Murphy
oil on board
I did finally manage to get Murphy re-scanned, and here he is, sweetly sitting in the snow.
The Pony Line-Up
12 x 40 oil on canvas
Having six or so paintings in progress certainly keeps one from getting bored working on any one thing, but sometimes it's a relief to finally get one or two or three off the easel. A couple of commissions are in the finishing stages, and one just got shipped off. And this painting of the ponies is finally complete. This is one of those paintings that I've had in my head for quite a long time. Finally I had an assortment of photographs that would work for it, and I did an elaborate piecing together of the composition. Thanks to Photoshop, I could arrange and rearrange these guys until I had them where I wanted them.
I love geometry and patterns, and though horses don't always lend themselves to such things, in this case, I was able to create some repeating elements--the helmets, the shirts, the hunt coats. Not all the girls were wearing white shirts, but I wanted the harmony of the repeating triangle of white. The life in the painting comes from the different attitudes and poses of the riders and ponies. I wrestled with the issue of the background--should I indicate some fencing, etc...but this is obviously a scene at a horse show, and it would be awkward to put in just a bit of fencing without indicating all the other stuff in the background, the trailers, the buildings and tents...too busy. I decided to put the emphasis on the shapes and negative shapes of the main subjects.
This weekend is Artists Open Studios of NE Connecticut, and I will have my studio open to the public. A complete list of artists and a map is available at www.aosct.org
