Fur In The Paint

I’ve got a couple of good excuses as to why I haven’t been posting new artwork. Honest First of all, I finished up my article for the next issue of Apples N’ Oats magazine, a week early! That’s two times in a row. WhooHoo! Also been doing loads of bookwork, like preparing my sales tax figures. Not really a whoohoo, but nice to get it done. And then of course, tis the season for the gallery to get busy. So now that I feel perfectly righteous in my slacking off with the art thing, I thought I would go ahead and show you some of what I have been doing art-wise.

I am putting aside my draft horse by the trailer and moving on. He is almost done and I am sure I will finish him up some time this week. I am hankering for a change. So on this past Sunday, I got three different non-horse critters drawn out. The one that is calling to me the most is this, an Alaskan Brown Bear. I was actually looking for a small bear image to put onto handmade paper, but when I ran across this photo I had an Aha! moment.

So I decided to go large-ish. And of course to add to the challenge, I not only used a reference photo with water, but also decided to move his legs around. This is a zoo bear and it is overweight. Or I may have taken this photo in the fall when it was gaining for hibernation. But it is still more pudge than I want. I am not sure that my painting will reflect any particular season, so best shed a few pounds. I imagine it would be hard to keep a captive bear at its ideal weight. I mean it’s not like zoo bears are running after elk or anything.

I don’t think I am completely satisfied with this pose. I most likely will extend the foremost, hind leg back farther. This will help give him more movement and not make such a straight line along the edge of my painting. Also I may raise a front paw as well, leaving it slightly held in the air. Not sure, but I don’t like the square, boxy shape that I have right now.

Well, it has been a chaotic ten days or so. Budda has been sick. We’ve had multiple vet trips (the last one we traveled an hour away to get some blood work done.) He quit eating. Not entirely, but only a handful of pieces of cat food per day. He normally consumes about 2 cups. I even offered canned stuffs, not cheapo ones either. He got Fancy Feast chicken and cheese soufflé. Let me tell ya, I think had I nuked it and put it on a plate, Mike would have eaten it. Anyway, I have never had an animal with this sort of problem. After much $$$ turns out he is healthy. Or should I say, disease or organ problems were not the cause. Best professional guess is, he was partially impacted in the gut. As long as he ate something, it was a wait and see. Had he stopped eating entirely, it probably would have meant surgery. The good news is, he is back to being ravenous and is bouncing off the walls. (literally)

The other thing is, I have a patron coming on Saturday to pick up one (maybe two) original paintings. I’m not sure how far it is from Ohio to Iowa, but I figured I should at least clean the cat hair off from everything. Thus my blogging and art making has suffered a bit this week. I’ve got plans, though I imagine it will be a few days before I am back to doing anything artsy.

So for today, this is all I have to offer. I am not completely satisfied with my trailer, as of yet. I kinda wanted it to be very subtle and it is a little too prominent for my taste. (though in this photo it is very washed out. I think my camera flashed and I didn’t notice.) Also, I want to darken his butt and neck area up a bit. Give him even more pop. And lastly, I haven’t come up with a name for him yet. Field Day perhaps? I’ve done too many draft horse paintings to be creative with their titles anymore. As always any comments or suggestions are welcome.

Latest WIP
Here’s the latest work in progress. The color is way over saturated but you get the idea. The coloration from the previous post is much closer.

I will post How To Frame Oil Pastels Part3 tomorrow.

The Shire
I was watching the end of BBC America World News (waiting for Kitchen Nightmare’s to begin) and they had a small segment on the Shire horse breed. The Shire has been a symbol of British heritage for centuries. Currently though, they are dieing out faster than they are replacing themselves. It has been projected that they may become extinct (in the UK) within 10 years, unless something is done. The good news is, the global gene pool is strong.

I must say I am surprised in this day and age of cloning, embryonic transfer and frozen sperm, that extinction in a domestic animal was even possible.

It seems, that currently the Shires that are being bred, are primarily for show purposes. Oddly enough, those people who are actually interested in getting a good work horse are buying Percherons. The French have national studs and work hard to promote their breed. It is estimated that they need at least 300 Shire fillies born each year to maintain the status quo. Last year 150 fillies were born and 50 mares were exported, so only an additional 100 mares were added to the population. Unless steps are taken, the Shire may go the same way as the Suffolk, and fade into history.

The photo here, is of a handsome shire stallion, taken at the MN Horse Expo a couple of years back.

From Concept to Creation
This oil pastel, is as of yet, un-named. I am considering a couple of things, but nothing is firm. The size is currently 16×23.

I don’t think I realized just how much my artwork was influenced by compositional elements, until I started my artist journal, followed by the magazine articles and now the blog. I have always been sort of a visceral artist. I never really devoted great deals of thought, about how and why I do what I do. But since I have been keeping a constant written commentary about my artwork and how it’s created, I have really learned a lot about myself and my work.

