"Twilight"; Horse Painting In Progress

"Twilight Reverie", oil painting in progress

Sound the trumpets! Ring the church bells! 

I am finally at long last back to work on paintings! 

Last year was a difficult year, and to tell you the truth, I am still recovering from surgery and the consequences thereof. But, I'm getting my mojo back and have worked on this painting for the past two days. 

When last I worked on it exactly one year ago, I could see a few problems with it and wasn't quite sure what to do about them. And so it sat on the studio wall for months and months. My mind was just not in the right place to deal with painting problems - until now. 

I am back to riding after another long layoff due to a knee injury. I am back to gardening which was a near impossibility last year. The flower beds are cleaned out, and I'm ready to plant and fertilize and mulch. I can walk almost normally (although not far without pain). In short, I am back into a normal routine of being able to do the things I care the most about. 

And one of those things is painting. With the thought of Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained, I resumed work on this painting yesterday and today. It is now back on the studio wall to dry before I tackle painting the final layers of the horse which is still in the underpainting stage. 

There were several things that needed correction. For one, the background trees on the right needed improvement. For another, the outline of the horse had "grown" during the initial painting stage, as often happens, and needed to be trimmed back. The rump was too rounded and plump. I did a few nips and tucks in other areas as well. 

But the biggest problem I could see was that the head was too large in proportion to the body. That could have been due to camera compression and distortion or it could have been due to the head growing as it was painted or it could have been both. At any rate, it got an over all trim and now looks more in proportion and in perspective. I am pleased. 

What will I work on next while "Twilight" dries? There is that little lamb study I never finished, two cat paintings and another of a horse rolling. I am anxious to finish up paintings to fill up my depleted inventory and get started on some new ones. 

I am eager and ready. Sound the trumpets!

Old Horse Painting and Getting Back To Normal

"Bear", 11x14 pastel horse painting

It's been a long time since I last posted, and although I haven't quite gotten back to the easel yet, I thought I'd share this old portrait with you today for Throwback Thursday.

This is Bear. He was an Appaloosa gelding who belonged to a riding friend several years ago. I had the pleasure of painting his  portrait as a gift and am still reasonably happy with it. An artist is never completely satisfied with any finished painting, but that's another story.

The portrait was done in pastel, and what a fun time I had getting all that roaning to look natural and to match the markings on Bear's face and body. I haven't worked in pastel in a very long time now, not since I quit accepting portrait commissions, but I'm getting the urge to pick them up again.

That will be a lot easier now that my studio is finally all put back together after the long layup during the surgery recovery. During this past month, I sorted through all of my oil paints and separated them into warm and cool colors. Then I separated out duplicates and packed them in an old fishing tackle box that I'll use for painting outdoors.

The final step in getting the studio back together involved going through my art supply closet and rearranging it. In the process I found a few things that I'd forgotten I had and got rid of some other things no longer needed. All is arranged much better now, and my lifetime supply of old t shirts and pillowcases is organized in two boxes to be used as paint rags as needed. There was even left over space to put a few things away that had been kicking around the studio floor.

And, very lastly, my husband brought my drawing table back out of the attic to resume its old position folded up against the wall. I love that drawing table; so compact when it's folded and yet a large working surface when set up. It was the final piece to putting the studio back into full operating mode.

Meanwhile during the month, I went to physical therapy twice per week, did my exercises (mostly) faithfully and got caught up on various doctor appointments and the cat's vet appointments. I am now finished with PT and am looking forward to more free time to devote to catching up on so very many tasks that have gone undone for way too long. There are bird feeders to clean and set up and horse blankets to wash for the coming winter among many other tasks.

Homeward Bound on a trail ride

During the month of September, I was able to ride somewhat regularly and to fit in four trail rides. Oh, how glorious that was! Trail riding season is fast coming to an end, and it's time to plan for arena riding through the winter.

Speaking of which, can you believe that the Holidays are almost upon us?! Where has this year gone? It certainly has flown by.

Hummingbird Syndrome and a New Horse Sketch

"Goldilocks" palomino filly sketch

I’ve been suffering lately with a case of Hummingbird Syndrome; easily distracted and flitting from one project to another without finishing any of them. 

