The Rainbow Bridge

Georgie - A commission.  For a custom portrait of your pet/horse, click the photo

Yay, I got Ms. Georgie done in time for the anniversary of her crossing.  I really enjoyed painting her, when I finally got my butt in gear and made myself do get into the studio and paint.  Hopefully I can keep the momentum going this week (and forever, but I know that's not realistic.

  Honestly, it's really too gorgeous a day to be inside.  It's 50 something degrees and look at that sky... after the cold spell we've had, what I'd really like to do is go play with my horses, but I really don't have time today.  Figures, the same thing happened the last warm day we had, and the weather man says cold again tomorrow.  Ah well, spring soon.  Maybe some plein air painting in my future.

 

So instead, I got out my pencils and did a rough sketch  (very rough... sketching is not my thing, something I'd like to change...) of superpony Poniesdevon Rufty Tufty ("Tufty") and his rider/trainer Philippa Davies, whose adventures you can follow on Facebook (click his name).  Not only does he rear on command, but he's learning capriole and other cool stuff.  I'll share  more as I work on his painting.  Here's the sketch:

I'm hoping to make this as magical as I think it has the potential to be.. we'll see how it goes!  The background in the photo is a beach.  Really a gorgeous photo, I'm so lucky that my Kate's Horse Edits contest winners had such awesome stuff to work with!

The BEST news is that maybe I have my mojo back, or at least my work ethic.  I'm hoping that I can get into the studio at least =almost= every day this week, even if I do nothing more than a henna design or a few scribbly sketches for practice.  Or a little altar painting. 

Where Inspiration Lives

Saturdays aren't always delicious, but this one was.  I got up (lateish for me), I exercised (this is a new daily thing), I spent a few hours editing my jewelry photos while my hubby hung out with me and read stuff from the news site he was browsing.  He had a union meeting to go to this evening, so I headed to the farm by myself to feed the horses.  Yesterday I had to break ice off the pond, which is something I truly hate doing, so today, instead, I just brought water.

"V" is a big, gorgeous black mare my friend owns, whom no one has been able to touch for years.  Every day, when I feed her, I'd do a little more.  Pause so she had to stand near me.  Then, offer the bucket I was carrying so she could eat out of it while I was holding it.  Then, I'd offer for her to sniff my hand (no way!).  The other day I offered feed in my gloved hand but she spooked.  Tonight was the first time she took grain out of my hand and acted like it was no big deal.  It was a BIG DEAL to me, but I didn't tell her that.

"V" this summer, running with Abbey & Storm behind

 

 

My horses and I do something I call "no agenda time" which means I just hang out with them... no riding, no training (well, technically it's part of training, but they don't know).  They followed me to this gigantic, ancient pear tree in their pasture, which has huge roots for me to sit on.  Abbey, my mustang, came to me and nuzzled my hands. Everything was colored in shades of pink and purple, even my dirty horse.  But oh, the sky.

January Sunset

The landscape is pretty drab in January and I eat up every bit of beauty I can find.  Might have to paint this.  With a horse in it :)  (they were behind me).

Anyway, after the sun had set I stood to go, but lingered a while.  A huge shape floated into the treetops of the big pear tree (the one whose branches are in the top of this photo) -- a great horned owl.  I sat and watched him for several minutes before he spotted what he was looking for and swooped away.  The painting of an owl is in my future, too.  Couldn't get a picture in the dusk.

Then, I came home and painted.  I am not normally an evening painter, so it felt a little weird, painting by entirely artificial light.  But, I made some good progress on Georgie, whom I think I will have done tomorrow.

Georgie - getting close to done :)

And now it's dark, and the house is quiet.  I'm counting blessings, and there are a lot of them... some curled at my feet or in my lap, some out in the pasture in the dark, some that come and go, and one on his way home.  Life is good.

Confession Time

Sometimes, art isn't about inspiration 24/7, or wild passion to get the next thing on canvas.  Sometimes it's about dragging yourself to the studio when it's soooo hard to do.

