Fall Trail Ride and A Finished Painting

                           "Winter Scotch" 8x10 oil on canvas board

Last Saturday was our second annual birthday ride at the barn, and we had a really good time, with one small glitch. We gathered in the morning for donuts and coffee and then saddled up and rode for over an hour. When we got back, we ate a potluck lunch and gabbed some more for a while before going our separate ways.

The weather was perfect; sunny and relatively warm although the wind was chilly. There was still enough color left in the trees to make for a very pretty ride which even the horses seemed to enjoy.

Unfortunately for Shelley, one of her horses suddenly came up lame after a roll in the dirt, and she stayed  behind for a while to make sure he was going to be all right. He has an arthritic knee and had once before gotten a “floater” stuck in the wrong place, causing him much pain until he managed to dislodge it again.  Before we left he seemed fine, and Shelley promised to saddle up shortly and catch up to us. Our ride was almost over by the time she did on her exhausted mare.

I’m posting some of the many photos I took here. 

On Monday I finished the painting, “Winter Scotch” which I did almost two years ago. It’s a painting of my horse, Scottie, in his winter woolies. My goal was to capture that plush look that horses have in their winter coats, and the painting turned out really well after the revisions. Unfortunately, this photo doesn’t do it justice, and I’m going to have to find a better way to photograph it.

That’s all for today. Enjoy the photos.

                               The road where the bear was spotted last summer

                     This is a definite candidate for a future painting!

                                                                     Calling Shelley

                Colorful leaves making a pretty pattern on the ground

                                            Back at the barn

                                      Lunch buffet in the tack room

Art and Animal Communication

Oh, my goodness! It’s been such a long time since I last posted that I decided to share with you what I’ve been up to even though I haven’t done much in the way of art.

It is color season now here in northwest lower Michigan, and I did begin a plein air painting of the lake out on the deck last week but didn’t get very far. It had been so long since I set up the french easel that I forgot how it worked and had to fool around with it for a while to get the legs extended and set up. Then I moved the easel about ten times before I found a good spot from which to paint. Next I had to set up all the other paraphernalia like the palette and paints and jar of medium, and by that time it was getting too late in the day and time to fix dinner. So, I packed it all up and brought it inside. I did, however, get one layer of paint on the board.

Since then it’s been one thing after another and I’ll probably have to finish the painting from photographs I’ve taken over the past few days when the conditions and the light were right. If I can get to it quick enough, I’ll have the benefit of being able to observe the colors and so forth from the studio window as I work.

Since my last post, I also met with my local mentor again, and he gave me some very good advice about how to handle this blocked state I seem to be in and gave me a different assignment. He suggested that I put horses aside for the time being and do some plein air painting. However, I found that going outside my comfort zone was not going to work to get me started again. So, I’ll stick with horses and just do whatever strikes my fancy.

Since my other (horse art) mentor seems to have gone MIA and is no longer responding to my emails, I’ll be on my own for now. My hope is that once I’m painting regularly again, I can get back to working with the mentors - or mentor  - again.

Another project that I undertook was doing some much needed reorganizing in the studio precipitated by buying a bunch of cheap canvas boards and then needing a place to store them. The oil and acrylic painting supplies are now moved and consolidated together as are the pastel supplies. The cameras and their accessories are also now consolidated, and I managed to make room for them to be stored together in one place. I went through all the drawers of my big desk, got rid of some things and moved others around so that everything is in better order and more convenient.

Meanwhile, back at the barn as they say, there have been complications and continued issues with Scottie's soundness. To make a long story short, I am now saddle shopping again (Oh Joy!) but may have found one that fits Scottie and that is comfortable for me. The vet has been out a couple of times, and Scottie had an acupuncture treatment the last time. It really seems to have relieved his sore back which is reason for great celebration by both of us.

I’ve been so concerned about him and his depressed attitude that I also consulted with an animal communicator who was able to reach Scottie and ask him my long list of questions. It was very enlightening, and he told us that he’s having problems in his hock or stifle, so the vet is coming out again to explore that possible source of his continued lameness problems.

I’m really fascinated by this animal communication thing and would love to learn to communicate on my own.
 Apparently, it’s now widely accepted, and my own experience with it has made me into a believer.

