Thursday, August 16, 2007

It's a Tough Job, but...


For some reason, my mother keeps asking me if I still like my job. She means the horses, of course. I guess non-horse folk can't comprehend that someone could find getting up early to feed and turnout and muck stalls enjoyable, day after day, week after week. I won't say there aren't days I'd rather stay in bed, but that just means it's probably a good thing that I have no choice but to get up! In any case, it sure beats sitting in traffic on the 401 for a couple hours a day!


With respect to my "other" job, the painting continues! I keep forgetting that I never posted a final image of the painting of Peaker and her mom, so I'll do that first. Next, the new mare and foal painting is in the first stages of a rough underpainting, and I've started to add some colour to the background of my commission. This is Acceptable, a son of Capote standing in British Columbia. As this is another case of working from several photos, none of which are my own, I continue to work things out as I go along.


Tonight I put a couple of coats of retouch varnish on the painting of Jambalaya. Retouch give a painting a protective finish, and I like to do this once the painting has been photographed (in this case done on Monday at Pirak Studios). Due to the drying nature of oils, final varnishes aren't supposed to be applied until at least six months after a painting has been completed, and often a painting has left me by that time. In these cases the retouch varnish does the job.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to photograph a two-time World Championship qualifying Quarter Horse for a new commission. Yes, sometimes my job is pretty hard to take. ;-)

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