I'm so blocked.  I think it's because I volunteered to do 3 custom paintings, one in September and 2 in November, and they have piled up, and I am NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN.  Never, ever more than one at a time. 

And, I got busy with making jewelry for the holidays and I'm just way, way out of the painting groove.   I haven't been able to drag myself to the canvas for this 30 paintings in 30 days challenge.  *sigh*  Another part of it is that I cleaned the house for Christmas because we had it here for the first time ever (yay!) and partof that invoved shoving all of the crap in the rest of the house into my studio, so it's awful cluttered mojo reflects mine.  Gotta fix that.  Spring, hurry up and get here, I desperately need a purge and yard sale.

But about these three donation paintings:  don't get me wrong.  I'm actually excited about the three subjects I'm painting.  One is a beloved dog who passed away last year, and the others are adorable ponies that I think will be actually quite cool.  It's just that, it feels like ages before I get to paint something I want to paint, just 'cause.  Of course, the longer I put off doing these, the longer that age gets.  And I'm just not painting.  

Anyway.  Monday is the one year anniversary of Georgie's crossing the rainbow bridge and I really want to get this painting to her mama by then, so I did some work on it today.  I actually sat with Georgie's picture in front of me when I meditated today because I wanted to get a feel for who she is.  I love her smiling eyes and I imagine her tail was just as happy, and I imagine she loved a good belly rub.  I never met her but I used to be a vet tech and she has "sweet dog" written all over her.  Also, "huggable."   

So, Georgie, I hope that there are lots of turtles for you to find and lots of hugs and belly rubs on the other side.  And I hope my efforts here and the memory of your smiling eyes and adorably crooked ears will give your mama some comfort.

Still, obviously, a work in progress.   But she should be done in the next day or two.

In other news, I got Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's Dreamscape Myth & Magic for Christmas and I am very much looking forward to painting some dragons and other mythical goodness (unicorns maybe?).  I'm torn.  I have decided I much prefer my oils to watercolors, and I'm wondering if I can adapt some of her watercolor techniques to this media.  Can I get excited about art again?  Like my inspiration Julia Cameron says, sometimes you just have to show up at the page/canvas and let the divine work through you, however it chooses to do so. 

So yay, I showed up today.  Here's to many more days of showing up.

By the way, please don't take my foot-dragging as reluctance to do commission work :)  I'd love to paint your beloved pup, horse, cat, bird, or whatever, too, whether they're here with you or gone to greener pastures.  I have a few beloveds I still need to paint for myself.

D is for Dink. And Dog.

"Petting, scratching and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer."  -- Dean Koontz

Rough first layer

This is Dink.  He's a Yorkie-Sheltie mix (Shelorkie?) that we got when my son was little because his dog, Rascal, was terribly anxious whenever we were gone.  We experimented and found that Rascal did great when there was another dog there, and when we looked in the classifieds, the people who had sold us Rascal had another litter by the same mom.  So they're half brothers.  Fate, right?

There was a litter of something like 5 when we went to see him.  The reason this particular pup came home with us is because he followed the breeder around giving him adoring looks.  I thought, I want a pup to look at me like that.  And he does.  In fact, he has perfected the look.  I mean REALLY perfected it.  I go in the bathroom to take a shower and I put him on the bed, and when I come out I swear he has posed in the absolute cutest position with the cutest eyebrow movements possible so that I will tell him how adorable he is.  He practices cute.

And he is my snuggle pup.  His favorite time, of course, is food time but his second favorite time is bedtime.  Whenever I say "bedtime" he jumps up - hooray! - and runs toward the bedroom.  He loves to snuggle.  And also to bark, and eat, and hump the cat.  But we're talking about his good qualities right now.

Maggie at Magic of Memories Photography took this pic of him a couple of years ago when she was dating my son (she used to call Dink A-Dork-Able, and it fits) and it's probably my favorite picture of him ever.  I haven't painted enough of my own animals, so I'm taking this opportunity to do a Dink portrait.  Portraits of my other animals past and present will follow at some point, cause I want to do a wall of 5x7's. 

Check the Commissions page if you have a fuzzy pup you'd like me to paint.  :)