Time For Something Personal - Football

I must admit it, I like watching football. I'm no expert, though, or even a fanatic. I don't know all the rules. I don't memorize all the teams and players. And, because of this, I'm sure I ask my husband an annoying amount of questions during a game. But I still find it fun to watch my preferred team make a great play or get a score. Normally I don't really care who wins a game all that much, or even watch all the games. But I'm from the Seattle area so this year it was a bigger deal. The Seattle Seahawks made it to to the Super Bowl so I watched their games all the way through the season. It was nice to see them make it. I watched the game on TV. I cheered on the Seahawks. I'm happy they won. But there it ends for me.

So, even though it was a bigger deal for me this year because it was my state's team that went to the Super Bowl, it wasn't life changing. So I'm a bit baffled as to why so many people's lives seem to revolve around sports, especially football in this country. I don't understand why someone gets so attached to a team they ride an emotional roller coaster through the whole season. I don't understand why someone pays hundreds or thousands of dollars to attend a game. I don't understand why someone would play hooky from work and fight the crowds and traffic to stand in the cold for hours just to get a 2-second glimpse of a player go by at the celebration parade.

If you're one of those people, why do you become "high" when your team wins, or literally depressed when it loses? I've heard stories of people being depressed for days, drinking themselves silly, beating their wives, etc, because "their" team lost. Why? It's not YOUR life. The next day you get up, have your coffee, eat breakfast, and go to work like any other day. Nothing's different for you. So why do you go nuts about it all?

So there's my view on football. It's like watching a TV show. It's entertaining. But when the show's over, I just go about my day as usual. I'll never understand the fanaticism of sports. Please explain, if you can.

 

View of the Seattle streets during the Seahawks

Super Bowl celebration parade - Feb 5, 2014

Western Pleasure Show Horse Portrait

I have done several dressage horse portraits with English tack so I figured it was time for a Western Pleasure horse. Back when I owned horses, I would ride western style, so I was itching to do a western horse anyway. I just love the look of a horse all dressed up in western bridle and saddle, with bits of silver flashing in the sun. Not too much though! I don't like the show gear that has so much glitter you're blinded by the glare! Just a little sparkle here and there is good.

Back in the day ... many, many years ago ...when I used to show in Western Pleasure events we held our horses' heads up. I'm not sure why, in today's shows, the horses put their noses to the ground, having a stretched out, droopy, bum-dragging look. When I used to show, the horse was expected to be collected, with the head picked up, neck arched, and forehead perpendicular to the ground, a bit more like the English Pleasure style of riding today. In memory of those western shows where the horses looked more perked up and lively, I painted my horse here in old style.

 

"Precision"

Sorrel Western Pleasure Quarter Horse

8"x10" oil on Multimedia Artboard

Sometimes You Just Have To Change It!

If you're like me, you spend a lot of time researching your subject before you start painting start it. Then you spend a considerable amount of time sketching it, or doing mock-ups in Photoshop, moving elements around, adjusting the composition, playing with different color schemes, etc. After all that, when you finally finish a section of the actual painting the last thing you want to do is change it! But, alas .... the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray. :(

Sometimes, despite all your planning efforts, it just doesn't come out the way you expected. Or you realize something you didn't think about during your planning stages and it becomes glaringly obvious in the finished product. For a while you try to deny it. Oh, what's the harm? It's just a small part of the painting, anyway. Maybe no one else will notice. Right?

But you know better. You see it flashing at you like a neon sign. No doubt about it, it's just not working.

If you spend a bazillion hours on a painting like I do, you get to a point where you really, really just want to finish it. It's not that you didn't enjoy working on it. But you don't want to feel like you're spending your whole life on one painting. So the last thing you want to do is add more hours by changing something that's already finished. Ugh!

But sometimes you just have to. It's precisely because you put so much time into it that you have to fix it. After spending all those hours on it do you really want to let one little thing diminish the whole painting? No, of course not.


Here, below, is a portion of my recent bluebirds and peaches painting. The first picture is how I originally painted it. But it just wasn't working. The two birds were like mirror images of each other. The lower bird looked too stiff for his downward angle. He looked off balance, like he was about to fall right out of the tree.

 

Now, this was a painful realization for me because those feathers take a long time to paint! Knowing I was going to have to repaint at least some of the bird's body to fix it was hard to swallow. But, it really needed to be done. Here is the revision.

Despite having to repaint the entire wing and body of the bird, I think that little change made a huge difference. Opening the wings just a little made the bird look as if he were balancing his downward angle, perhaps getting ready to fly down from there. The wing casting shadow on the side of his body also gives him more dimension. He looks much more natural now.

Maybe some people would say it's a small thing and not worth all that work. But I feel so much better about the painting overall because of it. And isn't it important that we, as artists, are satisfied and proud of our work, regardless of what others think of it?

And here is the whole painting, finished.

Miniature Paintings - No 45 - Chickadee Charm

Small birds seem to be an ever-popular favorite among the miniature paintings, so her's another one, the charming black-capped chickadee!

"Chickadee Charm"

6"x6" oil on Multimedia Artboard

Original: SOLD

Other small paintings available here

Friesian Horse Painting Off To Friesland!

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and are off to a great start for 2014!

As for me, I'm really excited about a sale I made today. Not only because it's always nice to sell a painting, and not only because it's the first sale of 2014, but I'm excited for other reasons. The painting that sold today was of a Friesian horse, shown here:

 "Friesland Nobility"

20"x24"

Oil on canvas

If you are familiar with horse breeds you will know the Friesian horse originated in Friesland, a province in the northern part of the Netherlands. What makes this sale exciting is that it was purchased by a person visiting the United States all the way from the Netherlands. He's going to take my Friesian horse painting "home", thousands of miles from here, to the horse's country of origin! I just think that's so cool!

Christmas Cardinals Painting

 

Happy Holidays!!

"Christmas Cardinals"

8"x10"

Oil on Multimedia Artboard

Apple Chickadees Greeting Card Version

My Apple Harvest Chickadees painting shown here ...

.... has become a favorite with many of my friends and fans so I thought it would be nice to make these available as notecards as well as prints. This image is already available on Fine Art America as prints and notcards but, because it's a rather busy scene of large dimensions, it's not really suitable as-is for greeting cards. If you take this large painting and scrunch it down onto a 5"x7" greeting card many of the finer details will be lost. Because of that, I decided to digitally alter the painting to extract smaller groups of elements and adjust the size and ratio to better fit on greeting cards. Below are three new versions of apples and chickadees derived from the above painting. These new versions are the right size and ratio for greeting cards. Click on an image to be taken to its Fine Art America page.