Glorious Glory; A Horse Painting Update

Here’s an update on the Glory painting. 

I have finished Glory herself except for the mane, forelock and eye and some touchups once the background is finalized. She is coming along nicely, and I’m very pleased so far. 

It’s always nerve wracking to paint when I haven’t been for a long time and my self confidence suffers terribly the longer it goes on. But, what I’m finding with Glory is that I’m going a lot on instinct. That tells me that I know a lot more than I think I do and haven’t lost much ability in the intervening time. 

In other words, I’m better than I think I am. And not as good as I’d like to be. 

For that matter is any artist ever as good as she’d like to be? 

Holiday Horse Print, "Scotch Bar Lochinvar"

"Scotch Bar Lochinvar" limited edition  reproduction, $35

What with the holidays and all, this is a busy time of year. No matter what my good intentions are, it’s not likely that I’ll get in a lot of painting time. So, it occured to me this morning to actually do something rash and shocking; promote my prints for sale! I have plenty of them, after all, and they make wonderful holiday gifts. So, here goes. 

“Scotch Bar Lochinvar”, 13x15.5 inch limited edition reproduction on archival stock, $35. The subject is my own handsome horse, Scottie, in his much younger days. The print is a good size and looks wonderful matted in a wood or metal frame. 

It can be ordered directly from my website AND Free Shipping in the USA! Order it here, but please let me know if you have any difficulty ordering. 

http://www.equineartist.com/scotty.htm

While you're on the website, check out the rest of the prints available here;

http://www.equineartist.com/horse-prints.htm

A Real American Hero - My Dad

Captain Dean C. Baker

2nd battalion, 36th Armored Infantry Regiment, 3rd Armored Division (Spearhead), VII Corps. 1943-1945 

My dad wasn’t a hero in the Audy Murphy sense of the word, but nevertheless he was one of the many true heroes during the bloody battles of World War II. He won a Silver Star on the battlefield for “Gallantry in Action” and a purple heart for a shrapnel wound. 

As a journalist, my father could have chosen to serve his country during World War II within the Army newscorps, but he didn’t feel that was fair to all those who would be fighting on the front lines. Even though he had a new wife and two adopted daughters and another on the way, he chose the infantry. 

That’s the kind of man my dad was. 

The HBO series Band of Brothers has special meaning for me because watching it is like watching my dad fighting his way across Europe during the last years of the war. He landed at Utah Beach on D Day plus three as part of the 3rd Armored, the Spearhead Division, which lead the fight across France into Germany. Somewhere in France is where my dad earned his silver star. The award reads; 

“Lt. Baker’s platoon was given the mission of advancing in a field for the purpose of drawing enemy fire in order that their positions could be located”. 

“Rather than submit the entire platoon to enemy fire, Lt. Baker volunteered to perform the mission and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, advanced across the field in the face of heavy enemy small arms fire, thereby causing the enemy to expose their position.” 

“The courage, determination and personal bravery displayed by Lt. Baker was an inspiration to his men and reflects great credit upon himself and the military service.” 

That was my dad alright; always putting others before himself. Shortly after that, he was promoted to Captain.  

On April 11, 1945, the 3rd Armored Division liberated Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp near the town of Nordhausen. This was a work camp connected to the V2 rocket development where the prisoners were literally worked to death or left to die on their own. As my dad told it, the stench from the rotting corpses and the crematories was so great that the townspeople had to have known what was going on there. The townsmen were forced by the allies to remove the bodies of the dead and bury them in mass graves. The few remaining pitiful prisoners were treated by allied medics and evacuated. 

Toward the very end of the war in Europe, my dad was in a traffic accident and severely injured. He spent many months in hospital, and when he finally was reunited with his family, he wore a thick brace on his back. I was two at the time and was very afraid of this strange man with the odd shape. 

My dad was the only member of his original company to return alive from the war. 

My dad receiving his Silver Star medal on the battlefield from General Maurice Rose. Not long after that, General Rose was killed by a German soldier. 

Getting Back On The Horse or Facing Easel Anxiety

"Tribute To Glory", 12x12 inch oil on canvas

Do you know that old saying about how you need to climb right back on the horse after falling off? Well, the same is true for artists after an extended period of not creating. 

The truth is that I haven’t done much artwork over the past ten years or so for various reasons, and that has taken a toll on my self confidence and creative abilities. Fear of failure blocks me so often when I even THINK about going in the studio to work on a painting that too often I turn around and leave or find something “urgent” to do instead. There are currently six unfinished paintings on the studio wall that have all been there for a year or more. Most of them I haven’t touched in over a year. 

Well, I finally had to face the truth that the only way to polish up my rusty skills and improve my art was to actually DO it, no matter the outcome. Reading all sorts of articles, going to workshops and listening to podcasts just isn’t going to get me anywhere but more discouraged and bogged down. 

So, I’m committing to putting artwork at the top of my priority list, right after healthy activities and riding. The housework will just have to suffer a little while longer. It’s never been at the top of my list anyway.

To start with, I've committed myself to finishing a couple of paintings before starting anything new although my brain is overflowing with painting ideas that are calling out. First up on the easel is “Tribute To Glory” because it is the closest painting to being done. 

One of the down aspects of not working on a painting for months at a time is that you lose momentum with it and you forget how you were going about it. Even though I’d written notes on what colors I used to mix the horse color and the background color, I still had to mix a lot of paint before I found the mixes that matched well enough with what was already on the canvas. 

The other issue that’s come up for me is wanting to work in another style but being unable to switch horses in midstream, so to speak, on one painting. That will never do, unless I want to start all over again. Nope! 

