A Busy Life! - but Inspiring!

We are so inspired by the Equine world that we have taken on too many paintings plus a couple of commissions and we need to prioritise!
Babs' easel is on the right and mine on the left and we are both working on horse pictures plus one old house for me.
And on top of that we are spending our weekends at the Equine centre looking for more inspiration, and it keeps on coming!

So today it will be the Old House for me and for her the "Grazing Hunter".

And then we have to weed out the mint patch and take down the canopy over the deck, Fall is with us, slight frost in some places this morning.

John

Loosy Goosy and Mrs Uptight !

"Walking to the Start" by John oil on 16x20 canvas

"Dressage" by Babs oil on 11x14 board

Having worked at painting for a few years now we both know we have developed a different style in the way we paint. It's been frustrating and interesting seeing how our practice pictures as we call them are morphing into a pattern over the past few weeks. We had different like and dislikes in what we painted.
Recently we have had some success painting a variety of horses.

John decided to join me in an experiment going to a few Equine events at Caledon Equine Park just to see what happens and to get a feel for the atmosphere and taking pictures. We worked on an idea for both of us to paint similar scenes, however, John is more  interested in scenes of horses and riders preparing for the event while I am practising more on the team (horse and rider) must add we know nothing about the actual Sport so it 's been fun learning about the skills necessary to take the shots and time the jumps or watching dressage with concentration.

We are posting two pictures to show you what we have achieved so far, of course with some artistic license!
Jumps are incredible to watch but for working to make the horse shine we decided to eliminate some  equipment they have on the field for jumping its almost like a jigsaw puzzle!  and dressage a lot of concentration for shots.

The Caledon Equine Park is in a beautiful location, magnificent sky bordered by lovely forests which both add to the final picture!

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