Stepping Stone #1; "Morgana", a Morgan Horse Drawing

"Morgana", graphite pencil drawing, Morgan mare

After several more hours and many revisions to the drawing, "Morgana", I am declaring it finished. It is the first piece of art (other than sketches) that I've completed in over two years, so its significance can't be under estimated. 

"Morgana" will be my first finished piece of art in the Stepping Stone series; a series of paintings and drawings that will help me to become actively creative again after a creative block of several years. Not only was it a confidence boosting drawing but also a learning experience. Here is some of what I learned:

1. Choose the paper support wisely before beginning to draw. I fought this utilitarian drawing paper from the beginning. It has very little "tooth"to grab onto the graphite and proved very difficult to get the darks as dark as I wanted them. 

2. Measure twice; draw once. I began the drawing sitting on the couch watching TV, holding the sketchbook on my lap while holding the reference photo in my left hand. I eye balled the proportions and angles rather than measuring them, and they were off in several places. I didn't discover this until the drawing was finished. 

3. Don't proceed with the drawing/painting until you're sure that the initial outline drawing is absolutely accurate. After that, corrections are very difficult if not impossible. 

4. Size matters. If this is to be something more than a quick sketch, draw it larger or enlarge the outline drawing on a copy machine or computer.

5. If your reference is a small 4x6 inch photo, scan it at a high resolution and enlarge it on the computer. Either work from a computer screen or print out the enlarged photo.

reference photo for the drawing, "Morgana"

This latter point was the most telling lesson of all. I didn't scan the photo until the drawing was done and did so only to show you what the reference was like. When I opened the image on the computer screen and saw it enlarged by zooming in, I could see far more detail than I had been able to see in that small 4x6 inch photo print. It was a real Ahah! moment to realize how much detail I had missed putting into the drawing. 

But, that's okay. Lessons learned, and that is the whole purpose of the Stepping Stone series; to build confidence and build skills through DOING. At the same time, I'm scraping off some of the rust of the inactive years and awakening again skills and lessons learned in the past. 

What will I tackle for Stepping Stone #2? Check back to find out. 

Thank you, as always, for your interest and support.

New Drawing; "Morgana"

 

"Morgana" pencil drawing of a Morgan Mare

While watching the Democratic National Convention this week, I've been working on this drawing in one of my sketch books. 

As reference, I'm using a photograph taken several years ago at a Morgan horse farm. Her name was Lady, and she was a broodmare. In fact, she is the mother of Bullet, the Morgan colt that I've painted twice. The reference photo shows her with mouth open eating hay; a not very flattering picture. The challenge was to change the mouth, and I'm quite pleased with how well that turned out.

The drawing needs a lot more work. I will keep working on it to get it as close to the photograph and artistically pleasing as I can, keeping in mind balancing the values. It will be excellent practice in building up my "seeing" muscles again after such a long layoff. 

So, here you have "Morgana". The drawing is not big; about 6x6 inches done in graphite mostly with a 6B pencil and a little with an Ebony pencil to get the darks more dark. It has a ways to go. Already I can see about ten things that need to be corrected. It will be posted again when it's finished. 

I've always loved to draw  and used to do it endlessly as a kid. I'm really enjoying getting back to my drawing roots again and will be doing more of it from now on as part of my Stepping Stones project of rehabilitation and building up confidence in my artistic abilities again. 

 Please let me know what you think of this new drawing (remember, it's not finished yet).

Thank you for stopping by.

"Echo", a Horse Drawing

"Echo" a Quarter Horse Mare

Drawing from the photograph

I saw a woolly caterpillar in the barn aisle the other day, and that is a sure sign that Fall is here and winter is on its way. 

Usually, Fall is very busy at our house as we batten down the hatches preparing for the snow and cold ahead: taking water craft out of the water for winter storage and cleaning out the flower beds, preparing for the holidays and other sundry things. This year is no exception and is shaping up to be even busier than normal after what was a busy summer. 