PAINT PIGMENT PROJECT

Having put the paintings aside to ponder on them, I decided to inventory my oil paint pigments to figure out which ones were getting low and needed to be ordered. That done, I decided to research each of those pigments and make notes on them as an educational project to help make better choices when choosing which colors to use. This turned into more of a project than initially anticipated! Some of my tubes of paint are so old that they don’t contain any information on them as to the pigments used or their toxicity and lightfastness; all information that is included on more recent tubes of paint. 

What followed was research online at the websites of various paint manufacturers and other art related sites. To my dismay, Grumbacher does not include pigment information on their website while Winsor-Newton, Daler Rowney and Old Holland do. Of course, I have a lot of very old tubes of Grumbacher oils. To supplement what I couldn’t find, I consulted the Artist’s Bible; Ralph Mayer’s Manual of Artists Materials and Techniques. Pretty dry stuff that and also incomplete for some pigment numbers found on newer tubes of paint. The book was last revised in 1991 so is now out of date. 

I’ve almost finished this project, and it’s been very illuminating. For instance, a company may change the pigment or pigments used in a particular named color over time. And what one company calls Burnt Sienna may contain totally different pigments from what another company calls Burnt Sienna. Each pigment has different qualities of lightfastness, opacity, drying time and toxicity, so it pays to know what’s in the tube. It’s also a good reason to stick with one or two brands of oil paint. 

FOAL SKETCH PROJECT

One evening while watching TV, I sketched the above drawing of a foal. The next morning I worked on it some more and added some background. It turned out so well that I had to share it. Then I thought about doing more sketches, something I should be doing daily anyway. So I got out some more photographs to copy. 

HORSE PEDIGREE PROJECT

My horse, Scottie as a four year old

But, before I could do anything about that, I was distracted again by a photograph of my horse as a four year old just before I bought him. Having scanned that and a few other photos and the sketch, I posted it on Facebook to share for Throwback Thursday when people post old photos of themselves or family or childhood pets; that sort of thing. 

Before I knew it, I started researching my horse’s pedigree and found some resources online. The biggest find online was a website where you can type in the name of a horse and get that horse’s pedigree that may go back hundreds of years. For instance, my horse is an unregisterd Quarter Horse, but his sire is registered. In researching his sire’s pedigree, I was able to track back as far as the foundation sires of not only the Quarter Horse breed but the thoroughbreds whose blood are part of the breed through a Thoroughbred named Three Bars. Three Bars goes back to the Godolpin Arabian, Darley Arabian and Byerly Turk all of which were used to improve the Thoroughbred breed back in the 18th century. Their pedigrees in turn go back to the 1600’s. That’s where I stopped. 

Finding these three horses in my horse’s geneology was nothing short of magical. It took me back to my childhood of reading Marguerite Henry’s books, Album of Horses and King Of The WInd. I adored Album of Horses and spent many hours reading and rereading it and even copying some of the drawings and paintings. 

A SPOOF ATTACK!

Meanwhile I dealt with a spoofing attack on my email account. Some spammer was using my email address to send out hundreds of thousands if no millions of spam emails. Although the spam wasn’t going out of my email server, all the returned spam emails were coming into my email server. By the thousands! The highest count was over 9000! A call to my website host was not of much help except the advice to just wait it out and the returned mail notices would go away as the spammers moved on to use someone else’s email address as the From address. This blitzkrieg lasted for five days, and thankfully, yesterday morning it ended. Abruptly. 

The website tech guy advised me to sign up for a newer hosting package that included more perks and better spam filtering at a lower cost. So, of course, I had to look into that but couldn’t find much on the website. 

CATCHUP DAY

With all of these loose ends dangling at this point, I’ve dedicated today as a catchup day. Putting aside horse geneology and website hosting changes, I will endeavor to finish the pigments research project. Going through my horse’s folder and throwing out old farrier receipts, vet visit bills and Coggins test results is also on the schedule after which I will file it away again. And make a separate folder for the geneology finds. 

But first the bathroom needs to be cleaned. 

