May 31 work in progress

Bleh! The Gypsy Horse painting looks awful. Too awful to post. *sigh* I really picked the wrong background. It just doesn't suit Aragorn. He's a sweet quiet little guy, and my background is this crazy wild gradation of bold color from deep red to golden orange. It's neato, but it's not him and I hate it. Too busy looking, too "hellish." So, I could go for a more subdued flat red, or completely change and paint it blue. No landscapes, no barns, don't even suggest it! It's just going to be big bold color like the dog paintings. I am debating re-gessoing the whole thing and starting over, even redoing the sketch, but I have to have this DONE by Sunday, so I think I'll see how repainting the background goes tomorrow morning and if I still hate it I'll start over. Sometimes this happens, it's okay, it'll work out in the end. Doesn't help that I lost a day of painting when the well pump went out yesterday (no water!). It's fixed now.

I have been working on the chicken drawing too and now this is getting into kind of a funny situation. The end use of this image will be to scan the bird and drop him into a digital background, so the finished image will be a digital original (to sell as prints, etc). But I'm going to go ahead and finish the work on paper, even though it'll look totally different and have a different title. That's weird, the same bird will be used in two images, I'm having trouble thinking this through! Anyway for years I've wanted to enter chicken art in Draft Horse Classic just for kicks and so I figured this might as well be the one since I'm working on it anyway. I'm trying to keep the background simple, it's not anywhere near done though and that board will probably end up a lot darker.


So this'll be a crazy next few days trying to get this finished up. If worse comes to worse I will hand-deliver my entries. It would only take me three hours round trip to do that... Not my plan but if I had to do that to get them in by the deadline I would.

And finally, some ducks and hens eating watermelon, just for cuteness sake. The duck pics look blue because of the tarp over the top of the coop.

adios, Day One

For the last nine days I have had a twice-daily barn sitting job about 15 miles away. The manager was away, so I fed horses, groomed horses, cleaned stalls, medicated lame horse, etc. It's really been a neat experience and I've enjoyed getting to know the owner. I've really never been around a barn like that, it's so beautiful and absolutely spotlessly clean. What an amazing place, and the house was stunning! Totally done in western decor, I was enthralled.

And you know the best part. The owner asked to see my portfolio, so I left it with her for a couple days. She fell for the drawing "Day One." And she bought it. OMG!!!! Yay!!!!!!! :-)!!! It looks soooo good in her house! I wish I had a photograph of how it looks there, maybe some time I can get one. It is truly the perfect location, and I am SO glad that drawing has finally found its home! (for a long time I wouldn't even sell it, it's a favorite of a lot of people including me).

This is the drawing... (in here, on the floor)

because I know you like the duck photos

Lol, they just keep hatching! I have these little guys for about two more weeks before they go to their new home. More hatched yesterday, so now they range in age from 1 day to 2.5 weeks, and amazingly they get along GREAT. The two WONDERFUL hens are taking good care of everyone, and it's one BIG happy family!

something is afoot

What is this? What have we here?

Ohh, it's one of those.... :-)

May 28 work in progress

The clock is ticking on getting Draft Horse Classic entries done. I redid the sketch for the painting and got the gold base coat on today. You'll recognize this horse from a photo shoot I did a couple weeks ago. This is Aragorn, the Gypsy stallion. It's going to have a less than exciting title because I want to really get the point across that he's only a yearling. He'll be MUCH more "feathery" and have a bigger mane and tail when he's full grown.

The sketch:

The camera flash made this pretty wild, but the gold is just the base coat for the background. It'll probably end up being red. Or blue. Or... eeny meeny miney moe. (in other words I'm still thinking about it). ;-)

"Aragorn at one year"
18x36 inches
acrylic and ink on canvas
price pending completion

And I worked on the Rosecomb too. I'm thinking if I drop some sort of simple barnyard scene behind him I could even use this as a DHC entry (it's on a 12x12 piece of paper, I'm just cropping it when I scan it). The bird itself will be scanned and placed into a digital image, but there's nothing saying I can't "finish" the drawing and sell that too!

bird 8x8.5 inches
colored pencil, graphite, ink

hatching

That's gotta be hard work.



This is one of those overachievers that hatched a day early (last weekend). It's pretty cool to have a chick actually hatch in one's hand, though I'm sure plenty of people would say "eww gross!" Not gross! Awesome!

oh THIS is funny!

So every now and then I check my web stats to see what pages are popular and what keywords are bringing people in, and lately there is something very funny bringing in a bunch of hits. It's the phrase "american idol chicken lady." LOL!!!!!! I know they mean that lady in the yellow feathery outfit! NOT ME PEEPS, NOT ME!!!!

pet peeve

This has happened several times in the last few months. I do a custom art piece, putting in loads of time and work. I put in more time framing it, make it look great. I tell the client I'm shipping it. I ship it. And I NEVER hear a word from the client. I check delivery confirmation so I know it's arrived, and I'd have to assume I would have heard from the client if it didn't. But I also have to assume one of several things:

1) they did email me to say it got there and I just never received it. I really do have a problem with not receiving emails sometimes

2) they just forgot to let me know, simple oversight

3) it didn't arrive. It was delivered somewhere else by accident, and the client has been abducted by aliens and never contacted me.

4) they hate it and don't want to tell me

If I ask about it, particularly after this long, it feels like I'm fishing for compliments. I'm not. I just want to know it got there in one piece and if someone IS unhappy I want to fix that! Seriously people, if someone sends you something they really care about, have the courtesy to let that person know it got there!

May 26 work in progress

bird approx 8x8.5 inches
colored pencil, graphite, ink

I also sketched out the Gypsy horse on canvas, then stood back and thought "nope." Too much background, not enough horse. I was way too traditional with leaving a nice border on it. So, I slapped some gesso on there and will be redoing the sketch, MUCH bigger. Live and learn.

I hated to do it

But I can only stand so much crawling around on the ground underneath a horse combing out foxtail stickers with a fine-toothed comb. Every year at this time when I let the horses back on pasture, Gwen turns into a foxtail magnet because of her "feathers." (no problem with Shylah). I worry about the stickers burrowing into the legs, so I have to really stay on top of combing the darn things out, which is a huge pain and takes a long time. And every year I grumble "maybe I should just shave her." But *gasp* what a thing to do to a draft horse (well, half of one anyway!) Those feathers are a distinguishing feature! But yesterday I decided I'd had enough, so I took a scissors and chopped them off, and then borrowed a clippers from my neighbor and today I proceded to shave her. That was an adventure, Gwen has probably never seen a clippers before so she was about ready to run for the hills or climb the barn or something. But with a lot of time and coaxing I convinced her that I was not going to kill her or cut off anything vital, and then it was easy. She stood still like she'd been clipped a million times before, gave me no trouble at all.

So I hated to do it but I'm glad I did, this'll keep her foxtail free over the summer. It'll grow back. I DO miss her old look though! It's not a great trim by any stretch of the imagination, but it's functional and not cosmetic. I've never clipped a horse before, so this was new for both of us!

Beforehand.. feathers, glorious feathers!



After the scissor-trim.

Can you see all the foxtails embedded in there? Ugh! I can't believe how dense that hair is!

All done! The mare has legs, who knew it? :-)




Oh, and her spirits have greatly improved since being turned out again and she's put on weight, so I think she was just depressed. :-)