Yep, a black horse’s butt. On rock. With colored pencils no less! Shown close to actual size. And this is not just any black horse, it’s a Friesian! 
Black Horse Butt
approx. 3 1/4″ x 3 1/4″ colored pencil on sliced rock
can be mounted/framed under glass or displayed in a stand
$35 - Purchase
A lot of artists seem to be capitalizing on the trend of creating a Painting a Day. Not only is this an ingeneous marketing strategy, it’s also a great motivator and anti-procrastinator device. We artists are HORRIBLE for putting things off that we know are hard to begin. Art seems so hard that we often stare at our studio longingly, but not having the courage to always go in there and actually do something. I envy all those who seem to have no end of creative energy and the motivation to get their butts in gear to paint!
So, I was thinking maybe it would be nice if I could commit to a painting a day, for at least a little while anyway. hehehe I do have some rather large projects on the go that need to be finished, so some of my Painting a Day projects will be progress reports on something larger I’m working on that certainly could not be started and finished in the same day. But there are others, little ACEO’s, rock paintings, and such things that could feasibly be created in one day, provided I have no other distractions going on. Sooooooo…..fasten up your seatbelts, folks, it’s gonna be a wild ride! 
If you’d like to be informed ahead of time of new works I’m going to post here, be sure to let me know. All artworks will be sold on a first-come, first-serve basis, so you’ll get a jump start on anyone else. Click here to send me a note to be added to my list.
The first installation in this Painting a Day venture will be this beautiful black Morgan stallion, Knight Kruiser. This was actually a couple day project spanned out in the past month. A little dabble here, a little dabble there. If you like him, let me know! If you want him, email me at sheri@blackhorsedesign.com or call 306-254-4418 to purchase him. He is priced at $280. I accept Paypal, personal checks or postal money orders.
Black Morgan Stallion
12″x16″ pastel on paper
unframed - $280 - Purchase
Breyers! Yes, me, a flat worker, attempting to play with some of these wonderfully collectable little plastic horses. Like most young horse lovers, I too proudly owned one of these realistic horse “toys” when I was a child. It was a Western Prancer, and to me, the most beautiful “toy” I ever owned! Back then, I painted the smokey grey horse into a solid black. (Of course) And he sure got lots of love and play time indeed!
I’ve begun playing around with repainting and customizing these little horses in preparation for someday sculpting and casting my own resin horses.
Below is my first CM Breyer….a repaint of the Breyer Draft Horse Foal from the original light bay to a black-bay. I didn’t sand anything or carve out anything on this one, I just wanted to dive right in and paint it. But on future CM’s I’d like to get more extravagant. I’ve repositioned a Breyer Black Stallion piece that I will soon be carving and painting once I have some materials ordered needed to properly prep it for painting. And after that, perhaps an original sculpture that I can resin cast? We’ll see. What would you guys like to see me do? I’m open to ideas! Also, if any of you out there have any Breyer or Peter Stone body quality models you’d like to pawn off, I may take them off your hands for CM’ing depending on the price. Email me if you have some available.
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Many of you are familiar with the art of Robert Bateman. Mr. Bateman specializes in the art of nature and is particularily known best for his wildlife paintings and his environmental activism.
This past fall I had the honor of being able to attend a three day seminar with this acclaimed master artist in the beautiful and fitting setting of Yellowstone National Park, along with forty other wildlife and nature artists. I will attempt to recap the main highlights of this seminar, as they applied to me and my point of view at this point in my artistic life.
The map room of the Mammoth Hot Springs hotel was befitting of a king. Indeed, I half expected to see the US president walk in at any moment to give a presidential address. The tall ceilings, laid in solid wood panelling, complete with a large wall mural sized wood map of the United States of America, all lent a sense of grandeur to the location. The finishing touch was an American flag adorning the sides of the front of the room where the podium stood. (I spent more than a few minutes watching the play on light as it flitted in and around the undulating curves of the heavy curtains of the oval shaped area.) Of course, the “B-flat”* of the locale was the bugling elk bulls just outside of the very walls where we were all in attendance for this special seminar with Robert Bateman.
The seminar began early Monday morning, after we all had arrived and settled in to our surroundings the evening before. We weren’t sure what the day would bring, whether we would be meeting here and then moving outdoors for photography and hiking, or what. We came prepared for a full day’s hiking. Bob arrived shortly before 10am after his late flight from the night before. For a “famous and acclaimed artist”, he was very humble in both his demeanor and appearance. He carried himself much as I presume he would have during his days as a schoolteacher.
After a brief introduction, he took us right into an autobiographical slide talk. This back story was absolutely essential in understanding his painting style and the “why’s” and “wherefores” of why he paints what he paints. I found it fascinating! I have never studied art history much before this, and I tell you, I received a full education that day and then some. (At least it seemed so to me!) He spoke of many great masters who had influenced his style growing up. Artists such as Vermeer and many more that I’m afraid I can’t remember the names of, but I have heard of them. Many artists were more abstractionists and we learned how this influence is prevalent in his work even today.
We also learned how much of his own personal life has influenced his artistic styles. Things we all can relate to. At least I know I could.
One of his first words of wisdom to us as artists was to get a meal ticket. Whether it be a backup plan or career, something that can support us because it is very difficult to survive on art alone. Many artists do have day jobs or supportive spouses without which they would not be able to spend the time it takes to develop their artistic styles. I know I can say this from first hand experience, for it if weren’t for my darling hubby, I would have had to keep my “day job” and would never have the time to paint. (Although, my stay-at-home “day job” of web design still does take quite a bit of my painting time away from me.)
Bob did say that he wouldn’t recommend that we take art courses in college. They aren’t a necessity, but they can be helpful. The art history learned can be valuable in our perception of the art world and our own artistic interpretations.
He went on to talk about the types of things that make him “slam the brakes on”, both metaphorically and literally. Scenes in daily life that make him mentally slam his brakes on and take notice. He then records those scenes either with photography or sketches, or a combination of both.
One thing I noted is that in describing many of the paintings he was showing us, he related them to musical notes. How the elements of a painting are like an orchestra, and the subject matter being the soloist. A background (orchestra) and the main subject (soloist) should work in harmony together, never competing against each other. In many of his paintings, he likes to save something for that last little bit of POP which he calls the “B-flat” of his paintings. So that his paintings carry a melody that you can almost audibly hear….”dum, dum, dum, dum, DING!”
He also went on to talk to us about some technical aspects of painting. He taught us about the three planes of light - A, B and C. A being the top side of all objects in a painting, C being the darkest side, and B being the middle-light side. The illustration below shows an example of this:
Bob also spoke of values and tones. Good use of tones are very important to a successful painting. Fortunately, he uses the same type of scale that I do so it was right up my alley when he spoke of saving his 10’s for last, for the final bit of POP in something. That he doesn’t use black-blacks in general, he tones them down (or “kills” as he prefers to call it) to an 8 or so. When he’s painting, if something pops too much for his liking, he will kill it by glazing lighter colors over it to push it back into the painting.
An addendum written a bit later than the above…
Now how these little gems of wisdom have affected my own art is yet to be seen. I do pay more attention to abstract elements than before but at the same time, at this time in my life I’m finding myself reflecting a lot on the “why’s” and “why bothers” of life. Much like the words of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes, much in life is vanity and chasing after the wind. I’m hoping I can paint my way through this difficult time as I struggle with finding meaning and purpose in all that we do in this lifetime. (Ironically, I am Christian and look forward to the new world to come under Christ, but what are we to do in the meantime that’s of any real lasting value? What can I, as an artist, do to help the world in a most positive way?)
