OSWOA art card, Rocky Mountain Front

OSWOA original small works of art, are a new movement on ebay, patterned after the successful ACEO cards. OSWOA cards are 4X6 or 6X4 in size. If you'd like to purchase some original fine art, these cards would look great framed on your walls.

To see all the artists who participated in the launch for these cards, click the title of this entry, it's a link to the official OSWOA website. Type OSWOA into the search bar of ebay when you want to see all the OSWOA cards that are for sale. You'll see every style and medium of art you like, just like you can with the aceo cards.

I call this painting, "The Changing of the Gaurd" as the seasons are changing on the Rocky Mountain Front, much like the gaurd changes at the Palace! It's an orderly procession that happens with precision ...
donna

A true Grizzly bear story.

I grew up with Leanne Haynes and went to school with her in Dupuyer, so I was surprised when I did a google search for grizzlies at Dupuyer and found her name in this story.

We were visiting with a rancher near Choteau, MT, yesterday. He told us another story about a grizzly bear sow and her three cubs.

He had some Hutterite boys who worked for him. These boys wanted to see a grizzly bear. He told them one day, he'd seen a sow and her three cubs down by the county road. The boys jumped into the back of the pickup with their cameras and they headed out to see the bear.

This sow grizzly was walking along parallel to the road and there was a fence in between the truck and the road. The bear suddenly charged the pickup. The rancher poured the coal to the truck and spun out in the road as he drove off. One of the boys was at the back tailgate, snapping pictures of the grizzlies gaping mouth, the other boy was trying to break the back window of the truck to get in.

The rancher was a little worried, wondering if he'd get them out of harm's way in time. When the sow turned back to her cubs, she gathered her babies up and headed for the hills. One little cub stopped in mid flight to get another look at the people and the truck. He stood up with his front paws in the air and his head high.

The mom bear realized he was missing, and she spun around, ran back to him, cuffed him right and left and took off for the hills again. The chastized cub kept up with the rest of the family and they disappeared from sight.

Donna

Hewlett Packard printer, Vivera inks.

Click the title link to learn more about Vivera Inks.

I always used Epson printers in the past. I've discovered something new! My epson quit me, wouldn't roll the paper through any longer. I was desparate and I didn't want to wait forever to get a new printer as I have prints for sale and have to be able to make new ones as needed.

I went to good old walmart and checked out the printers, I was madly searching for archival inks and a printer that would scan my artwork and print out my photos. Lo and behold, or hold and below and as one of my old friends used to say, I found an HP printer that would use archival inks. Tested to last 108 years or more!

Didn't think I could go wrong so I brought the printer home and tried it. I absolutely love the colors, and the quality of prints and photos I'm getting with this printer.

If I wear the printer out, as I will in a year or so, I can buy another right downtown. How handy is that? And the quality is amazing! I've never made such beautiful prints before.

I posted some aceo photos on ebay today. The colors are clear and gorgeous. You can see them above.
donna

2 ACEO cards. Black horses. Oil paintings.

I've been practising my black horses. Takes a lot of color to make a black horse look black and not like a blob. These two will be on ebay tonight.
donna

White Mule and the Bay

This mule and horse were grazing together near the Bob Marshall Wilderness. We found them in the Benchmark area, west of Augusta. I think they belong to an outfitter up there, they were really used to people.
donna

Owl and Morgan Portrait, ACEO card oil paintings.

Two very different subjects! The horse on top, is a portrait I did for someone. The owl is just for fun. He looks like my grandpa Allen did. He has such fierce eyebrows and such a beak for a nose!
donna

Copyright

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
An excellent article on copyright myths.

I used to belong to a group called the Equine Arts Protection League. You can find them, if interested through a google search.

All of this will tie together and make sense, I promise. I'm going to visit with you a little bit about copyright law.

When you see an artist posting their work on the internet, advertising in a publication, handing you a business card with their work on it, know this. The artist is not doing this to "give" you their image. The artist is going to the expense of advertising for the purpose of selling his work. It costs us time and money to put our work before the world. When we take time away from painting, to do advertising, it costs us money....

