The Gathering

I've finally finished the painting after spending most of the week fiddling with the background! Many thanks to Laura for your help and input! I think I'm finally happy with this painting and can now get started on the next one. I have called this painting The Gathering partly to do with the grouping of these ponies but it is also the name of the exhibition so tied in nicely.

Nearly there! I've just a bit of the front pony to finish and then I can concentrate on the finishing touches in the background. I haven't quite decided what those touches will be but I wanted to get the ponies in and done first so that any background extras would grow around them. That nearly sounded quite artistic and like I know what I'm talking about!

Here's the second stage of the painting. It's still quite a mess as I'm working on the ponies at the back first. They are well highlighted by the sunlight but at the moment, because I haven't the shading on the pony at the front, this is quite hard to tell and they just look grey!

Exmoor Ponies - Take One

I've been invited to submit to an exhibition in October celebrating everything Exmoor at the Dulverton Guildhall. I'm producing two paintings with Exmoor ponies as the subjects and here is the beginnings of the first. I put down the background yesterday and have let it dry overnight allowing me today to block in the colour on the ponies. I won't be able to tell if I'm entirely happy with the background until the painting is complete but it's currently how I had envisaged.

Latest Commissions

Here are a couple of my latest commissions, Tabu a Rhodesian Ridgeback at the top and Thomas, a very handsome chestnut underneath. Both colourings were quite challenging as they involve mixing a lot of different colours and getting a strong tonal value takes a lot of experimenting. A touch of yellow mixed in seems to bring them out stronger as they can end up a bit flat otherwise.

Heythrop Hunt

This is a painting of Heythrop Hunt who were at the 3 Counties Show. I wanted to make the painting more about the hounds and horse but brought in a bit of the coat to show their hunting colours. I'm trying to do a few more paintings that have action in them and that are not entirely about the horse, especially portraiture, so hopefully this will be the first of many.

Aaaaand relax!

It's been a busy few weeks, juggling trying to buy a house and painting and then over the weekend was a 4 day event, the Mitsubishi Horse Trials at Hartpury College and all I can say is what a disappointment! This year has been up and down at the best of times and everyone is feeling the pinch moneywise but I sold one print and 4 cards during the 4 days! All I can hope and pray is that I get a commission from this weekend or I am seriously out of pocket but being the type of business this is, I need to plough on and plan for more shows, spending out more cash than I might bring in purely to get my name out there and my paintings seen. The weather wasn't much help either, wind and rain most of the time, even forcing us to open my tent on a different side on the last day as the wind had been blowing straight into it and making it very unsafe. Lots of the stands packed up early but we thought we'd stick it out incase anyone wanted to spend their left over money but as soon as the prize giving had finished, the heavens opened and people ran for their cars. Oh, the joys of an English summer!

Yesterday I dropped off my paintings at Obsidian Art Gallery, Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire for the Horse In Art exhibition which starts on Thursday 14 August and runs until Saturday 13 September. I don't have high hopes for this exhibition, but I never do for any exhibitions as it then makes it a nice surprise if I sell something! Again, it's great publicity and Trisha even very kindly used one of my images again this year for the promotional poster. It's always extremely exciting seeing one of my paintings in print elsewhere!

It's now time to get on with my commissions and fit in some of my own paintings, I've so many ideas for paintings and so little time! I really do need to learn how to organise my time better!!

By the way, I have no idea why sometimes this blog allows me to have spaces between paragraphs and sometimes, like today, doesn't!