Saturday at the Races

I'd kind of hoped to get to the races today...how I think that's possible right now, I don't know! Fortunately Sun TV was once again showing some races from Woodbine, so I was happy. I decided to do another racehorse painting, which is a challenge for this daily painting thing because racing paintings tend to be a bit complex. So this is what I went with.

My reference photo was from Queen's Plate Day last year, and this is a crop of an already close-cropped photo I took in the walking ring of the winner, Not Bourbon. By cropping it I didn't have to deal with hands and shanks and the bit, that sort of thing! I still need to do a racing painting of last year's Plate. This year is the 150th running, and that fact has my brain working a bit. I'm sure you'll hear more about that eventually.

I decided to treat myself and use a Raphael linen panel for this. It's still just 5 x 7, but the surface is just so amazing to paint on. I also threw the limited palette out for this one. Yes, this is what an artist does for fun....

Just for *more* fun I'm going to add a photo of the new kid and Clever. I think a video of what came before this would be more entertaining. This colt is following in his half-brother Billy's footsteps when it comes to being caught - it's a bit of a rodeo, hence the smile! He was a bit better today than yesterday, at least!

Time to go clean brushes...hope you'll check in again tomorrow!

Thinking Too Much

This affliction isn't limited to art, but it seems I've had a bad case of it recently. Saturday, the first painting just came together, but the next two days, I felt like I was struggling, fighting to get the paint and the surface to cooperate. So how do you plan not to think? I don't know, but that was my goal today. I toned a masonite panel last night (with burnt umber straight out of the tube and mineral spirits) and this morning printed out the photos for the next two days. I still had the image up on the computer monitor because I will often put guide lines to help me with my drawing. Today's subject has an interesting face, so I wanted to be sure his features lined up the way they were supposed to!

After lunch I roughed in a drawing. Then I had a bit of a bump in my so far smooth road to painting on schedule. I had called about an opportunity for a local gallery to take some of my work for a show, and they asked if I could bring something today, as they were hanging this afternoon! One of those things I couldn't say 'no' to! So I scrambled to get a couple of pieces together and headed out. By the time I got back I went out to the barn to bed stalls and get ready to feed, and brought the horses in a bit early so I could get back to the painting!

I expected I'd be posting this at 10 or 11pm, but things went pretty well. When I decided to do this project, this is more the kind of painting I thought I'd be producing - working with looser brushstrokes - so I am happy with the result. I made myself stop, though there are a few things I could still do...but that would be moving away from the looseness thing, so I'm trying to restrain myself.

This horse is Jay, a five-year old gelding. He's the guy that went through the colic surgery last December. He's now in the Long Run program, and will make someone a lovely horse. He was retired due to a minor soundness issue that suggested he wouldn't hold up to the rigors of racing again. In his career he made over $120,000. The painting is 10 x 8 oil on panel, again, with a limited palette of burnt umber, ultramarine blue, cadmium red medium, cadmium lemon, yellow ochre and titanium white.

On the writing front, I've written just over 7,000 words at this point - mostly of pure junk! Oh well, just going with the advice of the NaNoWriMo pep-talkers! You can follow the count on the little graph in the right-hand column of my blog. Just don't ask to read anything!

Is That...Sunshine?

Okay, so sometimes winter here in Canada can be a little grey. We've had more than our fair share of late in Southern Ontario, so it's nice to see the sun. Today, then, I'm going to post some pics of the kids instead of artwork!


Anyone who knows what Jay has been through will appreciate these first two photos. Jay underwent colic surgery on December 14th at Milton Equine Hospital. He's had a few bumps along the road but got a good report on his one-month recheck, and the okay for some turnout. He's quite happy about that, and as you can see, the girls are dutifully keeping him company! Gladys spends the most time with him.


The mares are inside the 30-day mark to their due date, both looking appropriately large! I'm praying for a relatively uneventful foaling season, after the stress of Jay!


The 2007 models are doing there thing, playing and eating and occasionally being bratty (what, yearling fillies? Never!). Good thing the "barn manager", Miss Bettycat, keeps them all in line!


The painting continues, of course, and it won't be long until I have more updates in that department. I've got some new racing and backstretch oils in the works, and I plan to do a couple more "quickies". I've also finally added a subscription feature to my blog so if you're interested in hearing about updates as they occur, just enter your email address and it will be delivered right to your inbox. If you'd rather subscribe to the feed, let me know. While I've burned the feed, I haven't sorted out the finer points of making it available! Just call me technically challenged!

Rain, Rain...

...well, I'm not going to say "go away." We've had such a dry summer things could use a really good soak!



I've been working on a couple of new paintings this week. The one I posted last time of the racehorse standing on the training track is coming along. The next piece I've started is a racing piece. It's my first painting on Artfix Belgian linen. This linen is sooooo smooth it's actually taking some time to learn how to work with it, so I have been struggling a bit! I hope it comes together, because right now it's looking a little troubled! Once the underpainting is done I expect it will get easier, but the underpainting is taking much longer than usual.

Okay....back to work!

Progress!

Well, yesterday we got hit with quite a nasty storm. The horses came in early, and I got some good work done on a couple of paintings. I'm calling Gate Crashers done -- I just need to sign it -- and I made some serious progress on Edenwold.


I guess I forgot to mention sizes -- Gate Crashers is 8 x 10, and Edenwold is 16 x 20. Now it's time to get back to that commission, and to resolve my issues with the Haflinger. Today was a write off thanks to recovering from said storm, so I'm not sure I'll get to that tonight. I'll be lucky if I can stay awake till it's time to water off! Well, March lived up to its reputation, I guess -- in like a lion for sure.

She's Here!

It's not an unusual scenario this time of year, I know, but after about three weeks (or 348 days, depending on how you want to look at it) Too Clever is the proud mama of a chestnut filly by Peaks and Valleys. At first she wasn't too impressed with this new little thing in her stall, but she's come around to the idea of motherhood. The filly is very nice for a mare's first foal – quite the constrast to the tiny backward thing our Monster was when she was born!

All this happened yesterday morning, February 10th at 6:10am. Just a couple of photos at about five hours now, but you can rest assured when they go outside for the first time there will be more!

The mare and I are exhausted, I think. The filly looks like she's ready to ship into the track and get down to business! A BIG congratulations to proud owners Tony and Diane – this is their first foal, too!