Horse Paintings Accepted Into Museum Art Exhibition

"Almost Home, Hunter Pace" 18x24 oil painting

Waiting For Spring

Equine Oil Painting, 11x14 inches 

Spring is supposed to be here in northwest lower Michigan, but the weather isn’t cooperating at all. Apparently, Mother Nature has decided to stay in Florida for another month. This past week we had rain, sleet, freezing rain and snow; some of it all on the same day. There was enough snow to cover the ground again and although that has melted now, there is still plenty of snow around in shaded areas and in piles and drifts. 

Since last report, I finished up the income tax materials and took them to the accountant and then put in a few more hours on the new painting. It still doesn’t have a good name, but I’m working on that, too. 

I quIckly found out that I’m really rusty on doing these underpaintings so it’s looking pretty rough at the moment. I hope to remedy that with the next layer of the underpainting. The goal in this first layer was just to establish some of the values while at the same time keeping them all on the light side in case I need to make some corrections later on. 

Back at the barn, Scottie had his second visit from the vet dentist in March and passed inspection with flying colors. Here he is being worked on by the very capable Dr. Colleen Porter. He was so drugged that he was having a hard time staying on his feet. 

A visit with the Dentist

Unfortunately, a few weeks later his nasal discharge returned, and this time we had to dose him with a powerful antibiotic that is possibly hazardous to humans. Here I am all suited up in my home made hazmat gear after dosing him with the syringe. You can see how thrilled he is with this process. 

Dosing the Horse

Now that he’s finished his two weeks on that antibiotic, we’re holding our breaths hoping the discharge doesn’t come back again. If it does, I don’t know where we’ll go from there. 

Here’s another photo from back in February. This is J Willie going after poor Elmer. JW is a real school yard bully who picks on the weakest in the herd, namely Elmer and Scottie. He has now been banished to a separate paddock with his sister, Elle, so he doesn’t cause any more injuries. 

The Schoolyard Bully

I thought it was a great action photo and am considering turning it into a painting as well. The title? What else than “The Schoolyard Bully”?

Another New Oil Painting

"Recumbent" 9x12 new oil painting

It’s been so cold and stormy this winter that none of us have been riding much in the past two months. In fact, I haven’t been going to the barn much at all, even to check on Scottie. However, last Saturday the farrier was coming, and I never miss that if I can help it. 

Not only did Scottie get a pedicure but also a thorough grooming and his stretches which he loves. Stretches means lots of treats and you’d better be quick with them, too! Afterward, I turned him loose in the arena without his blanket, and like any self-respecting horse, he had a good roll. It must have felt really good to roll in the sand without his blanket on, and he made the most of the opportunity. 

I had brought my camera and caught some good roll sequences as well as other pictures. The photo above is the start of a new painting from one of those photos. So far it’s only traced onto a canvas board, and this time I tried something new; I drew over the pencil lines with ink in hopes of preserving the lines better. 

The reference photo for the new oil painting of my horse, Scottie

My original intent was to do this as a quick painting and enter it into an online show at the end of this week, but time is just too short, so I’ve decided to wait and  take my time with it. I love the flow of lines in the image and think it could make a good painting if I do it right. The working title is “Recumbent” for now. I’m hoping that something more catchy will come to me later. 

A snowy day

The photo of Scottie coming into the barn shows how pretty the snowfall was that day, and I think this view will also make a good  painting. 

The other two paintings that I worked on a few weeks ago are waiting their turn on the studio wall.Each needs a long block of time for the next session, and I just haven’t had it or felt like it while battling a stubborn sinus infection for the past two weeks. 

Since it’s income tax prep time, I may not be able to get in the studio much for a while, but I certainly will try. 

Polo Painting, "Girls Play Too"

"Girls Play Too" oil painting on canvas

Another one of my unfinished oil paintings was moved to the easel this week for a little more progress. Well, actually, I got in quite a bit of progress. 

