Three more 'C' pieces

For 'C' week, here are the works from the other three artists. This is so much fun as there is now four of us participating in the ABC challenge and it keeps a bit of pressure on when we know that the Wednesday deadline is looming! All of us have chosen animals or birds this week which is interesting although it is a common love to all of us. We have chooks, cranes and a cat... enjoy!  

'C' week

This week has flown by with 6 long, full days in the studio to finish off a commission piece which I will post in a little while. I did manage to squeeze in time to do this small pencil drawing of a Clydie, one of my favourite horse breeds. I had a few choices for subjects starting with c but went with this one, it is 5" x 10" and not quite finished. 

I scanned this image and can't seem to get it any larger than this!

More 'B's'...

I am a bit behind with the posts as we are actually in 'C' week but have two more lovely 'B' pieces, both done in watercolour. There is 'Bottoms', a lovely racehorse action piece and a more subdued painting called 'Brushes'. Thanks for sending in your paintings! The challenge is growing with another lovely lady joining us. She has started this week and sent in her 'C' piece. When they are all in, I will post them and then on to D...!

'B' week

This is my piece for 'B' week. It is a beautiful Brolga, our lovely native crane.
Again I set myself an hour to paint this but did go a bit over that time. I found I had to fiddle around with the eye and beak to get it right and it was a bit tedious in such a small area. This is 6" x 6" oil on gessoed board.

These little studies are for sale at $75 each. Please email me if you are interested.

'A' week

'A' week kicked off with two more pieces arriving from the girls. We have an 'Andalusian' in watercolour and some 'Apples' done in pen and wash. Thanks to both of you for sending them in. 

ABC Challenge

Two of my regular students have chosen to go back to part-time work this year and were recently lamenting the fact that they had less time for their art and found that their one day off was often dwindled away with the everyday mundane activities and that there was just not enough art happening. They felt that they needed an art 'focus' for that day so we set up a weekly challenge and chose the alphabet as our common reference. So one piece a week, first week starting with 'A', second week starting with 'B' and so forth. The rest of the guidelines are very loose, any subject, any medium and any size. It will be interesting to see our different choices appear each week. I have set myself a time restriction of an hour so that the work stays loose and spontaneous. If any readers would like to join the challenge, please do, we would love to see you here!
My first piece is "Angus cattle study", 6" x 6" oil on gessoed board. It did take me a bit over an hour to complete.

HORSE PAINTING WORKSHOP

The first weekend in May was the date set for the "Expressive Horse Painting" workshop in my studio. This boutique workshop was designed to be small with only five students present so that I had time to spend with each person and therefore lots of personal attention. The weekend kicked off with a casual 'drinks and nibbles' on Friday night so that the travelling students could get acquainted, relax and have a few laughs before beginning work the next morning. Everyone had the two images drawn up on their canvas so that we could utilize the time on painting. Saturday morning began with an introduction of the materials I use and process in completing painting from start to finish. I also discussed using photographs for reference and the anatomy of horses. I also spent some time mixing colours and chatting about the effects of light on the subjects and the resulting highlights and shadows. Our first piece was a chestnut horse in profile, a nice pose that was easy to paint but required getting the coat to look shiny and to attain an alert, intense expression on the horse's face. Sunday saw us tackle a paint youngster walking towards the viewer in lovely light. The challenge here was to capture the colour range in the horse's coat in light and shadow. All students did extremely well and put in full effort with pleasing results. All in all, a very successful weekend with all students wanting to return to attend a future workshop. 

Here are my two studies at 6" x 8".