Wild Horses of Nevada

I realize that Nevada is not the only state to have wild horses.  According to Wild Horse Facts at http://www.tide-mark.com/horses_facts.html  "Wild horses in North America live on islands off the Atlantic coast, as well as on the mainland. Small populations of horses live on Sable Island (Canada), Assateague Island (coast of Maryland and Virginia), Shackleford Island (off the coast of North Carolina) and Cumberland Islands (off the coast of Georgia). As well as the following western states including Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Oregon, California, Colorado, Idaho, Arizona, Montana, North Dakota and New Mexico."

Nevada is however the state with the largest population of wild horses and burros and so it isn't uncommon to be treated to a sighting of these magnificent creatures when driving anywhere in the state.  Several months ago, Brad and I took the opportunity to take a drive to Goldfield and while out exploring the area just North we came upon a small herd of wild horses.  We took some great pictures of them and I knew that I would be painting wild horses very soon.  

Today was the day and so I pulled out a 24 x 36 inch canvas and started working on my composition.  As you can see by my painting in progress shot, the work has only just begun.  This particular mare in the photograph that I am working from appeared to be an Appaloosa I believe at the time of our visit she had a young colt following her.  I love the angle of the photo and the two lone Joshua Trees in the background.

I have only roughed in the background and sketched my mare in with pencil.  I am struggling with the vast openness of this canvas and just how to make the composition interesting.  I believe that I am going to make the mare larger and add that colt so that the idea of how that generations of wild horses have been roaming the desert of Nevada for over 100 year.

Here are a few more pictures that we took of this herd.

What I learned in my first painting lesson

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of taking my first real painting lesson.  I wasn't sure what was expected, so I took not only a blank canvas, but a quick painting that I had started recently.  I thought it would be a good idea to ask her opinion on the piece.  Of course, when you ask a fellow artist for an opinion, you have to be ready to receive an answer.  She started out with "Your mountains look good, BUT..."  then followed about 10 items that I had done incorrectly.  I watched as she made some changes with her brush and knew she was pointing out the things I too have criticized about my own work.  Below, I have included a before and after the lesson and then summarized many of the things I learned.  I would love to hear if you find any of this helpful.

1.  With large bodies of water you have to break it up to make the composition interesting.  The farther the water is away the darker it will appear.  Never use white unless you are painting waves with foam like you would see when painting an ocean scene.  Adding white to many of the bright colors result in not brightening but rather causing a graying of the color.  With water it is better to paint lines of lighter blue.  Cobalt and Cerulean make a nice color for the water for the closer to the shore but Ultramarine Blue is a wonderful color to paint the water in the distance.  Always paint water strokes horizontal to the horizon.

2.  The detail on the distant shore like should be more impressionistic.  In this painting, my shore line is too straight and the trees are too even.  Adding blue highlights to the distant shore gives the appearance of the distance

3.  My clouds were mixed with White, Paynes Gray and Cerulean Blue.  Lily recommended that I mix a purple gray shade for contrasting clouds.  She mixed a very small amount of Alizorin Crimson with Cerulean Blue and white.  The smallest touch of Paynes Gray gave a light shade of gray purple color that made my clouds pop.  The clouds also were too uniform and needed variation of the edges with break offs.  Lily referred to a tickling the clouds as she painted and then used a hake brush to blend dark to light with light sweeping strokes.

4.  Compositional the dead tree that extends from the bottom of the canvas takes away from the painting by drawing your eyes down to the edge.  Lily immediately began taking the lower portion of the tree away by painting the lake water and rocks over that area.   It was decided to leave the upper portion of the tree and add some sparse foliage to add to the feeling that the tree is dying.  This change allowed the reflection of the trees in the water to better be seen.

5.  The trees on the distant shore would not have such a highlights so we removed them and made the shore line irregular in shape.

6.  Over and over I have tried to break my habit of painting rocks that look smooth and round like all rocks on the earth's crust have been polished smooth by the ocean.  Lily pointed out that the shadow from the trees would result in just dark shapes of the rocks and not highlighting.  Also we broke up the rocks by creating sharp edges and removing the white highlighting.  She would paint dark paint with an angle brush, then use lighter painting to focus the edges of the rocks and then again with the dark to establish the bottom and cracks in each rock. I also learned that a good dirt color contains yellow.  Burnt Sienna, yellow, paynes gray and white will make a really good dirt color.

7.  The original rocks that I had painted and that extended out into the water appeared to be magically floating on the water surface.  We painted a group of them out but decided that a little grouping of rocks jetting out of the water added interested and broke the water up in the composition.  Lily shared a trick of painting the rock and then coming back in and cutting the rock by adding the water line about 2/3 down.  This allowed the remainder of the rock below the surface to appear as a reflection.  Then you come back in and add horizontal lines to across the reflection to give the appearance of water shimmering.  We also painted a number of very small rocks where the water and shore line met to give the impression of a rocky shoreline.

