a few greens, yellows, browns and indigo blue and ultramarine blue for the background and my horse is a few violets, paynes's grey, indigo blue. I decided to put in a wildflower field in the distance and used a permanent red, orange chrome and a pink to add some bright color. Bookmark size of approx. 2.25" wide by 7.25" high on white Lenox 100 cotton rag paper (I LOVE this multi-purpose art paper for small projects!) I will put this painting inside a vinyl bookmark sleeve and embellish the top with a leather cord and wonderful silver horse charm. I plan on putting this up in my Etsy shop as soon as I get a few more bookmarks created.

Ok, so now that this first one is started, I'm going to stay on this momentum and get going on the next! And I will be sure to post it on the blog as soon as I can!

My Latest Artwork - Desert Runners Tres

Here is a piece I call "Desert Runners Tres", it's a watercolor pencil, 5" x 9.5" on 136 lb watercolor cold press paper. I did this piece as a refuge of sorts from a project I did earlier that did not turn out as well as I wanted. I also put the other piece up on an artist website for constructive criticism and unfortunately, got slammed by a couple of people who, let's just say, did not give what I call "constructive" comments. Aaargh, anyway, I needed to do a piece that would restore my confidence a bit.

So I used some background shots of the Valley of Fire state park from my personal collection (Valley of Fire State Park is located just north of Las Vegas, NV) and a copyright free horse photo from an online library. The horses are all different colors, or different bay colors, and I wanted to portray them just running because they can! An allegory for freedom, my freedom to be creative and like what I produce. When I am out in the desert, I feel this immense sense of freedom and my mental burdens gone or lightened. My three horses here, I feel, are enjoying this sense of freedom too. When I look at this painting, it reminds me of that special sense of being free in the desert!

I plan to sell this piece. I should have it listed in my Etsy shoppe soon and I'll make some prints as well. I'm going to be working on some small paintings for bookmark projects next so hopefully I'll have those ready soon!