Saddle horn and spurs

It has been such a long time since i have added anything to my blog.  This is one of most recent  paintings.  I set up the photo and then did the painting.
I am getting a few paintings ready to put up in the local salon.  Should be fun just to hear comments.  I hope.

It is finally drying out here. At least in some places. The tops of hills and some of the roads. But, get down to the barns, and I still sink to the tops of my muck boots. I think I hyper extend my knees on a daily basis, walking around in left-over river slop. I even got the tractor stuck trying to cross the river today. On husband's orders of course.

We are getting down to the last few heifers to calve. Can't come soon enough.

I still found some time to paint. I think I paint better, or at least get more done, when I am short on house time.

This old truck has been up at our junk yard for quite a long time. It was in pretty good shape until someone robbed the front axel. I thought it would make a challenging painting. I was right. This is the second try.

This is my nephew. He was having a ride on a horse and was so happy. We snapped a photo and several years later I decided to try putting to to watercolor. I approached the skin tones a bit timidly and therefore he looks a little pale. This is my first watercolor portrait.

This is what i have seen for the last 5 months. So if you can't beat 'em, join 'em! I am really craving some color, but it looks like i will have to make do with winter scenes for a while yet. Blue grey white brown brown and more brown. There is a bit of sun trying to peek out from all the gloom and doom. :-)

Peanut

I have been wanting to try painting a horse. I have been drawing them for ever, but have been a bit intimidated by the colors with painting. I took this photo after a long ride and he was so sweaty, and looking for a good place to roll. The sun caught his belly and face and i thought it was interesting. I have a couple of things to fix and i will be ok with it.

Once a Fisherman...

Here is a painting of my son Cedar, fishing of some old pilings in Minnesota. I thought it showed just how intent he can get when he fishes. I like how the water turned out, with the light casting long shadows. I tried this one one other time only wet on wet. I didn't wait very long and had so much trouble controlling the paint. Live and learn! But in the second one i added a bit more color, and wished i had done the same with this painting.

Musselshell River Bluffs

Last fall, when I began my renewed interest in painting, I painted, what turned out to be a very long study of the bluffs behind my house. For some reason I had a hard time with the whole painting and was greatly intimidated. I would spend a lot of time staring at the work in progress and could hardly bring myself to paint a single stroke. I was not thrilled with the painting when I finished, but was just glad to move on to something else.

I recently repainted it. I spent about 45 minutes on it and am much happier with the results. The water in the top one looks more water like and reflective, but the lower one looks more like the actual water, rippling.