This oil painting, as you may recall, is “Girls Play Too”, a polo painting. I decided to proceed with the painting by repainting the background to an almost finished state before working on the horse and rider. My goal was to lighten both the sky and the grassy area and to create the background trees. Since this is a late summer evening painting, the sky needed to be lightened and warmed up. The grass was looking too dark and very flat, so I lightened it, too, and gave it some depth. 

The painting looks rather odd at this point (sometimes we artists refer to this stage as “the uglies”) because the horse and rider are not finished to the same point as the background which makes the painting as a whole look off kilter. I’m hoping that once I start work on the horse that will change. 

Here is the version that I showed you last Fall with a single layer of paint over the whole thing. 

And here is the latest version. 

Now comes the really fun part; painting the horse and rider. At least I hope it’s the fun part. One never quite knows what part of a painting is going to give one the most grief. Having painted so little in the last several years, I’m feeling very rusty, but I’m also getting my groove back slowly but surely. 

At any rate, working on this oil painting will remind me of that summer evening almost three years ago when I experienced my first polo match since childhood. Meanwhile, outside the snow falls on a frozen landscape that is months away from warm temperatures. But inside the studio, summer will be present to warm both inside and out. 

Glory Gets a Facelift

"Tribute To Glory" 12"x12" palomino horse oil painting

This past week I moved the painting of Glory, the Quarter Horse mare, to the easel and resumed work on her. 

Quite a while ago I got her to a certain point, realized that she had a problem, was stumped how to proceed and set her aside. After months of staring at the painting on the sudio wall, I had an epiphany regarding how to fix her problems. The solution came to me out of the blue, so to speak, and then I couldn’t wait to get started on her again.  

The main problem with Glory’s painting was that I had drawn the muzzle too small. It needed to be corrected before anything else. My original intent was to do this oil painting in thin layers in order to achieve the luminous light in the shadow areas that I saw in the photograph. But in order to correct the muzzle, it was necessary to proceed with a heavier application of paint. 

I’ll spare you all the step by step details of Glory’s “facelift” and just hit a few of the major issues from which the painting was suffering. In addition to the too small muzzle, the far eye orbit needed to be lowered and her hind end reduced and resculptured. I’ve also been  refining and correcting the highlights and shadows in her face; pretty much all of it except her ample cheek. 

One of the things that I liked about Glory was that she had a slight dish face that wasn’t evident in the painting. I corrected that, too. 

Here is how Glory looked before I began the corrections. 

And here is the progress so far. 

 

Below is a photo of my usual working method at the easel. Just next to the painting is the photo of Glory that I took over 20 years ago. I liked it immediately and wanted to paint it some day. Hanging to the left is a larger version of it which I had scanned into the computer and lightened in Photoshop to give more light and detail in the shadow areas. The small photo has more accurate color which is why it’s next to the painting. 

That’s all for today. Time to get back into the studio and work on another painting. 

Happy New Year!

Swan on the lake

 Happy New Year, Everyone! Are we all relieved that we didn’t go over the “fiscal cliff”? Are we tired of hearing about the “fiscal cliff”? I know that I am. 

Now that 2012 is behind me/us and a brand new year has arrived, it’s time to do my usual end-of-year tasks. Last year for some reason I didn’t do all the usual things like assessing the past year accomplishments and important events and setting goals for the coming year which may partly explain why 2012 was so lacking in artwork being created or finished. I had no motivation, no goals to strive toward. This year I plan to rectify that by getting back to those old year end tasks and giving myself some benchmarks to strive for. 

As for the last few months of 2012, I’m sorry to report that they didn’t go much better than the previous months on the horse front. Scottie’s sinus infection came back with a vengeance, and we ended up hauling him to Michigan State University Large Animal Hospital for diagnosis and treatment. We had to leave him for four days, and I’m sure he thought he’d been abandoned there forever and unsure what his future held. He certainly acted like it. 

When we went back to pick him up, we found a very depressed, disengaged horse, but as soon as we walked him outside to the trailer, he knew he was going home. His head went up, his steps quickened and he was so focused on the trailer that he didn’t even flinch when the tornado warning siren went off nearby. Since getting back home among all his buddies, you can tell he is one happy, grateful horse who appreciates all his humans and friends even more than before.  

