Burro painting

This guy was painted earlier this year from a Bureau of Land Management photo. It's an 8x8 and is framed in a gorgeous Randy Higbee frame using acid free materials.

SOLD

Randy Higbee Gallery 6" Squared show

I am excited to announce that two of my paintings were accepted into the 5th annual 6" Squared show at Randy Higbee Gallery in Costa Mesa, California! The show opens December 6th and runs through mid-January. They will hang over 600 paintings by many of the country's top painters, all of them 6"X6", all of them in their gorgeous frames. I am sure it's a sight to behold :) Many galleries have small paintings shows this time of year because they are perfect gifts, but the Randy Higbee show is regarded as one of the very best. When I first started painting I heard about it and made it a goal to enter one day, and here I have and I got two paintings in!

The paintings accepted are "Happy Goat" and "Mustang Filly":

I won't be able to attend the opening myself, but maybe some of you Southern California people can. The direct link to my two paintings in the show's online gallery is:
http://www.dailybrushwork.com/Sort.aspx?UserID=17486&GSID=51&pg=65
The entire show of 622 paintings is viewable (and purchase-able) at http://www.dailybrushwork.com

Some rock paintings

I received an inquiry about my canyon country paintings a few days ago, and did I have them on my blog....yes......wait.....no. Somehow they slipped by, were painted before I started this blog, or were in an old post and needed to be updated anyway.  I have done quite a few of them. What can I say, I love Utah's canyon country. Here's a few of them:

Bullet Canyon #1

Another one from a riding trip in SE Utah. One of our favorite areas is Cedar Mesa, where there are few other people and the amount of public land is vast at 400,000 acres. Some of the canyons can be ridden in, but most of them are too trecherous. We enjoy riding along the canyon rims and peering into the huge canyons. This is looking into Bullet Canyon. 6X6 on Colourfix Suede, unframed.

SOLD

Bullet Canyon #2 

 

Another one from the rim of Bullet Canyon. 6X6 on Pastelmat, framed in a gorgeous Randy Higbee/Kingofframe "La Paz" frame. I will sell framed for $125.00, or unframed for $75.00.
 

SOLD

 

Moab Red Rock

A Facebook friend took the photo I used for reference, thanks Sabrina! I cropped the photo to get the composition that I liked and painted from there. 6X6 on Pastelmat, framed in a gorgeous Randy Higbee/KingofFrame.com "La Paz"  frame.

Potholes

From a crop of a National Park Service photo, somewhere in the magical expanse of Canyonlands National Park. Some potholes are large enough to swim in, others barely a few cups. They come and go with the rains. They often have tadpoles, and brine shrimp that hatch from cysts. 6X6 unframed.

 

Not available-gifted

This one was from a photo taken on a family Lake Powell vacation. I don't recall which canyon, but it looks like the Escalante area. I gave it to my father as a memento of a wonderful trip. 9X12 on LaCarte

Not available-gifted

This one is from a horseback ride into White Canyon, west of Natural Bridges and east of the Black Box. I gave it to a friend when he helped me out by giving me one of his old wheelchairs (those things are expensive!). 8X8 on Uart.

Believe it or not I have more, but will save them for another post :) 

Sulphur Horse

Fresh off the easel, this is a 6X6 pastel of a Sulphur Horse (mustang) currently available for adoption through the Bureau of Land Management. Photo reference provided by the BLM. The painting is not currently for sale as I might enter it in a show, but for information on the real horse visit his page here.  For information about the history and origin of the Sulphur horse can be found here. They are one of a few wild horse herds that are Iberian (Spanish) that has been shown through DNA testing. They sure are gorgeous!

Mustang Filly

Just finished this girl up yesterday, from a photo provided by the Bureau of Land Management's online adoption gallery. The info listed with her was "2 year old 14 hand pinto filly # 9641,  captured 11/27/12 from Little Owyhee HMA (Nevada)". 6X6 soft pastel on Pastelmat (heavy card stock pastel surface):

Heading to the Randy Higbee 6X6 show in Costa Mesa California! Show opens in December.

