The Old Herd Bull, Angus bull, beef bull.

Maybe you raise beef cattle, or possibly you're a city folk and you've driven down country roads to see one of these old herd bulls walking the fence line, staring at the neighbors cattle. Their eyes always look like trouble, they've usually got foam stringing down from their mouths from all the bellowing they've been doing.

If you're a rancher and you need to move the bull to another pasture, you know they might be on the fight when they look like this. Anyway, this old bull made a good subject for a painting! He's 8X10 and painted on a gessoed mdf board with oil paints.

For sale for $50.

Thanks for stopping by, thanks for sharing this blog and my work with any of your friends that might be interested.
Donna

The Warrior's Vision, Medicine Hat Horse

This horse came to a young warrior as he sought his vision. The Medicine Hat horses are treasured for their courage in battle and the wisdom they possess. The colors of this vision were the colors of Mother Earth. This Indian brave will fly across the prairies and be protected by the earth and this horse.

This painting is 7X10" on gessoed mat board. For sale for $200, professionally framed, $350.
Donna

Scarlet (yellow cat) and Sing Song (black cat)

I have been teasing my cat. She knows I don't like for her to sit upon my desk, next to my computer. She sheds so much hair, the keys are clogged. :) Some people would hate that, I just brush it out every once in awhile.

She's sitting on the very edge of the desk, her rear is on the desk, her front paws are hanging over the edge. I'm tickling her paws and her neck with the tape from a clear baggie. (one of those clear bags you place your artwork in) As she tries to grab the tape, she almost looses her seat on the desk and goes overboard. She makes me laugh. I think she's laughing to as she looks at me with this little squint eyed glare that dares me to tease her off the edge. It's a good game.

This is why I paint animals. They've been comfort and solace, furnished me with humor and wit, taught me responsibility, and made my heart bleed when I lost them.

I've had people tell me animals have no emotions. As I was laying in bed this morning, awake but not yet moving, the two cats came up on the bed. Sing Song was first. She walked up my body like she owns it, starting at my feet. She wants me to know she's coming and I'd better be ready to pet her when she arrives next to my face. She doesn't like any firm touches. If you pet Sing Song and expect her to stay with you, you pet carefully, like she's made of the finest spider webs and she'll come apart at any hard touch. So I was petting her the way she likes, and she was rewarding me by licking my hand every other stroke.

Then along comes Scarlet. These cats are so jealous of one another. Say they don't have emotions and I won't believe you. Scarlet tries her best to horn in on the petting session by bluffing Sing Song to leave with an evil eyed stare. I put one hand on Scarlet and push down on her shoulders. She lays down like a good kitty and stops giving Sing Song the evil eye. She knows if Sing Song was there first, she has to leave her alone, even though she doesn't like it.

Once we've established this fact, both cats sit and purr together in a love song that beats all others. Luckily, I have two hands one for each cat. It's been a good morning.

Work in progress, oil painting.

This is coming along, but it's giving me nightmares. I don't normally do buildings, or poles, or people, or cityscapes! Seems I'm doing more thinking than painting on this. But I think I'll get it in the long run....

It almost has an Edward Hopper feel to it. He's one of my all time favorite artists, along with Charlie Russell of course.

Can't paint much today, we have to go into town to do some things for the Studio 706 art guild, get some groceries, and Robert has therapy. I don't much like going to town. It makes me tense and crabby. :) But sometimes you have to get groceries and do business.

We'll be checking out the Heritage Museum space where we'll be showing with the Guild for the Charlie Russell show in March. The time is fast approaching for that show.

Thank you for stopping by to see my oh so slow progress on this painting and for passing the word along about my work to your friends and relatives.
donna

So Who's Scared in Dupuyer, Mt?

This is my beginning drawing for this painting. It's pretty funky at this stage! Lot's of things to fix. I like drawing on the canvas, erasing with turpentine, changing things, fixing things and generally beginning a painting. This is my favorite stage.

This is the same painting as it has progressed. It's going to be hard to tell who's more afraid, the horse or the kids! This is life in Dupuyer, Mt today. When the cowboy comes to town, the horse has to deal with it. When the cowboy comes to town, the town kids have to deal with it too!
Donna

Cocker spaniel, dog portrait. Oil painting.

This dog reminds me of a dog I had once called Ceasar. Ceasar came to me when my mom and dad bought a new house. The people who sold them the house, had this dog they wanted to give away. Knowing I'm always a sucker for an animal, my folks took the dog and gave him to me.

Ceasar was a spoiled rotten little mutt who hated kids. My son was about 5 years old then and the dog hated him, hated me, hated living on a dairy.... Luckily, my mom had a friend who was longing for little soft doggie to spoil rotten. She inherited Ceasar! Was he ever happy! He was once again living the life he loved. Pampered, fed treats, a special place to live on the couch! What a happy ending.

