Category: horses

Back in the Saddle Again

©2010 Dora Sislian Themelis
Last week I mentioned that I missed the deadline for the Virtual pARTy painting entry.  Not a problem, no biggie, no hassle, no judgement, no criticism.  I was cool with that.  I just decided to paint the photo that was offered anyway, remembering the process was important, not the deadline or the result.  Cool as a cucumber.  I went ahead except for a little thinking first. 
I’m itching to try out the new watercolor paper I bought after you wonderful, helpful readers made suggestions, but I didn’t.  Being a practical person, I bought a good size block of Arches paper rather than a tiny one to try.  I’d rather spend money on a good sized 12×16 block rather than a smaller size paper and feel frustrated by the constraints of the size.  
I tend to paint big no matter what size surface I’m using.  I still have more of the other paper and it seems to me to be a waste if I start using the new paper, fall in love maybe, and then I’m stuck with paper I might not want to use again.  The paper I have is a weird size too and didn’t pay attention to that until I wanted to matte a few things. 
Before I sketched this horse photo onto the old paper I took some time to figure out what size I might want to end up with.  When matting and framing it’s much easier to work with stock sizes.  So when I decided to think about my frame edge and paint within that area, with the idea that a matte, or frame, could butt into my composition.  Ahh!  The brain is working!
With the frame edge penciled off, I went ahead to composition, eliminated too many subjects from the original photo.  I like to leave some areas flat as a part of the composition.  Then there are colors in this photo I wouldn’t normally use, so I enjoyed playing with them.  Orange is not my favorite, but I think I was able to use it my way by mixing in other colors my brain tends to go for anyway.  It’s good to distract that pesky brain because when it’s working it shuts up.
Am I finished?  Not sure.  I’ll look at it later and see if I want to play with it more or move on.  So for now I’m back in the “saddle.”  I crack myself up!

The Virtual pARTy Painting

Belletor in Winter, Watercolor (c)2010 The Artist
I came across a fellow blogger/etsy/artist’s post a couple of weeks ago about something called the “virtual pARTy” while meandering around the etsy forums where we meet and talk about art and techniques.  Artist Kathleen Roeth, aka tapestry316, paints horses and she commented about this art party thing one day.  Well, I’m not an animal person much less a horse person, nor am I that interested in painting them, but the idea of joining in on this idea seemed like a good departure from the bagpipe work.   In fact, I was so tired of the bagpipe I had put it aside and started throwing paint on the paper with no particular plan just to get away from it.  After I saw this horse posting I jumped at the chance to paint something new and out of my comfort zone.
The way the virtual pARTy works is a photo is presented during a set time and the artist has 24 hours to start and complete the work in the medium of their choice.  When it’s done you upload the painting to the blog.  When the week is over the blog owners put up the entries for viewing. 
The result of my work is ok.  I wasn’t really interested in the outcome.  It felt good to clear my head and look at a different scene with new colors.  I played with color mixing, different brushes and the strokes they make.  I had never tried to paint snow and tried to keep my white spaces white.  Now that I have great info on paper quality from you helpful readers, I can see how better paper could make the difference in a work.  Obviously, I’m going to have to go shopping for paper before I start the next piece. 
All in all, I’m glad I found the virtual pARTy and decided to go for it.  Why not?  It’s all good.