New Work - Braiding Mother's Hair

Finally it is done!   this oil painting is 16x20.   I will be offering a limited edition of 16x20 prints on canvas of this and will list them here and on etsy once they are available.  Here are the final photos with some detail close-ups.  You can click on the photos to see enlargements. 

WIP - 16x20 Centaur Braiding - Part 7

Now I'm starting to paint!  I have been putting a little time into this here and there as time allowed over the holidays and have done some decorating on the pillars and just in general cleaning up edges and defining the objects and shadow shapes.  On the 29th Dec.  I started painting the face and hair of the mother centaur.  Faces tend to be very absorbing and require several seperate sessions using dry brushing  techniques to build up opacity and detailing.

These two images show most of what I was working on on the 29, detailing the pillars and starting the face of the mother centaur.  Sorry for the glare on the painting.

 I also spent most of my time yesterday painting the same face and today, I also worked the stone floor, the rug, the side table and the legs and values of all three centaurs.  I do a lot of skipping around when I paint, LOL!

Here's a close-up of the mothers face.  This will get a bit more work, mostly on the details such as eyes, lips and jewelery, ect.  I'm just starting to lay in the daughters features here.

This side table was just a bit to plain, lol!  OK, I really had planned it to be a carved and inlaid table all along...I just wasn't sure what was going on it until I did it.  Notice the dragon carving with taloned foot on the chaise.

This last image shows some of the flooring detail and the rug.  Much more to be done on all of this, but, it is starting to get there!  

New Work - Hop Scotch

Here is another centaur child at play! This is an ACEO oil on multimedia art board. I have several centaur paintings in the works right now, so, more to come!

New Work - Playing With Mom

I just finished this aceo today and listed it on ebay. This little appaloosa is having a grand game just playing with mom. This is an oil ACEO on multimedia artboard.

Sketchbook - Leopard Appaloosa

I love colorful horses! Paints, appaloosas, dun, dilutes, and, roans...there is so much variety and I never get tired of the infinate variations of breed and color! This one is a black and white leopard appaloosa in the sketchbook.

Horse Breed Project - Jenny Wren, an Appaloosa Shetland Pony

Close-up detail

This is a graphite on 8x10 Multimedia Art Board and was drawn for the WetCanvas Horse Breed A Week Project. The project is now going every two weeks instead of weekly.

Jenny Wren was one of the 4 horses my family kept when I was a kid. She was such a character - part demon, part angel! My sisters and I learned so much about horses from this little brown appy-colored shetland pony! This drawing is not being offered for sale as it is staying in the family.

No Chicken Scratch! The Sketchbook

I've always kept a number sketchbooks that I use to jot down ideas for new paintings or, just to dabble around in until I come up with something concrete that I want to do a finished painting of. I use these sketchbooks to do the planning and layout work, explore new compositions, try to work out anatomical problems and every kind of scribble and notation from art supply lists to mathmatical jottings. Mostly, they are just so much chicken-scratch that even I have trouble trying to decipher what I'm looking at! Ha! You know it's bad if even I can't tell what I just drew! Basically, my sketchbooks are not anything I would ever want anyone else to see, but, here are a few of the better pages from my 'work' sketchbook!

Planning ideas for mustang series

First idea sketches for Paint Horse Magazine cover competition


Guidehorse paintings study




Planning sketches for "Malpais Gold" painting

I've always admired other artists that keep wonderful sketchbooks with every page filled with exquisite drawings and beautifully rendered studies. Personnally, I never put that much effort into a sketchbook before, because I always considered them to be working tools. I've always felt that the real efforts should be saved for the final painting or drawing, and so, I just did quick thumbnails sketches for layouts or values and very rarely attempted even a halfway finished sketch. When the Horse Breed a Week Project was started on WetCanvas in January, I decided to start a new sketchbook with the goal of No-Chicken-Scratch! Every page would stand alone as a finished sketch or study and it would be filled with everything from the various projects, to life drawings, to purely imaginary fantasy art...all complete - no incomprehensibility. Well, we'll see how that goes! These are two pages from the new sketchbook drawn from life of my cats, Claw-dette (top) and Foxy FaeFey.

I had a Christmas gift certificate from my sister and brother-in-law to Barns & Nobles, so, I used that to get this wonderful hand-made, Italian leather bound sketchbook/journal with over 300 pages of perfect drawing paper.

I have just loved drawing in this book...once I got over the trepidation of 'messing up' this wonderful book! So far, I have only used black Eboney graphite pencils, but, this paper should also take pen & ink, and color pencils very well, and, if I get off my Eboney kick, I may try some other media in this. These two are my newest from the Horse Breed project, Appaloosa and Australian Stock Horse.

"Appy Roping Horse"

"Australian Stock Horse"

Card Deck Cards

Things are slow all over where art sales are concerned, so, I find myself getting involved in more art projects. Besides the horse and dog breeds projects, I am also involved with the ebay art group, ACEO, in thier double deck playing cards project. Last year, they produced a single deck with the ACEO artwork of the members printed on the cards. It was a very popular project and many decks of cards were sold to the members who either gavc them as gifts or resold them. This year, it was decided to create a double deck so more artists could participate and I jumped on the chance to get in on this one. I drew the king of diamonds for my card and created this centaur king in oils as my entry. (shown much larger than lifesize of 2.5"x3.5"!)

"King of Diamonds" 2.5"x3.5" oil

I also entered into the competition for the 3 joker cards in the set, and although I did not win a slot, these are the cards I painted for it. The red joker is the card I entered as only one piece could actually be entered. I call these my ManJack Jokers and they are Leftovertaurs - created from the surplus parts from the creation of the centaurs...by some deity with a very strange sense of humor!

"ManJack Joker" 2.5"x3.5" oil (shown larger than lifesize)

"ManJack Joker Running" 2.5"x3.5" oil (near lifesize)

More new work this week includes another appaloosa horse painting, another ACEO card.

"Appy & Barn" 2.5"x3.5" oil (lifesize)

Appy Colts

These two year old appaloosa colts were best buddies and had to be together all the time. This is a new painting for the Breed a week project -appaloosa, and, is a 4x6 oil, "Appy Colts".