Painting of a Colt

8" x 10" oil on canvas
A painting from a photograph by Steve Lyddon.

Not Going As Planned

This painting started out as a routine plein air. Not that plein air painting is EVER routine. It's not. It is difficult and demanding and that's why sometimes I fail. This painting was one of those. I got it home and I started scraping it off. That's when I realized that I truly liked what the scraped image looked like. I decided to add a horse. I scraped the horse. Pretty soon I had a painting that looked like it had been done int he pouring rain or else when the artist was in the middle of a migraine.

I do like it though.

9" x 12" oil on linen

We Now Visit the HORSE in the Landscape

Last week I talked about putting people into your landscape, and painting from life, which was a new experience for me. This week I worked on a very different kind of painting. I live in a rural area and although I'm a city girl I have grown to love it over time. Family farms are still a way of life around here. Farmers raise cows, chickens, pigs, and yes-- horses! I'm a portrait and wildlife painter for the most part, so I have a certain affinity for animals. They are beautiful and whenever possible I will include them in my pastoral landscapes. This painting is a hybrid. I used a picture that I took of a farm I drive by often for the background and the horse lives at an historic village near my home where he pulls carriages. I took his picture the last time I visited and I knew he would look awesome with this backdrop.

I have wanted to paint this barn for a long time and I have lots of pictures of it. What I didn't know when I started the painting was how much it needed to be placed in a 'context'. So what initially in my mind was to be a painting of a beautiful farm became a painting all about a horse. That's OK, because I've learned to live with this inner voice that pops up at some really opportune moments to tell me what I need to paint.

20" x 24" Spring on the Farm

Winter Horse Painting

A newer painting that is listed on eBay this week for the rock bottom price of $149 as a BUY IT NOW. We haven't had any snow this year. It's been unseasonably warm so I decided to paint some. I love painting snow: the warm and cool reflections, the deep violet shadows.