For one thing, we took our cat, Molly, downstate to a cat clinic for radiation treatment for hyperthyroidism. She has been on medication for two years, but it was no longer working. It has been traumatic for both us and poor Molly since she had to stay at the clinic for four days and is now in quarantine at home for a week. The treatment itself is very safe, but she was stressed to the max just being taken away from home and "abandoned" by her people and now isolated from all of us in her room alone. She came home very thin and totally exhausted but is now doing fine if not very lonely. 

In spite of the hubbub, I started a new drawing the other day. Not a sketch but an honest to goodness drawing of a Quarter Horse mare that I wanted to finish in colored pencil. I will probably also use the drawing for an oil or pastel painting of this mare and her foal, a painting that I've long wanted to do. 

The drawing was done freehand using the photograph above. I didn't do any measurements to start with, and when it was done, I found some problems. Hunting up my calipers or dividers or whatever you call the thing, I used that to measure the proportions of that particular horse, using the head as the basic measurement by which all others were compared. One head equals the length of the neck and also the width of the barrel and the length of the forelegs to the fetlocks and so on. I traced the original drawing onto a sheet of tracing paper, making some adjustments as I went. This is just the first tracing. I will do another over the top of this one because there are still several adjustments to be made. 

When I'm satisfied with the drawing, I'll trace it onto a good sheet of paper and finish it with colored pencil. That can serve as my color study for the larger oil painting. For that I will add a foal and a background. The foal photo I'd like to use has lighting opposite to what is in the photo of Echo, and I'll have to change it to match the mare by doing some sketches and a value study before proceeding to the painting. 

It feels very good to be tackling a brand new image with challenges to overcome and having the confidence to do it. 

Echo was a former ranch horse who became a broodmare and a trail horse. She is still very much missed by her family. This will be her tribute. 

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. 

Back To Easy Rider

“Easy Rider” 11 x 14 pencil equestrian drawing

Well, it seems that my little painting of the JRT has made a hit. His owner sent me more photos of him and her new JRT and has given me permission to use one of them for a painting. It seems that I may be going to the dogs these days.

But, in the meantime, I made more progress on Easy Rider. I had hoped to get enough of it done to use in an ad in Horses In Art magazine, but a lingering sinus infection has slowed me down for the past week. So, I sent in another image instead. If you aren’t aware of this magazine, it’s a real treat for the horse art lover. You can subscribe online, too.

This dressage horse equestrian drawing will need some tweaking yet, and the background needs to be finished, but it’s coming along nicely now. Considering how long it’s lingered in the studio, that’s a very encouraging thing!

After an unusually long January thaw, we’re now back to real winter, with strong winds and blowing snow and icy roads. I’m SO glad I got new tires on my Subaru three weeks ago because they saved me from an accident soon after. The car ahead of me lost control on black ice when he put on his brakes (not a wise thing to do), but I was able to slow down enough without a bit of sliding to avoid him as he ran into the snowbank. Whew! Good winter tires DO make a difference!

At any rate, the weather makes the studio a cosy place to be on a blustery day, and I’m busy planning my next work to land on the easel or drawing board. Today we ran errands in Traverse City, and I picked up a new AC adapter-charger thing for my laptop. Now that I’m back in the studio fairly regularly, I’ll need it for viewing reference photos beside the easel. I have so many great digital photos to work from now, and I’m anxious to create some great art from them. I plan to create a series of Horse Show Dogs paintings in addition to the horse art works.

That’s all for now, folks. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Rainy Day Splendor

Fall is always a very busy time, and this year has been no exception. However, I did work on this little oil painting study again, and it’s pretty much finished. I’m calling it “Rainy Day Splendor”. By the time I got back to it, more leaves had fallen and the colors had changed, so I had to go partly by memory. But, it was still overcast and rainy, so the light was pretty much the same. And now, all the leaves are down and there’s nothing to be seen except bare branches.

We’ve had beautiful sunny and unusually warm weather for the past week, so I’ve been busy washing windows and other such things and dealing with a health issue which really threw me for a loop for a couple of weeks. But, the situation has turned around, and I’m back to being much more productive and much more relaxed.

