Spring Lamb - New Oil Painting

"Spring Lamb" oil painting study on linen panel

The week before last I managed to get back in the studio and started a painting of one of the lambs that we photographed on our Easter trip. I didn’t get very far, but it’s a start. Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, and I’m setting it aside to work on another painting in progress from last year, the polo painting.  

The lamb painting will be just a simple study. My intention is to capture the freshness of Spring and the renewal of Life that it brings. I also want to experiment with getting a lot of non local colors into the painting which should be fun working on the lamb’s almost white coat. You can see a lot of colors in white in Nature if you really look. 

“Local Color” for you non artists refers to the color an object appears to be: grass is green, the sky is blue, a fox is reddish orange and black, etc. But, local colors contain all sorts of other colors too if you look closely, and artists can take artistic license in adding them where they don’t exist in Nature in order to create a richer, more interesting painting. 

It’s been so cold and windy that I pretty much lost interest in doing any gardening, but the plants are progressing slowly so I mustn’t put that off too much longer. Another tulip has bloomed, but none of the daffodils even have buds on them which means we’ll have to wait until next year to enjoy their happy little faces. And to paint them! 

I have big plans to get outside and paint this year, even if it means just around the yard or from the deck overlooking the lake. I did sign up for a plein air painting group through the Parkside Arts Council, though. It will meet once a month all summer and should be fun to be out with others. Doing some painting in the yard will give me a chance to do dry runs on using my french easel and figure out what works best for transporting supplies. 

In the meantime, I’ve been busy going through hundreds and hundreds of photographs from my camera cards, throwing out the useless ones and sorting the rest into folders by subject. They are all backed up onto CD’s now, and next I tackle the project of setting up Time Machine on the new computer so that it can back up regularly without me having to do any of the work. Since I haven’t yet backed up this new computer (from last summer!) it’s a task I don’t dare put off any longer. 

On the horse front, I’ve been riding regularly, and we’ve gone on a couple of more trail rides. Scottie is going so much better on these last few rides that I ‘m very encouraged about riding this summer. I was afraid that he woudn’t be able to handle trail rides anymore, but if I continue to ride regularly and build his muscles back up, I’m hopeful again. 

"Kaia" six week old German Shepherd puppy

There is a new dog at the barn now. The owners have a six week old German Shepherd puppy, and I’ve been able to get a few good shots of her. Here’s one of them. Such a sweet face! I hope to be able to do many paintings of little Kaia as she grows up and becomes a beautiful German Shepherd, my very favorite breed of dog. 

That’s all for today. I must get back to figuring out this Time Machine thing so that I can rest easy again. Hasta la Vista!