Working on This Weekend-3/16/15

I got a lot of painting done this weekend, and started a few new pieces too. Mostly I was trying to avoid working on the deer skull, it's at a tedious place, working on the background. So I started a few new things on Saturday and worked mostly on the deer skull on Sunday.

Horse drawing with Copic pen, 5x7 on Bristol paper, unfinished.

Little drawing of a horse I started a while ago and worked on a bit this week.

AZ Aspen, 9x12, oil on canvas panel, unfinished.

This will be a painting of an aspen with yellow leaves, from northern Arizona last fall.  The sky was such a deep blue that day, and I think I got pretty close to the right color. I tried a few colors from Williamsburg oil paints, and their Sevres Blue has been very useful, especially for skies, because it lightens dark blues without looking washed out.

Kinishba Ruins, 11x14 in, oil on canvas panel, not quite started yet.

Another picture I took on my last trip to Arizona, at the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. These are the Kinishba Ruins, a Mogollon and Anasazi great house site from the 1200s, that are sadly in pretty bad shape. The ruins have been partially restored a few times, some walls propped up and such, but still need a lot of work. I just picked the colors here, and tok some notes. I need to lay out a drawing on the panel before I start painting, since there's a few things that will look wrong if I'm not careful about drawing them.

Texas Spring Flowers, oil on panel, 8x10 inches, unfinished.

This will be a little spring wildflower painting, from a picture my mom took a few years ago. I used a panel by a brand I'd never tried before and the surface was very slippery. So I just tried to get a first layer down to add some tooth, hopefully adding the next paint layer will be easier.

Winter Deer Skull, oil on panel, unfinished.

The deer skull picture slowly continues, I'm working on the background right now. About the bottom two-thirds have a dark layer done, and I'll finish the top third, then add the highlight and bright grasses on top. I think there will be a lot of adjusting lights vs. darks once the background is closer to done, to keep it from competing with the skull too much.

Toy I

Toy I, with the model.

I wanted to try some still lifes based on my favorite colors, Prussian Blue and Alizarin Crimson, with little toys and items from around the house. This is the first finished picture in that series, it features one of my favorite model horses that I've had since I was little.
This painting was done on canvas, but I wanted the bottom white part smooth, so I built it up with many layers of gesso and sanded it smooth. After that was smooth I poured on Prussian Blue mixed with Galkyd and let it form the drips.

Toy I, oil painting on canvas, 12x24inches, finished, 2013.

GIF of Toy I, showing some of the layers that went into the horse.

GIF of Toy I, showing the layers that went into the whole painting.

Toy I, with the model.

Tiny Horsies

 My first two attempts at polymer clay sculptures, painted with acrylic inks. Horses, of course. The acrylics were really too thin, and hard to work with. So the inks may not be the best choice, but at this point almost everything in the house that hasn't actively run away has been painted with them. Maybe powdered pastels and fixative will work better next time.

Little polymer clay horses.

Grey draft horse. 

Arabian horse, apparently with casts on all four legs. Poor horsie.

The mane came out looking really cool though. 

The legs were the most awkward part, not sure what to do about that. I put little wire skeletons inside the clay, and the clay had a hard time sticking to it. So maybe I can skip the wire, or bake a few parts at a time.
Also learned the important lesson of doing the most delicate part last. Had a perfect set of ears on the draft horse, then got to messing with another part and realized I had smushed them.

Working On-April 2013

Just a few of the paintings brewing in my studio right now.

Butterfly, 11x14, oil paint and Galkyd, unfinished.

Butterfly has been in progress for over a year, but I still occasionally work on it when I feel like it. Trying to do a complete value drawing in black and white and Torrit Gray before adding color in the very last layers. 

Dried Tulip, 12x12in, oil on canvas, unfinished.

This painting is from a photo my mom took of a half dried tulip flower. I started by building up thick layers for each of the petals, sort of sculpture-like, and now I'm adding the colors in.

Strawberry Cactus, oil and Galkyd on panel, unfinished.

The never ending cactus flower painting... At least I finally got the color of the greens right, after way too many tries, now I can move on to the front flower and hopefully finish this quickly.

Feo

Feo is a mixed media drawing, made from a few different pictures combined. The majority of the drawing is done with charcoal, sharp dark marks were put in with pen and highlights were done with white acrylic paint. The paper is a soft, heavy light grey paper with deckled edges, sorry I don't have a good picture of the edges at the moment. I really wanted to draw the appaloosa horse (whose name is Feo), so I made up a background to finish out the composition.

Feo, mixed media, 8x15 inches, finished.

Feo, detail of clouds.

Feo, detail of horse.

I really like this picture, so it is currently hanging on the wall in my room. Maybe someday I'll sell it, but for now I like it too much.