Last weekend my husband John and I went for a drive and stopped at this longhorn cattle farm where some cows were eating breakfast right up by the fence. I’m sharing a couple of them with you here. I’m amazed by the varieties of colors and coat patterns on these longhorns and how they skillfully maneuver their horns so that they don’t poke each other.

The rest are photos of the view from our deck taken just this morning. The leaves are falling fast now, and it won’t be long before the trees are bare and snow is in the air.

Oh, dear! Did I just say that four letter word beginning with “S”?

Looking Beyond the Dog Days of Summer

 Gandalf, Norwegian Fjord stallion

Yesterday was quite busy in a good way. First off, I saw my chiropractor for the first time in two years. At her initial assessment, her comment was, “Oh dear!”, so I’ll be going back again regularly for a while.

After that I visited an old friend and longtime riding instructor at her farm. She breeds Norwegian Fjords among many other activities and accomplishments and has some really fine breeding stock. It was an opportunity to deliver in person the painting, “Man On A Mission” a painting of her Jack Russell terrier, Spinner.

In return, I got a tour of her barn and farm and was introduced to her horses: three mares, two foals and her stallion, Gandalf. Of course, I took lots of photos, a few of which I’m sharing with you here.

The lovely mare, Luna. Look at that nice hip!

 This little guy was a nibbler, but look at those lovely dark eyes. 

Later on, I went on a trail ride with my barn friend, Ann. As we came out of the woods at twilight, the light was hitting these weeds at just the right angle, causing them to glow with this soft mauve light. They were lovely!

Since Scottie is very sore again, the vet is coming out on Saturday, and my riding guru friend-of-many-talents will come out to do an assessment on both of us to see if she can pinpoint the source of our problems and get us on the right track for more comfortable riding for both of us.

Today I also made arrangements to meet again with my local mentor in hopes that he can help me to get back on track with my artwork.

Between the three: chiropractor, vet/guru and mentor; I hope to soon make progress with health, riding and art. It's cooled down enough now that one doesn't feel quite so much like a giant, sweating slug and can contemplate activities that involve actual body movement as opposed to quiet activities in front of a fan.

Sketch Book Drawings - Page One

I’m going to be brief today because I need to get out for my walk and then into the studio.

But, I have another reason as well. Having spent the weekend in front of the computer going through my inbox and reading a backlog of artist blog posts, I’ve come to realize that people probably don’t read long winded blog posts. I know I skipped a lot of them because I simply didn’t want to take the time if the subject matter wasn’t absolutely riveting. Mostly, it wasn’t. So, here goes.

I’ve been reading a book called, The Van Gogh Blues by psychologist Eric Maisel. He specializes in working with creative people and has written a number of books for creatives. This book is helping me immensely in finding my way back into the studio by giving me many insights into my personal life and my life as a creative person. Turns out I’m not so unique in my struggles after all! His main point is that creative people are born questioning everything and therefore have difficulty finding meaning in their lives. Because of a lack of meaning in their lives, creative people are prone to depression which keeps them from being creative which causes deeper depression. So, the book is all about finding your own personal meaning and keeping depression at bay. I’m not sure that “meaning” is the word that I would have chosen. “Worth” or “value” come to my mind more than meaning, so I just substitute them in my mind as I read.

The book explains to me why I had such difficulty in high school algebra (or was it geometry?) understanding the difference between a hypothesis and a theorem. One is supposed to be a proven fact and the other is something to be proven. Poor old Miss Chipman was totally exasperated with me trying to explain the difference, and I was equally exasperated trying to grasp it. We never did come to an understanding.

But, I digress. As part of my “art therapy” if you can call it that, I’ve decided to do some daily sketching. Last night I did the sketches above of a Friesian colt. They are freehand sketches. That is, I pulled some standard photo prints out of a reference box and copied the photos as nearly as I could. As you can see, one effort was a total flop and had to be redone. The others are reasonably good. They are done with a ballpoint pen to prevent me from doing endless correcting so the false lines are still visible.  I think I draw more carefully if I know I can’t erase.

I’m also thinking of instituting an art challenge on my blog which would involve “audience  participation”. I have to ruminate on that one a bit more, so stay tuned for more info.

And, stay tuned for more sketches from the sketchbook!

PS I've just noticed that I have some new followers! Welcome all!  Thank you for joining me. I hope you find my posts just a little bit riveting.