Composition
It is the simple looking portraits that rely heavily on composition to make them interesting. It becomes about form and line, pattern and negative space.

The real desire for doing this painting was (as always) the horse. I love him. He is part of a matched team of Percherons that I had seen at two different events last summer. This guy in particular is stunning. I followed him around like a groupie, madly snapping pictures. His expressive eye and head shape are simply gorgeous. The reference photos below, are from both events. These are my main photo references for this painting. But I have around 20 others on my drafting table to look at for various reasons. Including another team that I photographed 15 some odd years ago, at a pull in South Dakota.

I could say putting him in front of a steel trailer, was totally a commentary on the draft horse’s usefulness in todays society, as most drafts aren’t really workers anymore. But in truth, I liked the compositional elements of the geometric shapes, set against his soft curves. I chose a roached mane (shaved close to the neck) because it strengthened the vision of that iconic working horse. And I will put him against the steel trailer (actually, it is probably aluminum) because of the symbolism it represents.

Subtle Differences
I spent around 20 hours draw time on him. This would seem to me a good argument for projecting. That being said, I made several small changes that I would not have been able to do, unless I had the ability to draw what I see. So please, learn to draw first, then project when necessary.

Most of the draw time was spent on the harness, which always takes a huge amount of time to get right. Also, I changed my mind in-process and had to re-draw the collar area. At first, my drawing didn’t have the reins draped over the hames of the collar. I thought it made the image too complex. But once I decided to removed the bridle and to roach the mane, suddenly it needed them there to add interest. I also changed the harness from a modern BioThane to a leather. I just love a horse that looks like it works for a living.

Quick Tip
I cannot draw a horse facing left, from a photo of a horse facing right. A person who is more photoshop loving than I, could just scan it in, flip the image, print it out and tah da! But being more lazy than that, I just held the photo face up to my table light, and drew from the ghost image on the back. All I really needed was the basic shapes. I have used my lamps to reverse the image many times. Extremely quick and quite effective.

So here’s the latest on my work in progress (WIP) on Catch’s portrait. I am totally loving working with watercolor pencils again. But it is really kinda of hard on my hands. The callus that was on my index finger from years of being a pencil artist, has all but disappeared in the past two years of working in oil pastel. Maybe it’s because I am getting older and my joints can’t take the stress like before. Or maybe it is just because I am going at it full tilt, and working 4-7 hours at a whack every day, (having too way much fun to stop.) But my hands are all achy and crampy. Sigh.

Anyway, here’s the worst bit. So I go and stand by my husband who is working on the computer, and say something similar to the above paragraph, but with a whining intonation. He briefly glances at me. I hold up my hand in a claw-like gesture like I’m some B-movie villian, to impress upon him the severity of my condition. Mike, never one to pander to my whining, rolls his eyes, looks back to the computer and says “Well babe, there’s a reason you switched to oil pastels.” Humph! Maybe I’ll go talk to the cat.

I had big plans on doing a proper post today, about watercolor pencils. But as I am feeling a bit under the weather it will have to wait until tomorrow. I did however, get the go-ahead on my new horse painting, a portrait of Catch. The painting is currently 15″ x 22.” This size may change because my compositions usually expand and contract as I work.

I had completely forgotten (or blocked from my memory perhaps?) The amount of effort required in layering in the color. This represents about 8 hours of work, and the face is not yet completed. However, I am having a blast working with the pencils again. I love the effects that they provide. And apparently, I also forgot how much fun, being anal about all the tiny little hairs was. (Sigh, its like coming home.)

Work in Progress The Earthmovers
Copyright by Mona Majorowicz

Hmm, perhaps a more accurate title is, To The Tax Man We Go-eth.

Anywho, I have spent much of today neck deep in paper work. Our appointment with the accountant is less than 48 hours away. Yikes!

Now, I am a woman who is all about the numbers. Since knowing where we really stand business-wise can mean the difference between eating or not. Plus, I love statistics and inventories and records of what sells, when and where. I also track both my website and blog statistics eagerly.

That being said, I really (really, really) dislike going to the accountant. Not so much because I am worried or nervous. Its just because my business is … well … my business. This is my life and my passion. It is my blood, sweat and tears laid out before me, in all its numerical black and white glory. So then, to have a relatively complete stranger rifling through my private affairs, looking at it with cool impassionate eyes and making judgments, is hugely disturbing.

It kinda reminds me of those TV fashion police shows where the fashion experts rummage through their victims underwear drawers. All the while making comments. Until inevitably they pull out a pair. And holding them up high, they exclaim in horror. “What is this!”

Yeah, it’s exactly like that.