Last night I finished revising the line drawing for “Easy Rider” and traced the new set of legs on the drawing. I plan to get back to work on it in the next few days and will post my progress as I go.

That’s all for now.

Off With Their Heads!

Yesterday I looked at my Polo By The Bay photos again and found far too many that looked like this one above. They reminded me of the Queen from Alice In Wonderland who sentenced everyone to the same fate. “Off with their heads!” she declared imperiously. Only for me these decapitations weren’t deliberate. I have no idea why the camera was aimed more at the dirt than the riders, but there you have it.

This photo shows another of my problems when shooting; I tend to tilt my head so that the arenas look as if they’re built on hillsides. Oops! Never the less, it’s fun to go through the photos again and this time take note of my shortcomings as a photographer as well as to relive the joy of being there. I must remember next year the things I did wrong this year and try to correct them before they occur again.

This was only the second polo match that I’ve ever seen live. My very first exposure to polo happened when I was eleven years old. At that time, my father supplemented his meager University salary by working for newspapers in Detroit in the summer. But that year he took a job at The Milwaukee Journal which meant that we had to move to Milwaukee for three months, and I had to give up my friends and riding lessons for the summer. We lived in an apartment in a big city which was a culture shock in itself for me. I was not a happy camper and let everyone know it.

Probably to relieve my moody, unsocial behavior, my parents took me to see a polo match one Saturday. I was totally enthralled! I remember spending a lot of time around the ponies who were waiting for their turn in the next chukker and studying their unusual tack. The following summer, I made this polo drawing when I was twelve. My horses were a lot better than my people back then as you can see.

My summer in Milwaukee wasn’t all bad. We went to the zoo several times where there was a new baby giraffe and some zebras. And one of my father’s colleagues at the Journal had a daughter my age who was also horse crazy. Our two families got together frequently, and we even went horseback riding a couple of times. I wonder what ever became of my summer friend, Carolyn Sonneborn? We lost touch long ago.

Even though I’ve been busy doing everything but art this summer and making substantial progress in clearing away a lot of clutter and updating records, I picked out this photo to turn into my first polo painting. The rider was warming up his pony before the next chukker, and this photo shows a quiet moment before the non stop action began on the field again.

The question is, what medium shall I use? Oil or pastel? Stay tuned for updates.

Will It Sell, and Should I Care?

Up until now I've been subject to an affliction that plagues many an artist; the notion that each work of art we begin must be marketable in some way. This notion has its down side because it can severely limit what we choose to paint or draw and how we go about the whole creation process. It can also paralyze us with fear that we're going to ruin whatever piece of artwork we're currently working on.

Many of us aspiring artists fall into this trap in the early stages of our careers; at the point when we decide that we've become good enough to actually be able to sell our art. Then the pressure is on to make every piece good enough to sell. That pressure becomes stifling of our spontaneity and creativity. Sometimes we paint what we think will sell and not what we're passionate about or what truly inspires us. Our growth as artists can come to a standstill.

That's the point I've found myself at, and now I'm struggling to free myself of those market-driven decisions. It's hard to eliminate them altogether, so I've come to a compromise of sorts. For instance, I know that Friesians are a very popular breed right now and that I only have one image to offer for sale. With that in mind, I decided to do a Friesian for my next art project. Going through Friesian images in my reference photos, a couple of photos caught my eye, and I chose one to work from and began a sketch. You can see it above.

But, another photo also spoke to me, and I kept coming back to it. It may not be something that will appeal to the average horse lover, but it has lots of Art Appeal for an artist. I took that photo out of the box as well and have even toned a canvas for it. I'm even excited at the prospect of beginning the painting and trying a new technique! Just to be sure that I don't put too much pressure on myself, I chose a cheap canvas board. This one will also be a study, and if it turns out well, I would like to do a larger version.

Do I have you in suspense yet to see what I'm so enthused about? Well, you'll just have to wait.