A Little Painting; A Little Riding

"Yuri" Oil on canvas board

When I walked into the studio to work on the German Shepherd painting yesterday, I walked through a cobweb. That was really odd because I’m in and out of that room at least a few times a day, and it was late in the day. Perhaps someone or something is trying to tell me something?

At any rate, I worked on Yuri and gave him a nicer background but was disappointed to find that the black areas had flattened out as they dried. I’ll have to go back in and liven them up again on the final passage. Some dry brushing with some darker “black” should do the trick as well as some tidying up here and there. The painting is in danger of being overworked if it isn’t already, so I must not labor over it too much more.

I try not to use black from the tube in my paintings and have found that a mixture of French Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna give a good black that can be tilted to either the warm (brown) or cool (blue) side. There are numerous ways to make a good vibrant black, and this is just one formula.

The Green Team will have to be next on the easel since someone is waiting for it to be finished and may buy it. I’ll have to sit in front of it for a while to let it tell me what it needs.

We didn’t ride on Monday night because it was too hot and humid, but we had a really nice ride on Thursday. I took along my new small digital camera and managed to get some decent shots as we rode along. One of my companions took the camera and took some shots of me riding at the end, and she got some good ones! Thanks Anne!

The big problem I have with taking photos while riding is that Scottie absolutely refuses to stand still if the other horses are moving. So, I get a lot of blurry shots. He hates being left behind even though he usually likes to dawdle in last place until we turn for home. As we say on the trail, the first horse gets all the cobwebs and bugs! Note our stylish  bug bonnets on the horses.

This camera is a Canon G ll, one of the few small digitals that still has a viewfinder. It had good reviews on the Canon site and on Amazon  and is just the right size to take on trail rides and for leaving in my car while I tootle about. I don’t dare do that with my expensive slr, and this one has a lot of the same features as the big slrs do. It even does video! I have a lot to learn to use it to its capacity, but so far I’ve been quite pleased with it. I took back the first one because I just couldn’t deal with not having a viewfinder and not being able to see what I was shooting on the LCD screen in sunlight.

We had an easy ride Thursday because Stutz has been lame again and Scottie seemed a bit off when we started out. However, he trucked right to the front this time because we didn’t go down the steep hill this time but went down the gentle hill instead past the chickens on our way out. Thankfully, they weren’t out by the road. We stuck mostly to the sand trails and had a most pleasant ride. It had cooled off considerably, and the bugs weren’t bad.

Here we are about to leave the barn.

Partway through the ride.

This is Scottie and I. I have a Michigan shirt on. Go Blue!!

Isn’t this a gorgeous shot? It was getting dark as we headed back to the barn. This is also about where I was unhorsed a month ago.

Creation and Destruction

For the first time in many weeks I was able to drag myself into the studio and work on a painting yesterday. It shouldn’t be that hard to get myself in there, but somehow it always is unless I’m already immersed in a new painting. Just like going to the barn, I procrastinate and find more urgent things to do but always enjoy myself once I’m there. But, that’s a topic for another day.

I’ve had an inquiry about the Belgian painting and need to get it finished, but I also need to warm up for it by working on less crucial works. So, I decided to take one of my more successful quickie paintings from last winter and rework it to more completion. This, you may remember, is Yuri the German Shepherd who lives at the barn where I board my horse. 

The basic painting was okay, but I never liked the background. The dog needed more finishing as well, giving him more depth and a hair coat. After about four more hours of painting on this little 8x10 inch canvas board, this is what I came up with (Above). It still needs work, namely a toned down background and a few corrections here and there, but those will have to wait until it’s dry again.

Here are the two versions together so that you can see the difference.

On the other end of the creative spectrum, I made the big decision to destroy a few of my less successful works. Some had been hanging around for years with no one expressing any interest in them, and others were works that were just not very good. This may seem like a really drastic step to take, but I found it incredibly freeing. For one thing, I no longer have to look at these failures and wonder what on earth I’m going to do with them for the rest of eternity. For another, it frees up storage space for new works of art. And thirdly I don’t have reminders hanging around of my current failures or of how less skilled I was in the past.

Now, mind you, there are still a few older paintings hanging around that I will keep for a while longer because they represent milestones in my artistic advancement.

