The Lonely Stand

I like the horse more this after a night's sleep. Yay for sleep! Then I went and got a little carried away with the grassy foreground. It's just so hard not to - I get lost in the different shades blowing around and the movement...I don't know how to portray it without the detail yet. So I might've lost the style I was going for a bit but I do think it still works. It's that bottom triangle area that might cause me to lose some sleep. I don't think it works and I'm not entirely sure what to do about it. I'm tempted to make it the side of a river but I feel like that would mess with the uphill slant of the terrain. Maybe just add more stray grass or brownify the dirt a bit. Not sure...

The Hills are Alive

New painting...what's it's name...not really sure...hmmm...

It started out rather quickly once I was finally able to pick a picture to work from and rearrange the composition a bit in hopes that the tree and horse would balance the landscape. I like the sketchy feel of the grass, the sky and the light on the tree. The foreground clearly needs a bit of work. Like I'm not totally sure what to do... In the picture that's the gravely side of the road. Less picturesque than I'd like it to.

And then I spent the whole evening painting the horse. She kinda looks to me like she wants to catch a ride. And like she got her knees dirty. Is she too splotchy?

And what to call the painting...

Where the Wild Mustangs Roam

The Mustangs arrived! What do you think? In the photo they were all in a line so I staggered them, bringing that middle one forward, to add more interest. It's the first time I've painted horses so it was a little intimidating to attempt to do justice to such beautiful creatures. Are they too off center though? Compositionally I do really like how the foal turns the viewer's eye back into the picture, toward the middle mustang. I think I like them though. Makes me want to go back and get more pictures of those beautiful wild mustangs in the National Park!

Pesky Backgrounds

I've been avoiding painting that lively badlands background. It's part of what makes the scene so cool, but how to have the most detail in the background? That just doesn't work. I started out stressing about getting too detailed but worried that if I didn't, you wouldn't have a hint of the cool terrain. As I finished filling it in, I realized the bigger problem was there was no depth so I glazed over it in a whitish-blue to give it some atmospheric perspective. But that washed it out way too much so I went back in to strengthen some of the shadows. I think I'm happy with it! Now back to the foreground. And the middle ground. Oh, not to mention I've never painted horses before so that could be a nerve-wracking finishing touch!

Where the Wild Mustangs Roam WIP

I think I'm off to a good start for once! I like the sky and think that this composition is going to lend itself more to keeping the foreground loose enough to match the style. I'll just have to keep reminding myself to not get carried away in the details. Also, is it just me or does anyone else crave chocolate while painting?

North Dakota Traffic Jam Finished!

So many bison behinds to paint! And so hard to give those huge, dark masses some definition so they don't just look like huge, dark masses. 

Wow. Ok, so the lighting on these two pictures is way different. I think this second one is closer to reality. But the main difference between them is I fixed the trees! I've redone them or at least their highlights at least half a dozen times. However, I think I might have overdone it on the details. I'm worried it all ends up a bit spotty. Do you think it's done?

North Dakota traffic jam commencing

I like the addition of the bison. They just took so dang long! At first I made the one in front way too small. Had to add to his fro a bit. Still is probably a tad small. And who would think that it would take so dang long to paint a buffalo's behind? Hopefully I'll get an earlier start tomorrow (I had to plan my sons preschool class before I could start painting) and get the rest of the bison in there. Oh and I did lighten the sagebrush a bit but I'm going to have to do something about those blobs that are supposed to be trees. And possibly the shadows on the road. They look a bit too much like stiff kelp.

Cluttered traffic jam WIP

Hard going tonight. Some of the shadows are good but I think I've overdone it and lost sight a bit of the blocks-of-color style I was going for. And you can't tell the trees from the brush. Have I lived in North Dakota so long that I've forgotten how to paint trees ;) 

Tomorrow I think I'll glaze over some areas to connect them more and add the bison. Then I'll see about fixing those poor trees.

North Dakota Traffic Jam WIP

I love painting with watercolors. Historically it's such an under-appreciated medium - never being taken as seriously as oil and acrylic. Today it still sells for less, although that is partially because modern tastes prefer to not have glass separating them from their artwork. And I get that. Unless you get the super-expensive, high-quality museum glass, there are annoying glares and reflections with glass. But watercolor is so much lighter. It's got soul. And it is so much more fun to paint with! That said, ever year or so I decide I should try to get back into acrylics and buy some canvases on sale and then forget that I did that and so a year later, I buy some more. I have a collection! Since I'm going to have to frame 10+ paintings, which includes mats, glass, and frames when it comes to watercolors, I was trying to figure out a way to save a little money. Long story short (too late), using up some of those canvases that don't even need to be framed would do the trick. If only I knew how to paint with acrylics...

And yet, I am just that ambitious, cheap, and overly-confident that I'll give it a try despite being on a tight deadline. Not the smartest move when I don't have any time for flops but here goes! This is what I've got so far:

Day 1: The Sky

Day 2: The Background

Day 3: Filling in

It's a scene from the North Dakota Badlands in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which is basically down the road from us. My 3-year old daughter thinks it's "boodiful." My son just wants to know why there aren't any buffalo yet. I love my critique group!

Slowly getting back

So it's taken me much longer to get back into painting regularly than I had hoped it would! Before baby G was born, I had really ambitious/unrealistic goals of continuing to at least draw every day and being back to painting regularly within a month or two. So here we are nine months later... But in that time, apart from getting use to caring for four little kiddos, my husband got a job in North Dakota(!) and we moved our family far from grandparents and friends and everything familiar. Enough with excuses though, I did start painting again a month or two ago. I just kept putting off posting until I felt like I was ready to do it regularly again. That probably won't happen until after the holidays, but it is way past time to jump back in. So here are two of the three paintings I've done recently of my new surroundings (Sorry for the bad photos. They were already framed before I thought to photograph them and I'm being too lazy to take them apart just for a photo):

"Badlands Buffalo"

"In the Shadows of Thee"

Never painted a buffalo before so that was a first, but they're a much-requested subject around these parts :) I painted these for a local show (Badlands Art Association's Annual Show), and won 1st place for the second of the two! Kinda funny since I had procrastinated (big surprise there!) and had only finished painting it about two hours before I had to drop off the painting. Oh boy. That was cutting it close! I think I still prefer the first. The color makes it much more exciting. And I never really got the trees in the front of the second painting to look how I wanted them to. The Badlands are a mere half hour from our house though, so I imagine there will be lots more of these interesting hills to come!