Buried Treasure; Two Old Horse Drawings

"Jesse Darkstar" Appaloosa Horse Drawing

In the process of going through old art records today I came across two preliminary drawings that I did for portraits way back in 2001 and couldn’t help but think, “Gee, these are better than I remember them being!”. 

It was my custom to do a value study for a color portrait before beginning the final portrait. The purposes were several. First off, the preliminary drawing gave me a chance to see how the line drawing would look when rendered as a three dimensional object. Next, it would reveal any awkwardness or disproportions that might not be evident in the line drawing. Thirdly, it would establish the values in the image. And, finally, it was emailed to the client for either approval or needed changes. 

At top is the preliminary drawing for a portrait of Jesse Darkstar, a blue roan Appaloosa. I had to change some leg positions and other things from the reference photos, and the drawing helped to be assured that the image worked over all. Below is the final pastel portrait. 

"Jesse Darkstar"  Pastel Horse Painting

This next drawing is of King, a thirty year old Quarter Horse who was still being ridden and shown. This drawing is softer than the first because it was done on layout paper rather than drawing paper, and layout paper has a smoother surface. 

"King" Quarter Horse Pencil Drawing

And finally, here’s the final pastel portrait of King. 

"King" Quarter Horse Pastel Painting

I did a little work on the painting of Glory earlier in the week to enlarge her eye. But at the moment the eye is more than a little creepy looking, so  I’ll wait to show you progress on that until it’s in a more acceptable state. 

Last Gasp of Winter

“Forsythia”

Even though it’s snowing today, I thought I’d show you one of our forsythia bushes that is blooming right now. It’s about the only new image there is to share.

The saga of the lame horse continues. As I write, I’m awaiting a call from the vet for an appointment to have Scottie looked at again and some xrays taken. He’s no longer visibly limping at the walk, but the swelling behind the cannon bone is still there. Shelley is thinking he pulled a suspensory ligament, and I’m inclined to agree.

Scottie is thoroughly enjoying all this extra attention. He was so glad to see me on Tuesday that he gave me big wet kisses on the neck and cheek and tried to groom me as I worked on him. He’s very good about standing still while I hold the cold pack on his leg or use the ice cup and he enjoyed the cold pack on his neck after I finished massaging his lump. Going along with all of that has been some thorough grooming and hair removal, and at last we’re making progress. He doesn’t look quite so much like a pudgy Shetland pony anymore.

All this time together without the work of riding sessions has been good for our bonding. I’m ready and anxious to get back to riding, though, and start some trail rides early in the year this year. But first I have to clean the saddle and bridle which are waiting in the laundry/tack room.

On the art front, I’ve talked to my new mentor who has given me his fee for lessons which is very reasonable. That was a big relief. We’ll get together one more time to sort of plan things out, and then the lessons will begin. I can hardly wait!

In the meantime, I’ve also been going to doctor appointments and dealing with yet another computer problem. At this moment I can’t send emails and can’t post much on online forums and am trying to figure out what’s wrong. Sometimes the letters type in reverse order which is very disconcerting. So far everything off line is working. If I owe you an email, be patient with me while I work to resolve this issue.

On Monday I’ll be getting an MRI of my head ( my daughter says it’s about time I got my head examined! Cheeky one that. ) Well, actually it will be four MRI’s that the ear, nose and throat doctor prescribed. I hope they will reveal why I can’t shake these sinus infections, what’s causing the dizziness and head aches and ear aches and why I’m hearing my pulse in my ears 24/7. Not that I’m obsessing or anything, but I would like some answers and preferably some cures.

Oh, all right! You twisted my arm so here’s another photo of my handsome boy. Isn’t he cute?!

The Licensing Agent; A Cautionary Tale

"Sweetie" 11"x14" pastel painting

I’m giving you fair warning now that this is going to be a long post. I’m writing it because this incident has been haunting me for almost two years, and I’d like to let it go and move on.

A couple of years ago, I was contacted by a licensing agent who was looking for an equine artist to represent in a new venture into licensing horse images for her corporate clients. She was very enthusiastic about my art and very flattering in her comments. She told me that my art had the WOW! factor and that she wanted to “brand” me with a big marketing campaign and thought that I could become another Chris Cummings in the licensing world. Pretty heady stuff, right?

