Large-scale Paintings

 This is what I have been busy working on.  My husband asked me the other day why I haven't been painting  at home lately.  This is why.  This more than filled up my desire to paint for quite a while.  This first painting is 8 feet x 8 feet.  It is painted on two giant ply-boards.  I worked on these three paintings for about 14 hours (spread over two days).  Both days were 105 degrees F, so I was somewhat miserable painting outside, but at least I had some shade.  While this was a fun (albeit large) project, I don't think I would want to do stuff like this on a regular basis.  I have always enjoyed painting/drawing very small and detailed.  The top painting is the largest full painting I have ever completed.

Hopefully soon I will be back to my normal, love-to-paint self haha.  I will probably feel like drawing very small things for a while.

Window Paintings

Oh my, I didn't realize I had been away for so long.  I assure you that I haven't been completely slacking... I just haven't really seemed to finish much.  I have ideas bouncing around my head and driving me crazy; I just haven't put any of them to paper yet.  I should probably write them down or I am sure to forget most of them.

Lately I have been spending my time at a different and less permanent type of painting.  Window painting!  It is very fun and freeing because it is such a large "canvas".  The Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team is in the finals and I have been asked to paint on the windows of local businesses and homes to show support.  I hadn't done any window painting since my high school fundraising days, but I am so glad that I had the opportunity to do it again.

Here are three of the paintings I did.  You can see how large the windows are by my tiny reflection.  They are in no way perfect, but I think that gives them a bit of extra character.

Spots and Horse Racing

Sorrel
6" x 6"
watercolor

In the Pack
6" x 9"
watercolor

These first two paintings were done for the DPW challenge Seeing Double.  I had to use the same reference but change up the size and composition of the piece.  So I chose a photo I took of some Quarter Horse racers and zeroed in on the pretty sorrel on the left.  I completed the large piece first.  I think I tried to put too much detail in the group painting.  I should have either left out some stuff or painted it bigger.  I really like how the headshot turned out though. 

Lonely Cheetah
6" x 6"
watercolor

I just love cheetahs.  They are one of my favorite wild animals.  They are so graceful and somewhat elusive.  I think it is interesting how they are normally alone.  I think it would be a sad life.  I used the reverse side of my watercolor paper because it was much smoother and I wanted to see how it would work out.  I can't really decide if I like painting on the smooth side better or not. 

Polka Spots
5.5" x 5"

If there is anything I like drawing/painting as much as horses it would have to be dogs.  I couldn't resist those spots and puppy-dog eyes.   I really enjoyed using a limited palette on this one.  Made things much simpler for me. 

What Yellow Means to Me

"Mellow Yellow"
6" x 6"
Watercolor

This is the story of a special little palomino filly I met a couple years ago.  She came to the barn for training and to participate in some nutrition studies.  She had no name and she had only been handled a few times.  I spent the first two weeks with her just teaching her to be caught and let me put a halter on.  She was one of the most fearful horses I have ever worked with.  At the end of 4 months I was able to ride her around like a dream.  She never bucked or misbehaved.  People around the barn started calling her "Mellow Yellow" and it stuck.  She was a special little filly and I wish I could see where she is now. 

This is my entry into DPW's "the yellow challenge".  When I think of yellow I think of this amazing little palomino filly.  This was painted from the only photo I ever took of her the first day I met her.  I wish I had taken more. 

Shoe Doodling

Toms
Ball-point fabric pen

Haven't posted in a while because this project ended up taking a lot longer than I thought it would.  I have had these white Toms shoes for a while now, but they got a few stains on them and I didn't want to wear them.  Then I saw that many people customize them so I thought I'd give it a shot.  I found a ball-point fabric pen at the store that has permanent, waterproof ink.  Unfortunately I ended up needing to go back to the store to buy 3 more because this project really drained the ink out of them fast!! I wanted them to have a nautical theme, but still have a strong design aspect and this is what I came up with.  Took me almost an entire day to finish them, but it's totally worth it when I get to wear my art around everyday :)  Still can't decide if I want to add some color to them or not.  I was thinking about maybe just using one accent color, but I may just leave them like this since black/white matches almost everything. 

Black Friesian

Keegan
8.5" x 7"
black and white charcoal on brown paper

Here is something a little different from me.  This is actually more like the drawings I normally produce.  I prefer drawing to painting because I have so much more control.  It was difficult to leave this alone and not keep messing with it.  The beauty of charcoal is when it is very loose and sketchy.  This attractive Friesian horse was just screaming to be drawn.  It was very enjoyable to draw this because I didn't have to worry over my color choices the whole time or stress over a possible watercolor-mess-up.  I would consider this more of a sketch than a finished drawing, but I think I like it that way.  I want to experiment more with this style and colored paper. 

