Brought to You by the Colour Green

Apparently I’m on a green kick this week. Could my purple avoidance get any worse?

Look what I finally dusted off today! The painting formerly known as ‘Backstretch’ and later renamed “First Time Past” (current working title). Lots of different greens in this one, and like the Mike Fox painting, I’ve been blocking in colour over the underpainting. recently, having worked on paintings with a detailed underpainting as well as one without (Eccentric), I’m reminded just how much simpler it makes things to have that tonal roadmap. I was able to make a lot of progress, quickly.

I’m also enjoying the Artfix linen with this piece. When I started this one, I didn’t think we were going to be friends! I really did contemplate locking it in the closet on several occasions. It was worth those early “fights” I’ve decided. Guess I’m going to have to buy more!

Eccentric, Continued

There's nothing purple about this painting. Green has to be one of the most difficult colours to capture, and this time of year it's everywhere. There's no escape! I decided to work with Thalo Green in this painting - it's a very strong green, so requires a bit of handling to behave. This image might be a bit to vibrant, compared to the original. It just depends on your monitor.

I was finally ready to spend some time putting some more time into the horse, just working in a fairly small tonal range at this point. This painting is 11 x 14 oil (of course) on canvas, and I'd put a couple of extra layers of gesso over the canvas before toning it. As a result my layers have been drying quickly, allowing me to progress fairly quickly.

The purple panel is watching, and hasn't really expressed any feelings of being left out, so we're on the same page. Okay, so are you questioning my sanity now? We will have to face each other sometime soon. Just...not...today!

Painting Updates (yes, really!)

I love taking photos, so I hope you'll forgive me when I run off on a photo tangent around here now and again. In the previous post, I put up a picture of my painting of last year's Queen's Plate winner, Edenwold, so we won't forget him! I had the honour of being featured in the Canadian Horse Queen's Plate Souvenir magazine this year, and unfortunately the image of this painting ended up cropped for the layout, and the colour didn't reproduce well. I didn't get the painting shot professionally in time for the deadline, so that's what we had to go with! Photos can never do an original painting justice at the best of times, so we artists have to get used to this sort of thing!

I haven't had as much time to paint (and get back to those ones I was working on in Lexington) as I'd like, due to the usual stuff. Two horses back for some R&R, plus this weekend I weaned our baby, Peaker. She wasn't impressed, naturally, but today has settled down considerably. I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow a pony mare from a friend to keep her company -- otherwise, she would have gotten Aunt Monster!! ;-)


Back to the paintings. I painted in the turf in the Singspiel painting with more detail, and thanks to the cadmium and white involved, it took a fair time to dry, preventing further work. In the meantime, I brought my little painting of Gladys up to speed. She's almost done! I started this painting as a demo in the workshop I taught in April, and brought it with me to Lexington to work on if I had time. I did, and I was pleased with the progress I made. She's at the top of the page.


I also did some more work on Clever in this other little painting. I think I have her to the point that I'm happy with her, so now to bring the filly up to speed! I do have to deal with the background as well, and tie it all together. While this image is a better representation than the previous WIPs I posted, it's still not great. Once it's finished, I'll scan it.

On a side note, Jambalaya, the horse on the righ of my Singspiel painting (and the eventual winner) ran yesterday in the King Edward at Woodbine. He was a game third, noses apart from the winner, Eccentric (GB) and second-place Sky Conquerer. We've certainly had some great racing lately at Woodbine.