Horse Art News

Bug Bite, above, and Rocking Horse, below. Designed as companions to each other; the originals are both 22 x 28" oil on canvas.  They're currently with my favorite Twin Cities art consultant and may become available in December or possibly sooner by request.

If I still have them on hand, they'll be part of my display at the Horse Crazy Shopping Boutique on Dec. 7th; meanwhile, prints of these and a lot more of my horses are on Fine Art America's Equine Art page.

Yes, More Horse Paintings

Bug Bite, 22 x 28" oil on canvas. Available, $500

In reality, she was scratching her leg after I put salve on it for the bizarre scrape she gave herself in some mysterious way. Nobody ever could figure it out, but if you know horses you know that's like saying they have four feet; the equine talent for "how the hell did that even happen" injuries is boundless.

But back to the picture. This kind of thing is why I so often take my camera into the pasture. Usually I get nothing worth using, but sometimes there's a moment when I can catch something a little beyond "pretty horse" and more like their characters. Those are the photos I use for art.

This painting is available until Monday the 14th, when I'll take it to an interior designer who may or may not purchase it for her client. I can't predict that outcome, so if you love it, snap it up (remember, artists do layaway). As usual, I've also made prints available on Fine Art America -- a fun site I recommend checking out; there's a lot of fantastic art there.

Northbound and Southbound

These were designed and painted as a pair, both 20 x 16". They're a little different -- drawn in various pencils on basswood panels, then coated in translucent wax medium and painted with a wax medium/oil paint mixture. The grain of the wood is one of the things that made me buy the panels in the first place, so I left some areas with only the translucent wax coating, allowing that natural texture to contribute to the paintings.

They're priced at $300 each/$575 for the pair, and prints are available here at my Fine Art America page.

The Big Mare, Finished

This was, more than anything else, an exercise in knowing when to hit the brakes. I love color and contrast so much ...

One of my college professors taught us about Martini Syndrome, which is what happens when you're painting and you do a little bit of something and it. Looks. Amazing. And so you figure, if a little is that good, you need a LOT MORE. And then it turns out, no, you really, really didn't. 

Mounds Boulevard Bridge

Mounds Boulevard Bridge, 6 x 12" oil on canvas

Today was overcast, not unpleasant though. A softly lit day and a grey curve of road that reflected the sky.

I wanted a soft, loose treatment so I painted this almost entirely with a palette knife.

Phlox

Little Phlox, 7 x 5" oil on panel

This was today at Derek Davis' class. A little experiment in loosening up and in leaving some areas really thinly painted.

I'm having such a good time.

Done! Now I can make that BLT.

In It Together, 10 x 10" oil on canvas, $275

Apparently, as a still life painter, I'm nocturnal: this was finished around 2:45 this morning.

It has about a dozen titles. I'm only telling you one of them because I want to see what people come up with on their own for what it could mean and what might be happening in the little narrative, here. Everyone's answer will be right; that's what I love about these little paintings.

Here's where I have to credit my inspiration: this painting would never have happened if I weren't friends with Jennifer Lowery. <3

This does get my "living less safely" classification, mainly because it's never "safe" to make art. But I was also challenging myself. Those background greens and violets? All looked like mud on my palette. And I think painting deep red objects is about the trickiest thing there is. It's even harder than getting landscape-greens to work, and that's saying something. I knew that, and chose to paint tomatoes anyway.

So I'm happy. And drinking a lot of coffee.

I wanted to stay home

but I didn't.

Downhill to the River, 8 x 10" oil on canvas, $145

Insomnia

And My Shadow, 6 x 12" oil on canvas.

I'm not sure if I was painting because I couldn't sleep, or if I couldn't sleep because I was painting, but whichever -- this was the result. I am less-than-energetic today as a consequence, but happy I started when I did, since the cute little flower was on its way out by morning.

Update: Sold.

Old Depot Detail, St. Paul

Depot Detail, 7 x 5" oil on canvas board, at Derek Davis' painting class 6/24

So this is What I Did in School Today. I learned a lot watching Derek mix the colors for this building, and realizing that although it is red brick, the actual color, in today's light at least, was much more ... reddish-violet, with hefty amounts of pink.

I have no idea what this small structure is, on the side of the building, other than "artist bait." If anyone can tell, I'd be interested in knowing. It's the old train depot at Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary. I stood literally in the shadow of the Kellogg overpass to paint it.

Stillwater Griffins

Stillwater Griffins, 18 x 18"each; oil and wax medium on panels. Please click this to enlarge!

Sometimes, things just take as long as they take. I had more false starts on these things than I care to recall. Changes; add wax medium, ugh, too much blue. Add red and orange, oh no, eek, too much! Gray it down, gray it down, hey ... that might work.

They are still a little different, for me, but I like them now. About ... 20 months, I think, after I started them.

The basis is a pair of bas-relief griffins on a streetside wall in, you guessed it, Stillwater. I photographed them in October 2010 and started these panels not long afterward.