I thought I would address how to paint hair (in this case a horse’s coat) with oil pastels. I plan to also blog about doing horse hair in water soluble pencil in the near future. I tend to work with oil pastels in a more impressionistic way, than I do in water soluble pencils. So creating a fur coat is less about putting in every little hair and more about directing line and color to achieve the visual effect of hair. I took a few WIP (work in progress) shots of my current painting for illustration. (I apologize for the lousy dark photos. I am still new to using Mike’s digital camera.) Since I am a sectional painter, (meaning, I like to work on one small area at a time and finish it, before moving on) the photos are of a small section of the whole painting.

To begin with, I need to have a fairly comprehensive drawing. Oil pastels stain my substrate (which is 100% cotton rag museum board) so I need to have a good idea of what I am placing where, to avoid complications from having the wrong color in the wrong place. It is possible to scrape off a certain amount of color, but in general it wouldn’t work to have too great a color shift. The underlying stain would show through any similar value color as well as anything lighter, placed over the top.

Also, I don’t use turpenoids for blending. You get can get some great effects with turps. Like subtle blending or for painting with a brush. However, I love the mark making that using the straight oil pastel gives. I rely on laying color next to color to achieve my goals. Nearly all of my blending is done with the pastels themselves.

First Thing: I do is lay in my darks. In this case, black and darkest grays. Though it has a random scribbley look to it. I lay my lines in the direction that the horse’s hair coat runs.

Step Two: I add the mid-tone ranges of grays. I also add the periwinkle and ginger colors now. (one of my favorite color combinations) In this applications the gingers add warmth and the periwinkle provides pop.

Step Three: This is where I put in the lightest grays, creams and sparingly … white. White, much like black, when used in excess can make a painting look flat and lifeless. However when used properly, you can achieve great contrast and highlights. Some blending and overlay is good. Too much though and you’ll have mud.

Lastly: Go back in and do whatever needs to be done. Often this is re-establishing the darks, if they get blended out too much. In this painting I added royal purple in my darks to again add zing. Also, there are always little bits of board showing through where I didn’t get the colors completely blended. So I rub these out using a shaping tool or my finger. Then I move onto the next section.

I have been working with oil pastels for a couple of years now. At this point, a lot of what I do is almost done without thought. Working quickly, I just let the creative energy flow through me while I put in colors. Then at some point I just realize that it is done. It looks like it is supposed too. Anyway, that is how it is supposed to happen (when the stars are aligned and all is right in the heavens.) Sometimes, I can work it and work it and it still doesn’t come out right. Then, the wisest course of action is to either stop for awhile or move on to a completely new area. That is what I did with this painting. The left hand dark horse hasn’t worked out the way I envisioned it. So, I moved on to the gray horses. Now that I am happy with them, I feel more confident to go back in and rework the dark horse.

In the next few days, I will cover oil pastels further. What they are, where you can get them and offer some tips for using them.

Mouse over the image above to compare them.

I am on the whole more pleased with the new composition. The image went from a 17 1/4 x 25 1/2 to a 16 x 30. I always try to work on a board larger than what I think my image will be so that I can choose to change things. This is especially important when I am still working out a composition. I have never really been the type to do thumbnail sketches. I have tried them but it just never gave me enough information to make any real decisions.

The plan for today is to begin to lay in color. I also have to finalize my plans for the tack. I have to say the new kitten has been a boost for my state of mind, but not so much for my productivity. He keeps me on my toes and yes it’s worth it.

This is my drawing thus far, for my new horse piece, tentatively called The Gladiators. I am not completely happy with it so I’ll be making some changes to it yet before I begin to lay in the color. I plan to show this painting through it’s various stages of creation. This is something I do quite a bit actually. If you would like to see the stages of creation for some of my other paintings, visit my artist journal on my website.

What I have so far.
I always start out with a completed drawing. I work primarily in oil pastels which have staining properties. What that means to me is that if a put a glaringly wrong color in. I most likely will not be able to lift enough of it off to make corrections. So all major decisions need to be made before I begin with the color.

The inspiration for this piece came from a couple of different sources. First, the Minnesota Horse Expo last year had a chariot pulled by four Friesians. (Enough to make a horse painters heart go pitter pat.) That had been simmering around in my head when I attended the Albert City Threshermens event this year. There, they always have people movers pulled by four drafts. This year they had a particularly handsome foursome of Percherons. (again, with the pitter pat.) So this is a creative hybrid. I have not really decide whether they will look like Friesians or Percherons or just be big dark horses. I am leaning towards not making them too much one or the other. I am also pondering medieval tack. (That may be just a little bit too much.)

Where I’ll go from here.
I am reasonably happy with the two horses on the left. But I think the two right hand horses are too small. Whats really bothering me though, is the negative space. (Essentially the background area) I just don’t like the shape of it. Some of this issue will be helped by enlarging the two horses. But something more has to be done. I’ll rest on it and see what brilliant insight comes tomorrow.