We do this with the purpose of "selling" our work so we can make a living. It keeps us off the streets. It keeps us off the welfare roles. It keeps us from begging for handouts on the corner. After all, who wants more artists turned loose on the world? Let them be in their studios working!

Artists work to create beauty in the world. We like presenting items that make your homes more beautiful. Have you ever walked into any house and seen bare walls? No. Not unless it's vacant and for sale or rent. Art is a useful necessity in our lives. No one lives without it. Artists have and have always had, a productive, purposeful, place in this world.

It isn't right to steal their work from the web, from magazine articles or advertisements. You wouldn't like it if I walked into your house and took something home with me.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/09/13/equineartfraud/

The article above is about the Equine Arts Protection League and a case of copyright infringement where the infringer was caught. It's a good article and it shows what can happen when a group of people band together to protect their work. I hope the article gets syndicated in the newspapers because it would help to explain how artists make their living and how important it is we keep the right to do so.

My Robert writes poems. He prints them out and frames them and sells them. We once sold a poem to a little old lady. Immediately upon purchasing the framed print, she grabbed it and flipped it over. She was looking to see how easy it would be to take the poem out of the frame. She told us, "I can take this and make copies and give one to everyone in my family for Christmas!"

No. You can't do that. It's illegal.

Not many people read my blog. But if even one person walks away from here understanding more about copyright law, I'll be satisfied.

Most people respect an artists right to make a living. 99 percent of the people would not come to my blog and say, "I like this horse, I think I'll download it and put it on my computer."

I still believe people are good and decent and honest, that's why I publish my work on the internet and in magazine ads. Besides, I'm such a small potatoes artist I don't flatter myself to think anyone would bother me in this way. But I do want to help spread the word and educate anyone who's willing to listen.
donna

Red Rooster, ACEO, oil painting.

When my kids were young, I raised chickens. The kids and I loved the darn chickens. As the chickens grew up, we'd pick them up, pack them around and pet them. We had our favorite chickens of course, some of them liked us better than others as it always is with pets.

Our very favorite of all the chickens was Henny Penny. They were all Rhode Island Red hens, but for some reason, Henny Penny stood out.

One day one of the chickens got sick and it died. It happened again, and again.... I couldn't figure out for the life of me, what was happening to my chickens.

Wouldn't you know it, Henny Penny began to exhibit the symptoms the other chickens had right before they died. The kids were crying, I was crying and we loaded Henny Penny and ourselves into the car and took her to the vet.

Our vet at that time was an old practitioner who everyone loved. He was the neatest old guy. He looked Henny Penny over and treated her just like she was a million dollar horse or farmer Brown's best bull. He couldn't tell what was wrong with her. He said if she died, he could post her and let us know what killed her.

The only thing we could do, was take Henny Penny out to the car and hold her until she passed away. That was a sad day.

After she was gone, we took her back into the vet's office and he took her lifeless form away to do an autopsy on her.

You would never believe what had been killing my chickens. It was me. In my efforts to be kind to them, I'd been dumping the grass clippings from the lawn into the chicken pen. The chickens loved the clippings so much, they ate to many and it was clogging their gizzards.

Doc Reade told us that day to never feed lawn grass clippings to any animal as it was to fine and green a feed and their systems can't process it. He said don't feed it to cattle, horses, pigs, any animal. I had never knows such a thing. But he saved the rest of my chickens.

So that's my chicken story for today.
Donna

Purple cat, ACEO

This is an aceo I'm posting on ebay tonight. I was practising on cat's eyes. My Rooster will be posted next.
donna

Camouflage Buckskin, ACEO, Oil painting. Horse.

The original painting of this buckskin has a glow of light in it's surface. The colors remind me of a time when my brother and I milked a couple of cows by hand. We had lots of butter, cream and milk and some of those colors are in this painting. A warm glowing feeling comes with this one!
Painting Sold
donna

Keepin' an Eye on You. Oil painting aceo.

Here's my girl Class again. She was surrounded by our grandkids, and kept looking all around to make sure she didn't hurt any of them. It was really sweet, the way she liked the little kids. I've been slow the last two weeks. We're gathering wood, playing with family and trying to get ready for winter. But I'll be back to painting steadily soon!
Painting Sold
donna