Yesterday I visited my hairdresser who also happens to be a neighbor and friend. She clued me in on why none of the neighbors visited during the studio tour. It seems that my own sign which I put out two days ahead of the event gave them the impression that I was going to have regular Sunday open studio hours from now on, and they planned to visit on another Sunday. None of them were aware of the studio tour, which is a good indication that advertising for the event needs to be improved next year.

It was nice to find out that my neighbors weren’t ignoring me after all and is incentive to do something on my own this fall. Now I can look forward to that and concentrate on getting new paintings done.

My First Ever Studio Tour!

Gosh, where shall I begin? It’s been almost a month since I last posted and a week has passed since the studio tour. I guess the tour is as good a place to start as any.

Last Sunday I was part of a studio tour put on by Parkside Arts Council which featured the studios of Antrim County artists. It was the first annual event, so one could expect problems, and there were a few of those.

I spent most of my time leading up to the tour with finishing the flower beds so that the yard would look nice and cleaning the house. I never did get a chance to work on any art for the event, but now the flower beds are all set for the really hot weather which we’re bound to get now.

In the last few days there was a frenzy of printing reproductions, framing paintings and putting together packs of notecards. We did the setup the day before, and I think it turned out quite well. I had to haul a lot of clutter out of the library, which is adjacent to the studio, to make room to display art, and that resulted in a nice open display area where people could linger over the art.

We didn’t have a very big turnout (maps to the studios needed improvement), and my biggest disappointment was that none of my neighbors came. But I still enjoyed meeting the visitors and telling them a bit about myself and my working process. I didn’t sell anything, but now more people know of my existence and will hopefully spread the word. I would definitely like to do this again!

Here are some of the photos I took of my studio and the tour setup.

Our house is a split level, and this is the entryway. My studio is upstairs, so we blocked off the downstairs with a display wall. All of the art on this wall was not for sale.

This is the library (because it's full of books and sounds high falutin') Both framed prints and originals are hung on the display panels with more in the print rack. On top of the flat files were cookies and apples for snacks. The cookies were popular. On the coffee table I had copies of a book I illustrated and the Mural Mosaic book from the mural project that I participated in two years ago.

This is my small card rack. I also had business cards here. The painting on the wall is a pastel I did many years ago of my kids when they were small.

Here are three originals hanging on the wall of the library.

This is my working space in the studio. When I work, the easel is pulled more perpendicular to the window. It faces north so has excellent light. I put a dried up palette on the easel and had some brushes laid out on the taboret. The reference photo and a color study are propped up on the big taboret.

It was hot and muggy the day of the tour, so I turned off the lights in between visitors. The studio can get very hot with three banks of fluorescent lights on the ceiling.

My drawing table is folded up against this wall of the studio. I love that table! The white taboret next to it holds drawing supplies and utensils. The blue taboret holds painting supplies. The boxes above the TV are full of reference photos, and I hang paintings to dry on the pegboard or store them there until framed.

This is my desk. It's usually covered with piles of paper. For the tour, I cleared it off a little and put two open anatomy books on it. I sometimes use anatomy books as I paint or draw, and I wanted to show that. The two drawer units were bought used. They're very deep, and half of the top lifts up to get at the contents more easily. Of course, usually there's too much stuff on the desk to take advantage of that! I have drawing boards and table easels stashed in the space between the desk and the wall. That big white board is the original one that came with my drawing table. We put a smaller one on it since I didn't need all that space and it would have crowded the studio too much. It's also very heavy!

This may be one of the neatest parts of my studio! My husband built these shelves into this nook in the wall. The vertical shelves hold matboard, large canvases, illustration board and old unframed paintings. The horizontal ones have more canvases on them, glass, drawing pads and other odds and ends. I also store works in progress here - the dry ones like drawings and pastels - where they're protected. At the other end of this wall is another nook with built in shelves. I keep framed paintings and prints there and other art and non art stuff. Behind the door is a closet for more art storage. My french easel and photography lights are in here along with empty frames, painting supplies, mannikins, portfolios and lots of other stuff. 

Over the years the studio has developed into a very functional area although it's not that large. The window looks out on our lake, and the room is pleasant to work in at any time of year; day or night. It's too crowded to have both the easel in its working spot and the drawing table set up, but I rarely need to do that anyway.

I had lots of compliments on my studio space from the artists who visited during the tour. Of course they complimented the artwork too! I'm ready for my next open studio event. Perhaps this fall during the color season?