While at MSU, x rays of his head were taken. They revealed that he had advanced periodontitis, or badly infected gums, which had eaten away bone around his teeth and created pockets between them which resulted in food packing into the spaces. He was subsequently seen and treated by a veterinary  equine dental specialist who extracted one tooth, cleaned out all the pockets, medicated them and filled them in with a material that will keep food from packing in them again. She found two full blown abscesses percolating away which probably led to entry into the sinuses. 

Since he’s been home, Scottie’s nose no longer runs, and he is acting much more like his old self, pawing and begging for treats and generally being charming. We have gotten back to work albeit slowly since he was so very sick for so very many months. He will require months of continued antibiotic treatment and periodic dental checks, but we are hoping for the best; no return of sinus infection. If that occurs, it will be back to MSU for further treatment. 

Scottie searching. This will be a painting some day soon

The biggest lesson learned for me and my barn mates is that there is a huge difference between a trained veterinary dental specialist and a lay person who calls himself an equine dentist. The equine dentist who examined Scottie back in September missed all the signs of the disaster going on in his mouth. 

Rather than palaver on any longer, I’m just going to share some random photos from the past year that I hope you’ll enjoy. I won’t even mention the fact that our kitty, Molly, was very sick over Christmas and that our grand kitty, Terrapin, was also very sick and came home with her mom, our daughter, even though she hates Molly. We had to keep the two cats separated which was stressful for both of them. 

Our kitty, Molly

That’s all for now. Enjoy the photos and talk to you again soon. I promise. 

Road to the barn, Fall 2012

My barn buddies. Scottie's first trail ride since Spring. 

Scottie really enjoyed his trail ride

Life Drawings At the Barn and Other Fun Adventures

"Girls Play Too" polo oil painting in progress

TIme really got away from me this summer, and now two months have passed since my last blog post. I can’t say that I have a lot to show for those two months; one would think I’d been busy accomplishing many things but sad to say, I didn’t. One thing I did manage was a couple of sessions adding early color to the polo painting above. It’s still sitting on the easel waiting for my return and admonishing me to get to it. Maybe I will some day soon. 

pencil sketches of horses in pasture

However, this past summer pretty much turned into a repeat of the previous summer on the horse front, but I did manage to  spend some time sketching the horses in the pasture and arena a couple of times. It’s pretty obvious that I haven’t quite caught on yet to drawing grazing horses which are constantly in motion. Life Drawing didn’t prepare me for 5-10 second “poses” as the horses moved from one grass clump to another. I did several sketches of the horses and then gave up and sketched the pastures instead. Perhaps the trick is to use the horses only for partial reference and fill in the rest from memory. It’s worth a try next time. 

pen and ink sketch of horse dozing in the arena

My horse, Scottie, was laid up most of the summer with one hoof abscess after another until we finally decided to treat him for Cushings disease. It suppresses the immune system which would explain his persistent jaw abscess last summer and the multiple hoof abscesses over the past year. We began his medication in July and also put shoes on him which has so far resulted in no new abscesses! (knock on wood, of course)

He was dealing with the last hoof abscess when his nose started draining a nasty, thick greenish glop. Three courses of antibiotic and three months later, it seems to be subsiding. Now we are treating him for a very bad case of Scratches or greasy heel as it’s also known. That, too, is now responding to daily treatment, and I’m hoping that soon I won’t have to trek to the barn every day and will be able to resume some regular riding. We missed a whole summer of trail rides which I think we both missed. 

I was all signed up to take a painting workshop from Colleen Howe in September, but she had to cancel it, and I’m quite disappointed about that. I hope they ask her back next summer because I’ll sign up again if she comes. 

Like most of the country, we had a very dry summer this year with almost no rain. That meant lots of watering, and for the most part, my plants came through the drought in pretty good shape. Maybe I’ll show you some flower pictures next time. 

That’s about all for this post. It’s time to head to the barn again to sit on the dirty aisle floor, pick scabs off my horse’s ankles and slather on the salve that is healing the fungus infection. Ah, the joys of horse ownership!