Post card horse

I was going through all my sketches of horses that I've done this month and I found this little guy that I did free hand using my paint brush to draw the horse and then add color.

Icelandic horse

As promised...my latest horse painting. This guy is a Icelandic horse, which are rather small horses about 12 to 13 hands. There known for their intelligence, gentle personality, and stamina.

Pears...a departure

I know these don't look like horses. I had to take my dog to the vet yesterday while she had her teeth cleaned, so I popped over to Dick Blick in Pasadena. While in Dick Blick I noticed that Dick Blick now carries their own line of colored pencils,but not watercolor soluble colored pencils. I seem to have every brand except Prismacolor watercolor pencils. So I bought a set and decided to test them out doing a simple sketch of pears. I was rather impressed with the Prismacolors wc pencils. The colors are rich and vibrant and 36 cp seems to be just the right amount of pencils to work with. I liked them so much that I plan to do more simple sketches using them and probably take them out in the field with me.

So tomorrow I finish working on my horse painting...I promise I will!!!

Yupo Cat

I decided to take a break today from horses. I've been reading and viewing other artists using Yupo paper, so I decided I give it a try.

I sketched free hand this cat and then used Caran d'Ache Neocolor Artist crayons. I layed in all the color then wet the tip of a watercolor brush to move the color around the yupo paper. I didn't like the way it looked, so I re-worked the drawing. After playing with the paper I finally just layed the color and used a paper towel and Q-tip to blend. This plastic paper is so cool because if you don't like the way something looks you can wipe it off and start again.

Rocky mountain

This guy gave me some trouble with his coloring and I was afraid I might of over worked this painting. I guess I'm becoming an expert at lifting color without lifting the wc paper too!

This is a Rocky Mountain horse which is a rare breed and they are ridden for pleasure and good endurance competitors.

A horse with attitude

I love the expression on this horse...lots of attitude. This horse is a Paint horse which is used on ranches and rodeos.

I've been Tagged

Ok, I've been tagged by my friend

Brenda from http://www.amberridgedesert.blogspot.com/

I've never been tagged so I'm not sure how this works...but according to Brenda I need to tag 4 of my friends or favorite blogs that I visit daily. Other than meeting Brenda face to face, the following blogs are one's I like to visit to see what's new and get ideas. Go check out their blogspots you won't be disappointed!

Linda from Frenchless in France http://lindamathieu.com/ wonderful blog on insights to living in France. She takes wonderful photographs that really give you the flavor of France.

Belinda Del Pesco http://www.belindadelpesco.blogspot.com/

Belinda does wonderful watercolors and prints from her hand craved stamps...lots of wonderful information.

Geninnes' Art Blog http://www.blogdelanine.blogspot.com/

Great illustrations,hand craved stamps,and she has such a well organized studio to die for.

Diahn http://www.diahnott.com/

I use to see her posts at WetCanvas so was pleasantly surprised to find her blog.

I visit many blogs but I thought this would give you a sprinkling of what's out there. Lots of creative people .

Appaloosa with baby

I wasn't sure if I wanted to add grass to this painting since I'm trying to do a series of horses and wanted to keep the back ground white. Baby horses are so awkward when their young.

Gypsy Vanner Horse

I love learning about the various breeds of horse there are. This beauty is a Gypsy Vanner Horse which was developed to pull heavy caravans.

Lipizzaner horses

Lipizzaner horses were used in Spanish Riding School in Austria. I think I like the way this wc painting looks in person. I decided not to paint any background. I'm finding as I focus on one subject i.e. horses,dogs,flowers, per month, I am becoming comfortable with each piece I do.

At night before I go to bed I've been sketching various parts of horses using pen and ink or rendering them in pencil. I've found by doing these nightly sketches it helps me to see the various parts of the horse and think about what I'm actually painting.

Trio of horses

I've been working on this for the last two days off and on. Interesting what you can do with a really limited palette. 9" x 12" watercolor, using DS watercolors

mother and baby

I need to find my color wheel to come up with combinations of colors for my horse pictures. Working small has it's advantages...I can produce a painting in about an hour.

A chesnut

Today I had a doctor appointment in Beverly Hills...meeting up with my new Rheumatologist who happens to be a very published book author. I decided to take my small prismacolor portfolio along so I could work on my new horse drawing. I exchanged the colored pencils with watercolor pencils. It's a good thing I did because I had a lot of down time waiting to have tests done.

I layed down the initial colors and thought I brought my portable watercolor water brush, which I didn't. When I got home much,much later, I used a small #4 round brush to activate the wc pencil color. I was not happy with the Cretacolor aqua monolith pencils. The color did not blend very well so I used my Daniel Smith watercolor paints. I was much happier with the results.

Working 4 x 6 postcard size is a good size to experiment with. I also was working on this painting on my patio. The breeze was so strong that the wind dried my wc paints rather quickly allowing me to work fast and add a few layers.

Horses

I thought I'd devote the month of August to painting and drawing horses. Since I've only painted one horse in my life, I thought it would be fun to learn something new.

I plan to paint horses using my own color combination...getting away from traditional colors.

I also plan to paint these guys in a really small format 4 x 6 watercolor postcards.

trees

This is my last landscape for the month of July. I used my liner brush and my deer foot brush to do some of the detail in this painting.

I still have a lot to learn about painting landscapes. Each one presents a different task to workout. But now, I'm ready to move on to something else. I will continue do landscape sketches and hopefully in time will feel comfortable executing them.