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.

The three Crisnott fields

I took this photograph of one of our fields called the Crisnott. I had quite a time with the colors. Here I am in the dead of winter just begging for a little color in my life. I took the photo in the fall so I thought the fall colors would cheer me up. I struggled with all kinds of things in this project.

This is the first one I attempted. I was going for strong color in the distant trees, the perspective in the field and the border of weeds at this end of the field. I hate the color of the distant hills, and felt that the color in the back trees was a bit too strong. I like how the front drops away from the end of the field. I also noticed that the strong red line in the foreground led the eye right out of the painting.
I like the sky better in No.2. I moved the vanishing point of the field away from dead center. I also toned down the distant trees, and changed the distant hills to a grey blue. I also broke up the red line.
This third and final attempt was just a fun loose very quick attempt at the same field. I wet the whole paper, let it set for a bit and started dropping in the colors, letting them blend. I went back to a bit stronger colors. This was just pure fun.

4 Attempts at painting cows.

Here a while back I decided to try painting a photo I took last fall. I liked the "rear" view, and the hills with no sky. It turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. Here are my attempts.4th
third
second

first

Sorry these pictures are all backwards. I will have to remember this for next time. The bottom Picture is my first attempt. I decided to put sky in and regretted it later. I don't like the middle dark area, it doesn't read as a cut in the hill, just as a dark something!

The second one, or the second from the bottom, Doesn't look finished at all and i don't like the far back hill, it looks misty.

The third one, I like the shadows but they are too strong in the middle area, but i like how they fade as they get further away. But they don't read as ponderosa pines but more like fir.

The final one on the top is better in my opinion, fading as it get farther away, and i like that cows look like they are standing in grass and casting a good amount of shadow. It got a little blue on me but the trees read as Ponderosas now.

Old Blue Schoolhouse

Not sure where this old schoolhouse is. Somewhere in eastern Montana, near Bloomfield. I liked the colors and how it has weathered, it also has a lonesomeness about it.

I had so much trouble getting the roofline right. The dormer in the shade is the wrong color. I really like the sky and the foreground.

What's a girl like me doing in a place like this, or will it ever warm up?

I am all for taking the good with the bad. I can handle my "lumps." I night calving and smile during the day. I swath and don't squawk. I also get to take a random day off with out consulting a boss (besides the DH) If i want to go to town i can. If i want to sleep in one day i can.

But......Mother Nature is really throwing a bunch of us a curve ball. Tempers are flairing and snapping over the silliest of things. I now cry over "spilt milk." I find myself throwing a fit over a zipper that won't zip, and i watched DH come unhinged all because i hitched to the wrong trailer. I hope some warm weather comes soon before one of us needs an EMT. Oh wait i am one. Hope DH realizes that.............!