8.  The island needed to extend out to give the appearance of depth.  We added an additional line of rocks that gives the impression of the island extending on around rather than ending in a sharp edge.

The final result is what I believe to be a much better painting.  I'm just SO excited to be taking lessons and can't wait to work on the new oil painting that I started.

Painting lessons

I think there comes a time in the evolution of artistic growth that you have to receive actual lessons from other successful artists. Today is that day for me. I feel that to accelerate my skill to a higher level, it is necessary to take some lessons and so I have schedule a session with a wonderful local artist, Lily Adamczyk. To check out her work, just follow this link to her gallery album.  https://plus.google.com/photos/114822472710447410577/albums?banner=pwa

Her skill in painting landscapes far exceeds my own and so I am looking forward to my 2 hour painting session with her today. She asked me last night what I wanted to work on during my lesson today and my reply was that I needed to improve specific landscape elements such as water, rocks and clouds. I really feel that I am going to learn a great deal from Lily and so I am going to blog each week about my lessons and share my accomplishments. Right now I'm looking at a blank canvas, white and empty but full of potential. My Saturday stretches before me and I can only dream of that completed piece that will soon emerge. I think that is the magic of painting...the possibility of transforming that blank canvas into a work of art.

Joshua Trees are not Trees

You can't consider capturing the rugged beauty of the Mojave Desert without at some point making a study of the Joshua Tree...I always considered that the Joshua tree to be part of the cactus family. I mean the desert is full of cactus and succulents and you would assume that this spiny tree must fit in there some where. This morning I am waking up in Yucca Valley, California after a night of heavy rain, inspired by the raw beauty of the Joshua Tree that is standing outside my room. I hadn't noticed that the spines actually have a blue green tint with just a hint of silver, rather than what my memory sees as a much darker shade of green, almost an olive green.

After consulting the Joshua Tree National Forest website, which I would consider to be a very reliable source, I learned that for many years the Joshua Tree was considered to be part of the lily family. Who would have guessed that one? As I read on I find that recently, some really smart people, working from some government grant obviously, decided to test that assumption and after some DNA testing we are now educated and informed because the Joshua Tree is really part of the Agave family. This information confirms what I have always known in my heart....The Joshua Tree can't be a lily!

Regardless of the genealogy, surname or classification, the Joshua Tree is a main feature in the landscape in the desert that I call home. You won't paint many desert landscapes without having to consider the irregular and spiny shape of this desert plant along with it's very close relative, the Yucca. Both plants have beautiful spears covered with greenish white flowers in the spring. I found this website to be very informative and covered the very interesting details about where it got it's name and the important relationship it has with the yucca moth.

Early in my return to painting I tried to capture a scene at beautiful Red Rock State park. I'm inspired today to reprint this scene because in the past two years of constant painting, I have improved my techniques.

 

Here is a more recent painting that I have completed that contains a yucca plant in it. 

Protective Love

Twice on my road trip across Kansas and Nebraska, I have come upon a sight that will undoubtedly become a painting in the near future. Beautiful brick silos that have outlived their original purpose of grain storage for some hardworking farming family and who now is a protective shelter to what started out as a small sapling. Years of being protected from the harsh elements has resulted in the growth of a full grown tree. At some point the height of the tree exceeds the tallest point and has now broken through the ruins of what once was the roof and now the height of its branches are far protruding and cascading over the shelter that once completely surrounded it. This picture makes me mindful of the protection available to all of us who are called sons and daughters of a Heavenly Father whose greatest joy is to surround his children in his protective love.

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." Psalms 91:1-2

Frustration to Fruition

How long is it in an artists evolution before painting becomes so natural that you no longer hesitate to achieve the perfect grass, trees or rocks? I mean these are the staple to any good landscape.  Here is an example of my question-I started a 24 x 36 inch painting of a series of grass covered hills and find myself painting over my grass twice now and I'm still not happy with the results. This bothers me is that I went to bed frustrated and woke up this morning feeling even more frustrated about this painting. Even if I don't go back into the studio today, I know the half finished painting is there and so are those grassy hills that just don't seem right.

 I find myself still painting at times out of order and thinking to myself, "How long before this process of creating a painting becomes natural and EASY?" I know that I try to paint too quickly and don't spend enough time really thinking about where I am going with my composition, otherwise I wouldn't still be painting a tree before I've finished my background. I think better planning out the steps of my painting will help me with this. I always know the basic subject matter that I am going to paint but I don't spend enough time focused on the steps needed to achieve that painting. The one I am working on now started out well enough.  You can see the progression of the painting as I follow these steps:

STEP 1-Sky is painted w/clouds.

