Big and Little Goldfish: $30 Drawing for Tuesday

Red and Black, 8 x 10" watercolors and pen on cotton printmaking paper. Second in my series of 30-minute drawings, this is based on a photo I took at a friend's goldfish pond. The fish are so graceful and calming to watch, with their colors and curves, that they've become a favorite subject of mine.

This piece is available for $30 plus $5 shipping if applicable. Click here to purchase at my Etsy shop.

Very Happy Sparrow: The $30 Original Drawing for Monday

This little guy was eating seed from a china bowl on my balcony when I snapped his picture. That blissed-out expression was more than I could resist, so he became the first of these fun, 30-minute drawings.

I used watercolor, white acrylic, and micron pen on my usual lovely Rives BFK Tan paper. Size is 10 x 8", so he'll be easy to fit into a standard, ready-made 11 x 14" mat and frame (if you don't frame a lot of art, take my recommendation and do either mat or float mount your original art so it isn't touching the glass of the frame; it's a preservation thing).

SOLD Available for $30, or $35 total if I need to ship him to you; if you'd like him, click here to contact me. I take PayPal (which lets me accept major credit cards), cash or check.

Cartoons of Ruby the Great

I was sketching Ms. Ruby from life last night, and she was moving a LOT. So I got these cute cartoon drawings rather than an actual portrait -- more based on Ruby than actually looking like her, but still so fun. 

Sizes of these are about 6 x 6" and 9 x 6.5". Pencils, micron pen, and watercolor on tan paper. They're available at $39 each or $75 for the pair, unframed.

Beagle, Appaloosa, and Disappearing Posts

  

In progress right now, two of my 12" square series. I thought I had booked two horse portraits, but one of the horses turned out to be a dog! And, you know, that's all right. Just a very cute surprise.

In other news, I've just learned that if you "liked" my Tracie Thompson's Studio fan page on Facebook, chances are you're still not seeing many of my posts. Facebook now shows new fan page posts to only about 7% of the people who think they're following the page. If page owners want their own fans to actually see their posts, we now have to pay for that. If you're interested in continuing to see updates from me, Facebook will show you most of them IF you click "like" or comment on at least some of the posts you do see. 

And I'm sorry about that. I don't feel you should have to ~*engage*~ in order to get the site to do what it was supposed to do.

Isengard

Sixth in my Horse Crazy Series of 12" square canvases. Isengard is a Friesian cross and this painting is based on a photo of him galloping in the afternoon sunlight.

Horse Crazy Series #2 and 3

These are both of Darla, an adorable Gypsy Vanner mare. I had two fantastic photos, couldn't choose, and painted them both ... which means my series of seven is expanding a bit. :-D

Horse Crazy series #1: Spotted Saddle Horse

I'm playing a bit fast and loose with these, and having a LOT of fun. Canvases are all 12" square.

My reference photo is below; I may or may not go back and tweak that long nose or the star he has. Meanwhile, I'm on to the next one, a lovely Gypsy Vanner mare named Darla.

Horse Crazy Series, Set to Begin

You are looking at seven canvases, all 12" square, all wired to hang and with their surfaces prepped for oil paint.

Over the next three weeks, these will become seven horses, done fast and loose to capture their sense of movement and life.

I'll post each one as the series progresses. If you have photos of your own horse that you think would work for this, email them to me or link me to them online and I'll have a look. Do keep in mind that the paintings will be bold, loose, and fun -- and may look nothing like your particular horse. If I use your photo, you'll have first dibs on the painting, but no obligation to purchase it; I simply enjoy seeing other people's horses and getting to use photos I'd never see otherwise. 

The finished works will be for sale at the Horse Crazy Market on December 7th, at a price range of $99 to $149. 

Fox in the Henhouse!

This fun poster is now available at my Fine Art America page.  I love it a lot and may order one for myself, since I'm selling all the originals at the Art of the Holidays Sale over at Minnetonka Center for the Arts.

FAA has a lot of Chicken Art and I expect to add more over the coming months.

The Crowned Corvids, Continued

The Jackdaw, Triumphant. Fourth in the Crowned Corvids series, which I am enjoying more and more as I get bolder with my designs.

The Jackdaw is a European species we don't have in North America, and is considered a variety of crow. There are stories about these birds, going all the way back to Aesop, who told a tale in which the Jackdaw wanted to be King, so he picked up a lot of fallen peacock feathers and paraded around in them, lording it over the other Jackdaws and then trying the trick among the peacocks themselves. It didn't end well, with the poor fool Jackdaw outcast from both the peacocks' society and his own.

A much later tale from the 1800s has him stealing a jeweled ring from a Catholic cardinal, and being caught out by the Cardinal's curses. Again, in the end, he was humiliated and brought down.

These stories made me think about the idea of "too big for your britches" -- of people having an intrinsic "place" from which we mustn't try to rise. I know that there's more to it than that; it's simply that I think the "don't pretend to be what you're not" stories can be a good thing or a bad one, because who's to say what you are, or could be? How many people have wasted their potential because "people like me don't [become wealthy, go to college, write books, whatever]"?

So I gave my Jackdaw a souvenir of his adventures with the peacocks, worn with pride; and in my tale, he got to keep that small treasure he found, because God has a sense of humor and the Cardinal was rich enough. It's possible in my world to both be who you really are, and be better than you were.

Shameless promotion time: If you like these little fellows, you can find prints, greeting cards, and even cell phone cases at my FineArtAmerica page. They're a fun site known for excellent quality and service.