The problem was that I already had a licensing agent/dealer, but, I hadn’t had much luck with her for several years. I told the new agent (I’ll call her Cindy) that I would consider her offer. We chatted on the phone, and she built herself up by saying that she had a background in marketing and worked with many big companies which licensed images for their products and that she had a very good reputation in the industry. Then I contacted two of her artists, a husband and wife team, who gave her an enthusiastic endorsement. Next, I checked the contract I had with the current licensing agent and found that I could cancel it by giving her 60 days’ notice.

After doing this due diligence, I felt safe in accepting the new offer from Cindy who was willing to wait the 60 days. I told her right up front that the only images I had available for licensing were on my website, and she didn’t express any concern about that. I notified my current agent, and Cindy sent me a contract to sign that would be effective at the end of the 60 days. She also requested that I send her images so that she could put together a marketing sheet to show to her clients. I asked her which of my current images she wanted for this purpose.

That’s when the trouble began. I never got a direct answer. Instead she emailed me a list of ideas for paintings based on requests that she’d gotten from her contacts. I asked her several times more which images to send. Her response was always to tell me that certain ones would be better in color or with a different background or with the horse facing the other way or this or that. I asked her what sorts of images to work on first. Her response was to just send me the same list of ideas that she’d gotten from her clients which was a long one.

Without any guidance from Cindy, I had no choice but to do my own research. I reviewed all of my sales records and came up with a list of best sellers and worst sellers in prints and note cards. I presented that to her and got no response. I looked through all of my horsey gift catalogs and horse catalogs to see what sorts of images are on the market to give me ideas for what works best. Based on those findings, I finally gathered ten of my best sellling images on a CD and mailed it to her. Her response was that they were “a good starting point”.

Two weeks later, the contract went into effect, and I emailed her to find out what was going on. I didn’t hear from her for two days. Then she emailed to say that I didn’t have an “extensive” enough portfolio of current work and that she was talking to another equine artist who had a “large” portfolio. She explained that she needed a “minimum of 20 strong images” in order to launch a marketing campaign which was something she had never mentioned before. She was still willing to represent me with my limited portfolio, though, if I was willing to continue.

Naturally, this came as a shock since she hadn’t given me a clue before that there was any problem from her point of view. So, I went through my images again and sent her 16 more possibilities by email that I’d originally eliminated for one reason or another and asked her to let me know if any of them were suitable. By this time, I was getting very uneasy about the whole situation and Cindy’s lack of communication and candor.

Over a week went by, and I heard nothing from Cindy. So, I sent her another email asking if she had gotten the images. I heard nothing for another two weeks and emailed her again, asking for advice as to what to paint first. There was still no response, so I phoned her. She told me that she couldn’t talk now because she had a business client coming for the weekend but would phone me on Monday. That was on Friday. On Sunday night I got an email from her saying that she had found another “incredible established artist” with “a large portfolio” to represent and would not be able to represent me after all. She went on to twist the knife deeper by saying that it would take many years before I would reach “profitability”for her in licensing due to my limited portfolio and lack of dedication to regular painting.

I wrote her back and agreed that I wasn’t the right artist for her and hadn’t been happy about the way things had been going. I also expressed puzzlement over why she had contacted me in the first place and why I hadn’t been told in the beginning that I would need X number of images and why she hadn’t given me more guidance in what to paint for her.

The funny thing is that no new artist appeared on her website, and a year later she contacted one of my best artist friends and other artists as well. So, what became of that “incredible” artist I wonder?

I’ve since come to the conclusion that Cindy knew nothing about the equine art licensing market and that she expected “her” artists to produce paintings quickly. I also suspect that her view is that the artists work for her rather than the other way around.

This whole incident was a huge blow to my ego; one that I’m still struggling to overcome. I’m hoping that this post will help to put the unpleasantness behind me once and for all. My biggest regret is that I let go my former licensing agent. She helped to establish my career early on, was always supportive and helpful and was familiar with the world of equine art. I’ve found her advice far more helpful than the little bits that I received from Cindy. I regret that by hastily cancelling that contract, I also lost a friend.

Perhaps that’s what’s bothering me the most.