We Came. We Saw. We Ate Ice Cream.

Another Saratoga visit is history! For the first time I can remember since my initial trip to the 'Spa' in 2003, we had perfect weather. For me, rain and humidity in Saratoga is just a given, but this time around, after being overcast and muggy on Wednesday afternoon when I arrived (complete with a few token drops of rain, just to say it did) the weather was unbelievably beautiful.


One of the highlights of this trip was being joined by fellow equine artist and racing fan Sharon Passmore. Sharon and I were both Equine Art Guild members, and often correspond back and forth about racing, comparing our experiences and stories of the business. She was able to share connections that got us signed into the backstretch in the morning for amazing photo ops, as well as box seats for the races on Thursday afternoon. Add to that our paddock passes courtesy of the Beresford Gallery, which represents my work at their gallery across from the racetrack, and we were set! Juliet Harrison joined us Thursday, and after sending Sharon on her way home to Tennessee early Friday, Juliet and I took advantage of that backstretch contact for more photos. We also visited the yearling sales barns, and saw the recently renovated pavilion.


The joy of being able to rent a house for our short stay inevitably means ice cream. I can't help but take advantage of the US's greater selection of flavours (not to mention better prices!) of my favourites, Haagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry's, and fortunately my friends indulged with me! It is, however, tradition for Juliet and me to buy an overpriced serving at the racetrack at least once, which we did on our way out Friday afternoon. And of course no trip to Saratoga is complete without at least one stop at Mrs. London's for amazing pastries. We did a lot of walking, but I'm not sure it was enough to balance out the intake of calories!


I'm home again, and did make it back to the easel today. Each year I order some art supplies and have them sent to Juliet so that I can save some of the shipping costs. I'm anxious to try out some of the paints I ordered - decided to try some Vasari oils and see how they compare to my faithful Old Hollands. So far I've only tried one tube - the colour is brilliant, but they're a lot oilier than the rich OHs. We'll see how it goes.

One more thing that made the transition back to reality a bit easier - Ben & Jerry's on sale at Fortinos! Now if we could just get some of those flavours....

One Month Old! Peek-a-boo

A week ago today, Jubie's baby girl was a month old! Where did the time go? She's quite the observant little thing, always looking out over her stall door, or into the barn when she's outside, watching what I'm doing. She's got her momma's eyes, and it's pretty tough to ignore her. And as she's still without a name, I guess it's no surprise when I call, "Baby Girl!!" she comes running, with the cutest of whinnies.

This is 8 x 6 oil on Old Holland linen.

Famous Blue Raincoat...

I seem to have a secondary song title theme going on this month. Wednesday night CBC had a Leonard Cohen special on, and it happened to be raining today, so as I was putting on the girls' "raincoats" this morning I decided I should paint one of them with that title in mind! No horse painting binge would be complete without a painting of Gladys, especially as I already have a photo picked for Monster (though of course I reserve the right to change that!).

So, today's painting is a 5 x 7 oil on masonite panel. The panel was toned with Williamsburg Terra Rosa, and I will never do that again! I toned a couple of panels this way so I think I will be either trying to wipe off or at the very least putting a nice layer of something Old Holland on that one! The Terra Rosa has changed consistency since I bought it - a quality control issue I'm not all that impressed with! It took more effort than I like to get coverage - the surface was too slick. Not a good thing with a daily painting! Guess my relationship with OH is not in jeopardy!

The camera never really does these little paintings justice - for one reason, because they're still wet, so the reflection affects the saturation. I was kind of going for the appeal of complimentary colours here - blue, and orange, and they are very rich in this painting.

To tie in the blogging theme...Gladys has some serious growing up in store! She will be bred this year, and we've been working on her to that end. It's hard to imagine Gladys as a mother, but actually I think she'll be okay. And I'm couting on her giving us a baby with a little more flash than we're used to around here!

Please check my Etsy store if you are interested in purchasing this painting. Thank you so much to the purchaser of yesterday's painting! And yes, it is just the painting, not the horse, though he's looking forward to meeting you!

See you tomorrow!

A Snow Painting, Before the Snow Disappears!

I started a new painting today. With all this snow, I figured I'd better try to get at least one snow painting done before it all disappears! So far I've just blocked things in. This is a very different approach from the Monster WIP - much looser, less restrictive! We'll see how it goes. This one is 11 x 14 oil on Raphael linen panel. I started with a wash of Terra Rosa, which is a new paint I've just added to the mix. It's one of Williamsburg's Italian Earth colours. So far toning this panel is all I've done with it! I find it's very similar to Old Holland's Burnt Sienna. After a very rough indication of tone I went on with this modified underpainting, which has kind of combined the best of both worlds - my usual Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue, then some Burnt Sienna, and the new Unbleached Titanium as well as a bit of the usual Titanium. Can I just call it done and leave it at this? :-)

The Monster painting got some more attention today as well. It won't photograph so well under artificial light, so no pic tonight. It's going to need to sit and dry for a few days now before I move on. In the meantime, I'm still looking for the perfect title!