Gluttons for Punishment

Caledon Equine Park, Palgrave

The last few weekends have been spent watching horses being put through their paces from jumps to dressage has been interesting. It is a such a large amount of young people all enthusiastic and horses doing their best to please.

The more we visit the less we understand ! However we do  enjoy the whole thing watching many riders,some professional and some amateurs. The atmosphere on the days we have been are relaxed between sessions so it gives us a chance to take photographs for painting and a wander round at the eventing picking out interesting scenes that we like hopefully to become paintings eventually.

My practice painting is horse and rider doing dressage I like to torture myself attempting to make the picture look right, horses feet are a true test of patience along with the gear of straps and saddle with rider on top!
This one was on a sunny day with dark trees and bright earth, colour coming from the sunny day.

John has caught the bug too but likes to include the  scenery! 

The paintings will be ready for vewing in a few days.

Babs

"At the Equine Workshop"

"Concentration at the Workshop" oil on 11x14 board

Granddaughter  Katie at a Equine workshop, which she enjoyed a lot, Jazz her horse has been with her since Christmas and it looks like they have bonded and are very happy with their  partnership.

This is a first painting I have done that includes the rider, so I hope Katie doesn't mind the less than perfect likeness! But with more practice as I will improve!

Happy Birthday, the painting will be delivered ASAP!


Love Babs

"Tribble" the Sleepy Dog

"Tribble" oil on 11x14 board

Palgrave  Eventing  August  10 th

A quick decision to have a day out and we watched the goings on of horse and riders going over the jumps. It was a lovely sunny day and we were ambling around the event John taking pictures. When we spotted this little dog sitting in a Golf cart, it seemed  concentrating on the horses and taking it all in probably working out the Points,
I loved this little scrap of humanity he looked like a friendly Tribble from Star Trek
Babs

Holland Marsh River in Heat!

Holland marsh river at Bradford oil on 18x24 canvas

This is from a photo I took a couple of weeks ago during the hot humid weather of July.
The whole thing has been a challenge and I think it still is a "Work in Progress", it shall go on the "But" wall for a while.
I painted without a drawing, never done that before, just roughed in the general shapes with very thin Burnt Sienna, and then went from there, the challenges were the leaves in the blue sky and the reflections on the water, and now I notice a tree branch in the top right hand corner that will have to come out!
Ah well have to wait till the brown dries.
In the mean time I'm going to tackle two horse and riders.
"Such Fun" as the English say!
John

The Mystique of the Arabian Horse

Oil on 8x8 board

The more you look at horses the more you start to realize how many varieties there are.

The Arabians seem to have long slender necks, smaller noses and to me tend to look very much like a ballet dancer floating and  prancing daintily around the arena. They are very intelligent and take commands eagerly. Their eyes especially look huge having a circle of darker hair around the outer part of the eye, it's quite striking.

This young horse had many shades on the coat, I found the light and darkness made lots of shadows and reflections to blend,but, her stance makes her look graceful and ready for action.

Quote "The horse is a gift from God."

Babs