In the meantime, I'll develop this drawing to the point where it can go onto canvas. Because the head angle is tricky, I decided to do a drawing first rather than draw directly on the canvas as I did for "Winter Scotch". It needs a lot of work yet. The proportions are a little cock eyed, and I'm still debating whether or not to add a foal to the image or leave it as is. I'll decide that once the drawing is refined.

"Untitled" above depicts the Friesian mare, Alpie, that I photographed for a portrait several years ago. That portrait became the print, "Forever Friesian".

Will this image be marketable? I don't know, and I'm working hard not to care. For now, it's about enjoying the process of creation and letting the muse take me where ever it will.

An Un-Conventional Drawing

While watching the Democratic National Convention last night, I grabbed a pen and a sketch book and created this drawing. Right out of my head with no references whatsoever. I know, I know; it has faults. Lots of them. But the point is that I did it and didn't stress over it! In fact, I had a wonderful time just letting the creativity flow.

I used to draw this way all the time as a kid which is a lot of how I learned to draw. I didn't do endless correcting with tracing paper like I do now. If the drawing didn't turn out well, I set it aside and did another. And after that another and another. I had piles and piles of drawings, many of them in ink like this one. At some point, I started keeping the best drawings and did that for many years. In fact, I still have those old drawings going back to when I was about 5 years old. The smaller ones are in a box, and the larger ones are in my flat files. I talk about that in my website biography. You can also see some of my old drawings there and on this page of my website.

When I go through those old drawings from my childhood days, which I do periodically, I'm struck by how much life and energy they have. In fact, they have a lot more life and energy than some of the work I've done in recent years which I've labored over to get so exactly correct. I guess that's the difference between the two. The drawings I did as a kid were done with such joy in the process and love for horses that total accuracy was secondary. I drew whatever I wanted to at that moment and whatever fantasy was in my head.

That is not to say that I didn't strive to improve my drawing skills. I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't.

The thing is that over the years, creating art has become more and more about the end result and less and less about enjoying the process of creation. Creating for the market and chasing sales pushed aside the little muse that spent so much time on my shoulder as a little girl. I want her back! I want to recapture that joy of creation without worrying about whether the eyes line up or the head is too big. I want to become that horse crazy little girl again and lose myself in drawing for hours on end like I did last night.

That's why this drawing is important. I finished it about the same time that Barack Obama finished his acceptance speech, and then I realized that I'd hardly heard a word of what he'd said! That's what I'm talking about.

So here is my un-conventional drawing which I've titled, "Did Someone Say Cookies?" I love the inquisitive expression on this horse's face, crooked eyes and all.

Back To The Bard

Yesterday I couldn't help myself and did work a little more on the apple blossoms painting to correct a couple of things that were still bothering me. Now I'm satisfied with it and even more satisfied that I was able to take a sharper photo of it. If you go back to the last blog entry and click on the thumbnail, you'll see the finally finished version in sharper detail and better color. Even so, there is much more detail in those blossoms than you can see here. It's one of those that has to be seen in person to fully appreciate.

So, today my art project du jour was getting back to Bard's portrait. Several days ago I toned a new canvas, and since it was dry enough to work on, I traced the image onto the canvas and then went over the lines with some paint to make sure that they don't get rubbed off or smudged. It was a small but important step. On Monday I'll do the value under painting that will be the backbone, so to speak, of the painting, and I will use my drawing as a guide for where all the lights and darks go. This is absolutely critical in the process of making the painting look like Bard and not just an oil painting of any Quarter Horse.

Tomorrow I need to work on filing those insurance papers because the accountant will be calling on Monday to discuss our financial situation. That means switching from right brain mode to left brain mode.

Bah! Humbug!

The Peppermint Kid

I've been working on Bard for the past two days and think I have him finished for now. Knowing the artist in me, I'll probably fool around a little more with this value study before proceeding to the painting. 

You should see a big difference in the larger image. I reworked his face again yesterday, using the laptop computer next to the drawing table, and that was a big help since I could access the reference photos without having to run between the studio and the computer room. His neck has been finished also giving him that unmistakable Quarter Horse look. 