Chomping at the Bit

"Chomping at the Bit"
5.5" x 9"
Watercolor

Had a blast painting this horse.  Referenced from my own photograph at one of the local Quarter horse races.  I don't know his name (or anything about him really).  I love going to the races just to take pictures.  I probably have hundreds of them saved away in a file. 

Watercolors are still not cooperating with me in any way, but at least I am learning.  This might be a painting that I come back to and redo in a year or so and see if I have improved.  Watercolor has such a steep learning curve. 

Green Porsche

Green Porsche
5.5" x 7.5"
Watercolor

I got to photograph this cute little speeder at a Porsche club racing event a couple years ago.  Of course, I see all my errors now that I am done with it, but I guess that is the downfall of paintings done quickly in one sitting.  I want to paint more cars now.  I am not sure why it is so much grainier on my computer screen.  In person this painting is much smoother. 

Paint Horses

Paint Horse Sketches
Each is 4.5" x 6"
Watercolor

I am really enjoying these tiny studies in watercolor.  It is such a great way to really practice techniques and explore without worrying so much about the drawing itself.  There was actually a fifth one in this set but I painted a better one on the opposite side.  I think instead of stressing myself out to try and paint something new everyday that I can just do a little set like this every week.  I did these on some 90lb watercolor paper that I bought on super clearance (only $2 for 26 sheets).  I had never used them before because I could see the lack of quality just by glancing at it, but I was extremely pleased when I actually started painting on it for these little practice paintings.  This is probably the only 90lb paper I have ever gotten along with. 

Tour of the White House

White House Corridor
9.5" x  8"
Watercolor

I have actually been drawing quite a bit lately, but I loaned out my camera so I had no way of showing them all to you until now.  This is a painting of a corridor in the White House.  I loved how the light cast shadows and light on the ceiling.  I originally had a much bigger picture in mind, but it was too difficult and cluttered so I had to shrink my vision.  I hate to blame the materials, but I really struggled to paint on this paper.  It is 140lb cold press from a watercolor sketchbook I purchased years ago and then forgot about.  I felt like I was painting on cardboard.  I couldn't get the paint to flow or mix and everything looked significantly more chalky than any previous painting.  I will probably give the paper another chance, but if I get similar results then I will probably just use it for sketching.  Overall, this was one of the most difficult paintings I have done.  The perspective was very skewed based on the way the photo was taken (it almost looked like it was taken with a fisheye lens) so I couldn't even rely on my ruler. 

Architectural Drawing

Afternoon Light
10" x 6.5"
Watercolor Pen and Ink

This is not something that you will see from me often.  Structures and straight lines are just not my thing.  That being said, I have always loved looking at architectural drawings.  The lineart is always my favorite, but the color just adds that "extra something" that it needs.  This was my attempt to draw something in a similar style.  I tried to stick to a pretty limited color palette. This looks a bit darker than the original unfortunately... the paper was white but it looks blue. 

Six in One

Watercolor Studies 5 x 5.5

This is what I have been busy working on lately.  I really wanted to practice my watercolor techniques so I decided to draw the same image multiple times.  I experimented with different colors and processes.  It was a lot of fun, but most of all it was a great learning experience for me. Original sketch is of my Dutch Shepherd, Rayden.  He finds his way into my art fairly often. 

Pare Down your Apple

"Golden Delicious"
5x7
Watercolor

This was a really fun challenge over on DPW.  We had to paint an apple with as few areas of color as possible with it still reading as a 3d apple.  I am still not at all comfortable with watercolor so when I completely messed up the shadow area I decided to play with it and blow the paint/water concoction all over the page.

White Rhino

White Rhino
5x7
Ink and Watercolor

I messed with this one a bit too much.  I think I was happier with it several steps before this.  It was so much easier to have the ink lines in place, but I think I relied on them too much instead of really looking for values.  This is one of the white rhinos at the OKC zoo.  I did not know they had so much hair on their ears.  It was also strange for me to put his eye there because it seemed like it should have been closer to the ears.  Of course, it's always a challenge to paint what you see instead of what you think you see.

Going Mudding

"Going Mudding"

5" x 7"

Acrylic on canvas panel

This is the first acrylic painting I have done in years.  I don't remember acrylic being this hard to work with, but I think it is because I am out of practice.  The paint kept drying on me before I had a chance to put it on the canvas.  I painted it from a photograph of my first horse Jackson.  He was actually rolling in a dirt arena, but I wanted the background to be darker to bring out more contrast, and the dirt ended up looking more like mud.  I did this for the DPW "the lying down challenge".  I forgot to sign it before I took the photograph, but it is signed now.