Happy Goat

I haven't been posting much because, well, I have done a bunch of failed paintings recently. I've been told this means I am on the edge of a breakthrough, hopefully this is true because it sure has been a fight lately. Somehow in the midst of all this this goat happened:

Heading to the Randy Higbee Gallery 6X6 show in Costa Mesa, California. The show opens in December.

 Photo reference for this provided by PaintMyPhoto member Lenora Melville. Thank you Lenora!

Bling for sale

Ha ha, that's right, I have some bling for sale. Marwari horse, photo reference by Manu Sharma, all framed up and ready to hang on your wall straight from the box:

SOLD

Rocks

I love Utah's canyon country. I could spend the rest of my days exploring the canyons and rims and never get over the beauty of it, the peace, the vastness. I have big L love for the seas of slick rock, the ravens casting their shadows on the cliffs, the breeze through the junipers. Any time I get to spend time there I am taking photos, and have a large collection now of potential painting references :) This one is from a Lake Powell trip:

I love the glow of the late afternoon sun on the red rock, and how it casts the orange light onto surrounding surfaces. Magical!

"Powell Rocks"

SOLD

Towards Telluride

An 8X8 pastel from a ride into the Lizardhead Wilderness last summer. Looking east from the Kilpacker trail to the Yellow Mountains:

SOLD

DPW Judge's Pick!

I am thrilled that my painting "Dalton" was selected as a judge's pick in August's Daily Paintworks contest!

Speed Goat

Thanks to fellow artist Michelle Grant for a great pronghorn nickname: "speed goat", somehow I had never heard it before. Although the pronghorn is not a goat, it's a unique animal that is closely related to antelope, they sorta have a goaty look about them. And talk about fast! I have tried to chase them on horseback and it was laughable. Pronghorns are the fastest animal on hooves. The reference for this is a crop from a larger photo available for artist use by the USFWS Mountain Prairie division, which has tons of gorgeous photos on their Flickr album.

Billy the Kid

This guy was first shared here on the blog in July. This is a 6X6 pastel painting on Pastelmat, and it is FRAMED in a gorgeous Randy Higbee/KingofFrame.com high quality frame using all acid free materials. Ready to hang on your wall straight out of the box! UDATE: this guy is SOLD!

SOLD

Just a Buffalo

Remember that song....? I'm Just a Buffalo, and everywhere I go, people know the part I'm playing? It wasn't about buffalo? This guy thinks it was, and don't tell him any different. I don't think you can tell a bull buffalo anything, really. Just stay out of his way. This is an 8X8 soft pastel from a crop I took of a photo available via Flickr Creative Commons license, by member anyjazz65. This is an unframed pastel on Colourfix Suede, which is textured pastel surface on 500 gm hot press watercolor paper, like heavy card stock.
SOLD!

Just a Buffalo

SOLD

All Ears

"All Ears" is a painting I completed in May of this year and is now available for purchase here on the blog! This is from a crop I took of a photo by Sande McCarty via the Facebook group "Artist Reference Photos". Thanks Sande!

This painting is a 6x6 soft pastel and is framed in a gorgeous plein air style frame from Randy Higbee Gallery (kingofframe.com). The glass is Conservation Clear, and all acid free materials were used in framing. 

Evening Antelope

A rare painting from a photo I took myself (yes, someday I will purchase a grown up camera with a good zoom). This young antelope had just ducked under the fence, as antelope do, on my father's alfalfa farm in central Nevada last summer. There were no antelope out there when I was a child, they were reintroduced long after I had grown up, and now there is a very healthy and populous population :) This painting is a 6x6 soft pastel and is framed in a gorgeous plein air style frame from Randy Higbee Gallery (kingofframe.com). The glass is Conservation Clear, and all acid free materials were used in framing.