More seeds, abstracted

Seed Flight, 12 x 12" oil paint and wax medium on panel

This panel was originally ... a dog portrait. Or rather, about half of one; I got that far before deciding I had irretrievably screwed up the composition.  I put it aside, grabbed a fresh panel, and started over.

Dog Portrait 2.0 turned out beautifully, but then I was stuck looking at the 1.0 version that didn't work. Eventually I mixed up some mostly-white paint and blotted it out, noticing as I did that there were some fun abstract patterns in the brush strokes over the background. A few weeks later, I used the panel to demonstrate abstract composition ideas to a student.

It's been through numerous changes and layers since then, and a few days ago I figured out how to finish it, at last. I hope to have a companion piece for it soon.

Granddad, Granddaughter, and Horse

Some of you may recall this commission from earlier. It is now hot off the easel after a very busy holiday rush. Click to enlarge. Photo has some glare on the horse's lower neck, chest, and front legs, so I'll have to try again for photos in different lighting.

 

And you may or may not recall my source photo. You can see here how much I edited out the "noisy" background trees to put the focus on the figures, and the adjustment I made so that the horse could have his feet back!  

How a Commission Begins

In this case, it's a memorial. The gentleman in this photo has passed away, and -- as so often happens with portrait commissions -- this is the best picture available. And it's a great picture, but it's small, and fine details aren't visible. I scanned it and enlarged it to an 8 x 10" print, which is the photo you see on the left here:

 

 

On the right is the 8 x 10" panel I'll be painting on. What you're seeing is the first stage. I've applied a one-inch-square grid to the print and a corresponding grid to my panel. The grid system dates back at least to the Renaissance, and is a great way of getting accurate proportions down. 

You'll notice that the photograph "cut off" the feet of the horse, and that I've compensated for that. I allowed extra room at the bottom, and then sketched in the hooves before I did the drawing on the panel. 

Not obvious yet: I will simplify the background of this image a LOT. All those busy, busy tree trunks? They're not helping the picture, so most of them are going to go away, and the ones I do keep will be soft-edged and their colors greyed down so that the focus is where it should be, on the people and the horse.

For the drawing, I'm using pastel pencil, which is delicate and will simply vanish into the oil paint. Anyone who's ever tried painting over standard graphite pencil lines will know why I don't use graphite!  It bleeds through like mad and the grey color tends to muddy up the paints.

If you have questions about any of this, do ask. Most people never get to see a painting in progress and it's fun for me to talk about how it works.

More Tiny Goldfish

Again, just 4" square, oil paint on canvas. Priced for the holidays at $45 each. More to come!

Tiny Goldfish Paintings!

These are from Josephine Geiger's studio -- or more accurately, the little fish pond outside the studio. Painted from life during Art Crawl last weekend, these are 4" square canvases, available at $45 each or $80 for a set of two.

Sunlit Little Landscape

Back at Bruce Vento this afternoon, I did a quick oil sketch while the sunlight disappeared all around me. Low Branches, 5 x 7" oil on canvas board, is below.

 

The larger canvas on my easel in the top photo is an 8 x 10" that I had just enough time to roughly block in before it got too dark to keep working. The "skeleton" of the painting will help me remember what I had in mind next time I go back, which will likely be Tuesday, if the weather's all right.

I'll have this little piece for sale at the Saint Paul Art Crawl this weekend. I'm showing at Josephine Geiger's stained glass studio.

Too many dogs to upload now, so have a landscape!

After Bark and Roll, I took my shiny new Guerrilla Painter Box and went out with a friend to do some landscape sketching. Days this lovely are rare and we needed to use this one while we could.

Path with Dry Goldenrod, 8 x 10", oil on canvas board.

We went to Bruce Vento Park, where the light falling across the trail caught my attention immediately. I seem to enjoy stripey landscapes.

Working outdoors, there's always a time limit, and this little piece took ... somewhere between 70 and 90 minutes, I think. It's a guess at best because I rarely know what time it is while I'm painting. The world kind of stops; that's one of the nicest things about making art.

Chances that I'll make a few tweaks to this: approximately 100%. I'm happy with it, though, and look forward to putting it up for sale in the next few days.

Sunny Sunday in the Studio

Yesterday I worked pretty much all day, partly on the pup above, whose color -- difficult to see until I put a coat of retouch (workable) varnish on it -- turned out to be more blue than it should have been. The photo above is after I used a transparent iron oxide glaze to warm up his fur considerably.

The pieces above are a commission, and are lying flat while their bottom edges fully dry. This is taking longer than normal for some reason. Ah, the vagaries of oil paint.

My wonderful sunny corner at Old Town Artists. I've just shifted studio space because the person who was in this slot left the group (no drama, just due to other things going on in her life).  Yesterday I spent several hours sorting, moving, and organizing things. Good spaces are important for creativity. I really, really enjoy this one.

Bright Brush 2.0

Bright Brush study. Oil on canvas board, 6 x 4", $49.

I like the somewhat rough, atmospheric look of this one. I did it while taking little breaks from a much larger landscape commission I'm finishing this week.