STEP 2-Lay base layer for the distant rolling hills.

STEP 3- Paint the distant grass details on those hills.

 (It is in Step 3 and find that painting this much grass with my fan brush is time consuming, painful to my back and makes me very tired.  This is the step that I rushed through because a 24 x 36 canvas covered with grassy hills gets tiring and then I thought I would like the way the grass looks better if I paint the foreground trees. MISTAKE.

STEP 4- Paint details of grass, dead tree and shrubs in the foreground and maybe add a deer as an additional focal point. 

 Not yet finished because I still need to add much of the foreground details which include the tall grass, the road and the dead tree. I added the deer last night and I think he looks great if I can say so myself.  This one probably will be several more weeks before I feel it is completed and ready to be added to my gallery page, but at least I find myself today warming up to it.

The road is steep here because of the hilly terrain and the overgrown shrubbery hides your view as it descends down the other side.  You can only see a hint of it as it continues around the grassy slopes covered in summer wildflowers.  Suddenly, you stop dead in your tracks as you notice that you have just startled a young buck feeding on the tall grass and you know that at anytime he will bolt but for this moment you both are frozen as you stare in awe and try to memorize the ripples of his muscle, the shade of his fur and the number of points on his rack.  If this painting makes you feel this way, then I have succeeded in transforming my Frustration into Fruition.

Imitation is Flattery

This week I realized that someone has been watching me.  Not like stalking, but watching my progression as an artist and I believe that I have inspired that person to follow their own art passion.  When I received the invitation to  read their blog and check out their Weebly website, it began to dawn on me that these are the same steps I took.  Even down to joining their communities local artist guild.  When I started thinking that I might actually be able to achieve that life long dream of becoming artist, I didn't have a real clear idea of just  what the first steps should be, but I knew that painting every free moment to develop and improve my skills certainly needed to be at the top of the list.  So painting I have done and I can look around my home and find past paintings staked all around and hanging in every room.  Painting, however is just a part of the whole successful picture.  You need unrelated people who want to stare at your work in amazement and not just step over it as they move from room to room.

Both networking and marketing are also vital in becoming a  successful artist.  To really network, I first figured that I had to start rubbing elbows with other artists and find out what the opportunities in Las Vegas were for me.  I got up my courage and I joined the local art guild a year and a half ago.  Crazy person that I am, I now find myself their treasurer, workshop director and this month keeping their website updated was added to my growing list of guild responsibilities.  I also asked artists on facebook to become my friend so that I could constantly be inspired by amazing artwork each morning when I log in.  It is almost as if I have the pleasure of attending a gallery opening each and every day.  So at this time,  I think I have the area of networking covered.

My marketing plan has been also a time consuming process.  I soon learned that all successful artists seem to have both a blog and a website and many have newsletters.  I think it is very important to figure out right away what your internet niche is, so that you and your art work can stand out.  One dear artist friend on facebook, Nancy Medina, paints the most amazing flowers and lives in Flower Mound, Texas.  She blogs about her 3 pug dogs and sells painting faster then she can clean her brushes.  There are artists who specialize in equestrian art and are always posting pictures of themselves out in some remote desert or pasture, with their plein air, french style easel looking great while wearing cowboy boots and jeans.  The artist that helped me get started by providing amazing online lessons so that I could learn to paint clouds, trees, and mountains just like Tim Gagnon.  His style is unique and his trees and clouds are amazing.  I could watch his Youtube videos for hours.  It is a toss up between him and the late Bob Ross.

So for over a year I have studied and watched other artists to realize today that now I have someone watching and following my own steps.  It is a rather humbling realization but on the same hand I feel so complimented.  I must be doing something right.

So here I am...a 50 year old church accountant, wife, mother to six and a soon to be grandmother of 5 trying to find a niche that will set me apart from all the other artists that are trying to survive in an economy where people are spending their savings on paying bills and necessity rather than spending it on works of art.  You have to self analyze and dig deep.  What really excites you?  For me, I have always loved the state of Nevada.  From the first time, almost 34 years ago when my soon to be husband took me out and we found the ruins of an old mining operation near Sandy Valley, I have been hooked.  I love history and this huge state is chalked full of pieces of history scattered all over, waiting to be discovered.  It is a rockhounding, history buff and yes, an artists dream come true.  So there is my angle...I'll be a Nevada artist, and spend my rest of my days trying to capture the essence of Nevada with some paint on a canvas.