SOLD

Satisfaction

This was inspired by a recent ride into the high country in an area the elk really like. It brought to mind memories of a camping trip up there where we observed several large bull elk napping on a ridge where they could keep an eye on things. Through binoculars we could see they all had huge racks, and were at the end of the growth cycle. In a few weeks they would shed their velvet and not be buddies anymore. While perusing the website PaintMyPhoto I found a photo of an elk that embodied the memories I had. I call it "Satisfaction" because he looks very pleased with himself. This is a 6x6 soft pastel on Pastelmat, and is framed in a Randy Higbee Gallery frame (love these frames!) using acid free materials.

Billy

Billy the Billy goat right? Actually he is Billy the Kid, as in kid goat :) Young goats are called kids, like how young sheep are called lambs. This was painted from a crop I took of a photo provided Leah Gretton on the website PaintMyPhoto, and is a 6x6 in soft pastels on Pastelmat. Framed in a Randy Higbee Gallery frame using acid free materials, with Conservation Clear glass.

SOLD

A Bevy of Burros

I haven't done any mustang paintings in awhile, so recently I visited the online adoption gallery of available horses on the Bureau of Land Management's website. I go through a lot of photos to find the few that 'speak' to me. I look for lighting, for emotion, movement, color, something that will work well in the formats I like to paint in. I went through all the horses, saving a few aside, and then.....there were burros! Lots and lots of burros. Unfortunately most had their photos taken in flat light (either a cloudy day or after the sun went down, so no shadows, nothing to suggest form). That is fine for potential burro adopters, but not so great for me, the painter.  I did find a few, though. Their cute furry burro faces lend themselves well to paintings, don't you agree?

The first, a jenny. Photo reference for this and the next one are courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management. Their description of her is "#4558 - 6 yr old gray jenny, captured 10/2011, from outside an HMA, California". Outside of an HMA-Herd Management Area means technically she is not protected by the Wild Horse and Burro Act, but she has found her way to a facility anyway. I am not sure exactly how that works, though. 

The second painting, this time a jack. His description is "#3952 - 4 yr old gray gelded jack, captured 11/2010, from Cibola-Trigo HMA, Arizona".  Both these, and many other burros, are available for adoption throughout the Bureau of Land Management's Wild Horse and Burro program

Both of these paintings are 8X8 in soft pastel on Colourfix Suede. I have decided to keep the jenny, but the jack will be available soon here on the blog!

Bling

I decided to call this painting "Bling" because I almost didn't add the sparkly hangy bits, and am so glad I did! This is a Marwari horse at an Indian horse fair from an image taken by photographer Manu Sharma and used with his permission. The painting is 6X6 in soft pastels (Nupastels, Caran de Ache, Rembrandts, Mount Visions, Senneliers, maybe even a Unison or two) on PastelMat:





"Bling" is now framed, pics and PayPal button coming soon!

Rare plein air

With little time available lately for painting I thought I'd share another older painting. This is from October 2012 on a camping trip in Comb Wash, Utah:

"Campsite Cottonwood"

NFS

 

I started painting in August of 2012, so this is with a few months of experience under my belt. We had our horses with us and were there to ride, but I was coming off a cold and then my husband got it, far worse than what I had had. So, there was some down time and I took advantage of it and did a few small paintings from our campsite, just south of highway 95. This one is approximately 5" X 7".  So far I have done very little in the way of plein air, but I did enjoy how it was like a meditation of place, and how it stays with me, how it looked, how it felt. I miss being there so much, plans are in the works to spend more time there soon, after we have caught up with our sculpture business work :) I can hardly wait, it always feels like a part of me waits there for my return.

Sunflower

I've been busy with my sculpting and haven't had any time to paint since the first of the year, so I thought I'd share some older paintings. This one is from last fall, my first flower attempt and I am thrilled with how it turned out. My next attempt did not fare so well. This is a 6X6 on, I think, UArt pastel paper:

"Sunflower"

Not for Sale