Round, Round We Go...

January first.  I think I've been here before;  it feels somewhat famliar.  ;-) I have to admit, I'm not one of those who gets all reflective and sentimental at New Year's anymore.  Time goes by so fast, and I am guilty of letting one year run into another, much the way one day runs into another.  When you work seven days a week, pretty much all year, it can be hard to slow down enough to separate things!

This was not the kindest of years, to many people I know.  While I'm also not one of those who expects every day to be unicorns and rainbows, I do think we aren't dealt more than we can handle, so I hope that means 2014 will balance things out.  In my world, there will be fewer horses in the barn, which better mean more painting, or else I'm going to have to face getting a job in the real world!  Driving into Toronto a couple of mornings in the last few months should have been enough to stress the importance of avoiding that!

So here we go...on to 2014! 

In Between Rainshowers

Seems we've been catching up on some rainfall activity in the last few weeks. Today it's raining again and quite cool, but it is Victoria Day weekend so you didn't really expect the weather to be nice, did you? We should all be grateful it's not snowing!

Lest you think my lack of posts lately means I've been doing nothing, I'll try and bring things up to date. Last Saturday I taught a "Painting Horses" workshop for FASM. We started here at the farm where everyone met the horses and got to take some photos, and then dear Miss Monster agreed to pose for some sketching. She was remarkably pleasant - I wasn't sure I had the right horse! Her patience did wear off after a bit, but in all I think she enjoyed being told how beautiful she is. In the afternoon we headed over to Hee Haw Hill, home and studio of another local artist, Terry Shaw. Terry has an assortment of animals, including goats, a pig, chickens and some donkeys. I did a short demo again just to quickly show the laying in of some musculature. I had a bit of fun with the colour, so he's a bit orange right now, but this is Eccentric, one of the better turf horses last season at Woodbine.

On Wednesday night I was invited by FASM to speak at the Annual General Meeting, relating my experience last March in Dubai. It was kind of fun to re-live it for an evening. I also talked a a bit about giclée reproductions to help members understand the process and advantages.


I've started some new paintings in the last few weeks as well. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten I have a handful quite near completion! One of the new ones is of last year's Queen's Plate winner, Mike Fox. It's about time I got to that one - it's been in the plans since last June! It's very rough right now. Hopefully I'll have it done in time for the Plate, but I won't be holding my breath!