So here is the latest progress on “Glory”. I’m working in thin layers of paint on a stretched canvas in oils. You can see where I left off just under the jawbone on the neck. Naturally, the next session will involve some tweaking before continuing down the neck. 

That in itself gets to be discouraging. It seems as if I paint paint paint then correct correct correct, then paint some more and correct some more. I suppose that’s true for a lot of artists, but I do wish that I could get it right the first time most of the time, anyway. 

This image is a bit contrasty and the color is a bit off, but maybe next time the sun will be out and I’ll have a better version for you to see. 

That’s all for today. Thank you for taking the time to visit and read and look. I hope you enjoy. 

Designing Your Paintings with Color

Art School Color Exercise

Do you know how some memories stay in your mind forever, like accomplishing a goal or a special time with family or friends or a wonderful event in your life? Well, for me Art School was a very special and magical time. Not only was it the realization of a lifelong dream but also the commeraderie of like minded people where I FINALLY fit in. And then there were all the art projects that we created during my three years in a two year program. Some projects are more memorable than others, and this is one of them. 

Recently, I dug out this exercise from my art school days in the distant past. It is circa 1979-1980, so it’s over 30 years old and a little the worse for wear. Part of it is made of cut paper, and I had to tape some of the pieces back in place because the glue is failing. If you look closely, you’ll see that I taped the “L” upside down on one of the alphabet blocks and couldn’t remove it without tearing the paper. 

When I did this project, my kids were still quite young so I had the choice of many toys to use as my still life props. The horse is a Breyer horse model that was my daughter’s. I bought it as much for myself as I did for her! The other toys offered a varied assortment of shapes and sizes that were easy to manipulate into different colors from their “local” or true colors. After all, toys are supposed to be colorful. 

I really liked doing this exercise, not only because I was able to wiggle a horse into it, but because it was a great learning tool for learning to use color in different ways. I’ve often thought of doing another series like this but broadening the approach even further. One could use complementary colors or analogous colors or triads or any number of combinations. When you see one image created in so many different color combinations, it emphasizes the artist’s ability to manipulate color toward a specific intent in a work of art. The ability and the necessity of thinking through color choices is a skill that every artist should learn. 

I am forever grateful for the art training I received in school. This was a homework assignment in Design II (color), one of the foundation requirement courses for both the fine art students and the commercial art students. Commercial art is now known as Visual Communications which better describes this career. After all, graphic design and illustration are all about visually communicating ideas, feelings, thoughts and facts in an effective way. 

And, isn’t that exactly what a fine artist does as well?

The assignment was to create six images of the same objects in six specific different color arrangements. As you can see, the results are startling and very revealing. Notice how each is very different from all the others and creates a dfferent feeling or mood. We were free to select the colors for each object based on the purpose of each study which freed us from sticking with its local, or true, color. 

From top to bottom, the assignment for each study is as follows: 

Row 1; Black, White and Gray and Contrasting Colors

Row 2: Dominant Cool and Dominant Warm

Row 3; Dark Tones and Light Tones

Each study is about 9x12 inches and adhered to a full sheet of matboard. Now that I’ve gotten around to archiving the whole project, maybe I can bring myself to throw it out. Maybe... but not quite yet. 

Deer Sketches and a Workshop

Sketches of Deer -  A doe and fawns

Tomorrow I begin a four day workshop in Traverse City with Kimberley Kelly Santini of the Painting A Dog A Day fame. The subject of the workshop is Color, and since she is an expert in that department, I’m really looking forward to it. 

Another reason I’m looking forward to this particular workshop is that Kim and I have been online friends for about ten years but have never met in person. When we first met, I did a bit of mentoring with her, and now I’m very proud to see that she has far surpassed me in her knowledge and skills and has been very successful with her Dog A Day endeavor and other art pursuits. Plus, she’s a mom to three kids with a very busy family life. I don’t know HOW she does it all!

Since last I posted, I did work on the background of that polo painting, lightening the sky and grass yet again, but the photo didn’t come out any better than my last one of it, so you’ll have to wait to see progress on that painting. 

Instead I’m sharing some sketches I did of deer a month ago. I had just encountered a doe and her twin fawns along the road to the barn, and the image was fresh in my memory. The deer on the left are done completely from memory, but it was obvious I wasn’t getting the anatomy correctly. So I dragged out my how to draw animals books and consulted with them. One had drawings of the skeleton of a deer along with a couple of photos of real deer, and they showed me where I had gone wrong. 

The deer on the right were done after consulting the books, and they turned out way better. Clearly, I have a ways to go to capture deer more accurately, but I was pleased with these drawings nevertheless. 

Okay, I must continue preparations for my workshop tomorrow and look forward to sharing with you some of the paintings I do in class next week. 

Wish me luck!

Going With the Flow - New Oil Painting

"Flow" 9x12 inch oil painting on canvas board

I’ll make this short and sweet tonight. 

After a long absence from the studio I managed to fit in some time at the easel today on an oil painting I started back in April. 

It took a bit of creative deliberation to revisit my original intent with this painting and to decide what to do with the background. I briefly toyed with the idea of a snow scene but gave that up since I wanted to keep with an analogous color scheme where the horse and background would blend well. 

I also decided to switch gears on painting method and put down a gray value underpainting on top of the warm yellows. Today I did the background and will let that dry before proceeding to the horse. But, I kind of like it this way, too. The horse looks like he's made out of gold. 

Tomorrow, time permitting, I’ll do a background change on another  painting, and after that I have plans to do some pastel color studies to help with creating the coat on a lamb painting. I want to work lots of nice pastel colors into the wool. 

It’s been a long dry spell in the creative department, but I’m finally breaking free of all those chains that  have been holding me back. Let the creative juices Flow!