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!!

Catching Time

As usual I let my blog time slip away. Thanksgiving came and went, very good, good meet with the family, ate too much great food and drove too far. But hey, it's all worth it in the end.

I've got some art projects in the fire, so to speak. I'm hoping to do a WIP on these. I've decided to do a western wildlife bookmark painting series, focusing on three magnificent creatures: Eagle, Bear and Cougar. I plan on creating one animal montage on each bookmark. Somehow the need came to me about painting something other than horses. It's good practice and a good challenge.

(one of my reference pics for the next project, copyright free and public domain)

Another activity I've become involved in is my local Etsy group Ft. Worth chapter of Etsy Texas Crafters. Recently there was a meeting in west Ft. Worth where I met some fine and excited artist and crafters. It was a small turnout, but I felt like a pioneer of sorts. I really enjoyed the folks who did turn out and we all are in agreement of helping to support one another in our Etsy endeavours!!! One gentleman was kind enough to blog about our meeting and took some wonderful pictures! Check out the blog here: First Ft. Worth Etsy Meeting

Hopefully, I can get back to working on my art, this week has been very busy at work! One day, one day.......

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....

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!

Hanging Out the Shingle

This is Sisco, my partner in all equine endeavors! He's the third of my lifetime horses so far. My first horse I got when I was 16, and we shared adventures for the next 25 years. My second horse partner, who taught me through the school of hard knocks, how to truly discover the ART of listening and understanding horses, was with me for ten years. Both of these horses have passed over the rainbow bridge in recent years. So, now it's just Sisco and I, and we are in our third year of being together.

These horses over the years have provided so many days of inspiration for my future art ideas and expressions. So have so many other horses I have encountered over the past almost 30 years I've been a "horse person". Seems like I needed all this experience first so I can now hang my shingle out as a horse artist!

When I was younger, I showed a talent for art, painting and drawing, horses, horses and more horses. I didn't develop that talent as I entered college and went into another direction in life. Now, after a few decades, I felt drawn back to drawing and painting. I think it's a mid life crisis, LOL! Whatever it is, I love having this activity as part of my life again!

Around two years ago, I started searching out art sites and began to re-educate myself about drawing and painting and began the creative process. And while my art production maybe a bit slow, I'm now feeling that I'm getting my rhythm now and have begun to build a portfolio to share. And now, here is this blog, another way to share my art creations!

Next blog time, the art sharing begins!!!