Bard has tiny ears, a lovely head and just loves peppermints. His owner specifically wanted me to include that one unruly lock of mane which always falls to the wrong side of his neck. I'm really pleased to be able to progress to the painting stage next and finish the tribute that this horse deserves. 

Maybe I should title this painting "The Peppermint Kid". 

I'm a Little Rusty

Okay, I admit it; I'm not nearly as skilled when I draw freehand as I am when I have a reference to refer to. That was brought home to me last night when I did a little sketching while watching TV. The horse started out as a Friesian head and neck study which grew to the whole body except that - OOPS - I ran out of paper. It definitely didn't match the expressive flowing image I had in my head. Or, maybe the image in my head wasn't formed enough to come out well on paper. You'll notice that it strongly resembles my painting, "Forever Friesian" for which I had good photo reference. I've been thinking of redoing this image with improvements and a landscape background, and this was supposed to be an exploratory sketch for that. Clearly, it needs to go back to the drawing board.

The other sketch is supposed to be a wolf, but it looks more like a wolf dog cross or a longhaired German Shepherd. As a former German Shepherd owner, I can definitely see the Shepherd influence in this animal's "breeding". I have a few wolf books and some wolf calendars and need to spend some time sketching from those images to get a better feel for the wolf form before I try to create a real drawing or painting.

Yes, I realize that there's the whole copyright infringement issue, but if I use these materials to study and learn from ONLY and don't claim the resulting images as my own or try to sell them, it's perfectly permissible. That's how artists have learned for centuries, in fact, by copying the masters who came before them. Any art I do from these materials will remain hidden in my studio for my eyes only.

When I was a kid, I sketched from my mind and rarely directly copied. At least that's the way I remember it. Maybe I did more copying than I remember, but I drew constantly and got pretty good for my age from all the practice and exploration. I have a box full of old art to prove it, too. Clearly, I need to do more of that again; either working from memory and imagination or by working from life. That's why one of my goals for this year is to fill a sketchbook by year's end.

My training in illustration in art school taught me to work from photos, and creating pet portraits certainly demanded that level of accuracy be attained. But in recent years I came to face the fact that I'd become too dependent on photos. It's time to break free and go back to sketching and creating just for the joy that it brings without any thought to "will it sell?" or "is it good?"

So, here for the world to see are my first rusty attempts at freehand sketching in quite some time. I hope you enjoy them for what they are; nothing more than practice sketches.

Good Intentions

Well, so much for good intentions.

Somehow, 2007 slipped by without my achieving what I had hoped, especially spending time in the studio. There were many reasons: the yard and garden took over much of my time over the summer, I had to return to physical therapy with a shoulder and neck problem in the Fall, and I finally HAD to spend time doing the income taxes for 2006.

The most aggravating delay, however, was caused by signing with a new licensing agent in September. She made big promises of success for my art in licensing but then failed to provide me with the information I needed to provide her with images. After three months of trying to pin her down, she cancelled the contract declaring that I'd failed to provide her with enough suitable images! So, there went three months of effort on my part and another lesson learned. Next time I'll ask more questions and make sure that the person actually knows something about the equine art market before I sign on the dotted line.

And now, here it is January again; the beginning of a new year, and I have made new resolutions to do much better this year. We'll see how it goes.

I did manage to get started on one of the two portraits I had on deck last Spring. This is only the preliminary drawing, but it took a lot to get to this point. The photo that the client sent me to work from was taken in shade so was very flat. It was also very small, but the pose was good. Over the summer I managed a photo shoot of Bard in sunlight, but the photos contained a lot of distortion. So, it turned out, did the photo from the client. After many revisions, I managed to get an accurate version that the client is happy with. So, here is Conclusive Bard, a very sweet Quarter Horse who loves to go for trail rides.



The next step is to do a value study before beginning the painting, which is very important since the reference photo is totally flat in values. I promise to have it for you to view by next weekend.