American Academy of Equine Art Invitational at Spindletop - Lexington, KY

How many weeks ago now was it I said I had news? Here I am, finally catching up. It was a nice surprise to learn my painting "Strategizing" was accepted for inclusion in the AAEA's annual invitational art show. I was a bit stunned to be invited to submit for the show, as time and again I have been rejected from their juried exhibitions! I've done enough juried shows to know how it works, and to not take it personally, but I admit it was starting to get to me!

The show this year is to be held at Spindletop Hall in Lexington, Kentucky, running from April 2 (hmmm....guess that was Monday!) until May 26, 2012. The opening reception is Sunday April 15, 2012, from 1-4pm. If you are in the area, be sure to check it out! I only wish I could get away to see it myself, but, well, by the size of our girl Twine, I don't think it would be a good idea, do you? Maybe that will be my next bit of news!


As soon as the show is online, I will post the link, so that if you are not able to view the actual exhibition, you can enjoy it virtually. I know I'm looking forward to seeing it!

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.

Keenland Visit and More Work!

Well, a visit to Lexington wouldn't be complete without heading to Keenland one morning. The weather has been perfect, though hot here this week. Keenland is a great track to take photos in the morning because of where it lays with the morning light, and it's also one of the prettiest tracks, if not the prettiest, in North America, even with the recent Polytrack installation.


Today at the workshop I continued to work on my painting of Too Clever and the filly. I won't finish it before the end of the week, so I hope I can carry things over once I'm back into the routine at home. This is just an 8x10 canvas. I spent most of today working on the mare, and playing with the background. Hopefully tomorrow the filly will get some attention! Once again the photo is bad, so please forgive the quality (or lack thereof!)