The Cob in Winter

Several years ago I decided to get out of horse ownership. It wasn't an easy decision but it was the right one for me. Regardless....I'll always love horses and cherish my memories of the great experiences we had together. Unfortunately there are few photos of my horses that are suitable for reference in my art work( we didn't have a digital camera then)...so, I rely on my horsey friends to get good shots of their wonderful equine companions to paint.
The photo of this Welsh Cob mare reminds me so much of the winters here with my own mares. Their coats became thick and woolly in preparation for our notoriously long cold season in Maine. The luxurious fur fluffed out on especially cold days and it was such a treat to bury my face in their soft warm necks...in my mind I can still smell the hay and fresh clean scent of them...
This is a 10x12 pastel on terra cotta Colourfix paper(what else!)..Available for purchase as well..

Velvet Night

In an earlier blog about my painting called, "Whispers in the Moonlight", I mentioned that nocturnal paintings have always fascinated me, so I added another book to my growing collection of books on artists called ,"The Color of Night". It's about Frederic Remington and contains 75 of his most well known nocturnal paintings of the American west. After many years of experimentation and constant study Remington became a master technician of the American wild west genre but especially paintings of the night. In the books foreword Earl Powell III of the National Gallery of Art explains why night paintings draw such interest, "...nocturnes thus reflect both the external beauty of night and the internal threat of darkness".

This is a 10 x 12 pastel painting executed on dark blue Colourfix paper. Kathi Peters, my good friend and fellow artist provided the photo of her Welsh Cob mare, Victoria, with her first colt, Legacy. The background scenery and barn don't exist in the photo....I made them up.
"Cut down and out...do your hardest work outside the picture and let your audience take away something to think about..to imagine." Frederic Remington 1903.