Ceasar looked exactly like this dog, who I found in the Wet Canvas reference library.

As always, the paintings you see here are for sale. 8X10 study for $50. Inquire at montanahorsegallery@earthlink.net or see my ebay link to your right.

Thanks for stopping by to see my paintings! :)
Donna

Backhoe driving cat. Oil painting.

The Backwards Back Hoe Driver, did this one this morning. He makes me laugh!
Donna

Back Seat Drivers. Dog Oil Painting.

What fun. We saw these little yappers in Helena one day at Dairy Queen. They were so bored, waiting for their master to come out of the restaurant.

Still have a few things to do to this. Like add the window reflections. I think I'll wait until this is dry to do that. Maybe a few car reflections, but for the most part, it's done.
Donna

Updated Dog painting.

I've worked on this portrait a little more. Added some warmer color to the eyebrow area to bring out the eyes. It seemed to add a twinkle to them. Made the whites a little whiter. This is a kind of study portrait.
Donna

Hereford Cow oil painting.

What a cute little heifer! My grandparents raised herefords so I think of them when I see hereford cattle. This little cow looked so bright eyed and interested in something. Had to paint her! I'm always saying that about animals, I just had to paint this one....

I need to add her tail, broaden her shoulder on the left side and widen her nose. Then she's finished. I used iron red oxide, a small bit of naples yellow and dioxadine purple to create her. Plus a little titanium white.
Donna
I'm happy to say, this little cow is Sold.

Oil painting of a dog. Canine art.

I started another painting today, this one is of a friend's dog. I'll be doing some more work on it tomorrow also. It seems there are times when I get a lot of paintings going at one time but that's how I like it best. As they're in different stages, I can do different things to them.

I'll let this dry then work on it some more. The basic shape of the dog is here.

Thanks for stopping by!
Donna

Work in Progress, 4, Loneliest lonesome. Dog art.

I got up early and headed to the studio. The fire was out and was it ever cold over there. I'd left an electric heater running so my paints wouldn't freeze so I know it had to be at least 32 degrees in there but it didn't feel like it. Got the fire started and it's slowly warming up, it's supposed to get down below zeero in the next few days, I was hoping it was going to warm up as I'm getting tired of winter! No such luck.

Today, with stiff fingers, I changed the shadow on the building to go above the line of white siding. Put the shadow in for the cable the dog is tied to. Lightened the siding above the dogs head as the sun would be hitting it there. It also helped make the dog's face show up a little better. There's a little more work to do on this, but it's almost finished.
Donna

WIP, installment 3. Dog oil painting.

I've made several adjustments on this dog as I've gone along, and I'll make more yet. You can see some of the details now. The T-1 11 siding for skirting on the trailer house, the shadow of the dog, the colors of the house. The day we took the photos of this dog the weather was cold, I couldn't stand to paint him this way so I changed the day to summertime instead of winter. My dog might be lonely but I don't want him cold too.

The line of the skirting on the trailer is to close to the top of the dog's head in the shadow so I think I'll move the shadow down a bit. Shadows can be weird and people accept it because you see so many strange shapes in them. I think I can get away with changing that for the sake of this painting.

I also think, I'll smooth out the top of the painting, where it's the side of the house. It's to distracting to have so much texture there. I was using to small a brush when I did that and it made a lot of marks. So many things to think about !
Donna

Loneliest Lonesome, WIP 2, Dog painting.

I'm now using a lot of turpentine on my brush and drawing in the details of the dog into the thin layer of paint that was on the canvas. This painting is 16X20 so it's fairly large. You can see it isn't quite square to the picture plane as it tips back on my easel where I took these pictures.

My new studio has nice large windows so I can take photos of large paintings inside. I used to have to take them out. It's blizzarding, really cold, and snowing today so I wouldn't be able to take photos of paintings outside.... It's nice to have the studio!

Each stage of the painting becomes more like a real dog. At least I hope it does! :) I don't like drawing with a pencil as good as I like drawing with a paint brush so I draw the image right on the painting.
Donna

The Loneliest Lonesome. Canine art. Dog

I'm showing another painting as a work in progress. I got up at 5 am and went to my new studio to paint. The wood stove had the studio all warmed up as the fire lasted all night long. It was so nice!

A while back, we went toward Cut Bank, Montana on a photo shoot, and drove through Shelby on our way home. As we were cruising around the outskirts of town, looking for photos that I could turn into paintings, we saw this dog tied to the side of a trailer house. He was howling with lonesomeness and it broke my heart.

Of course I had to paint him. You see so many dogs tied to a spot where they're left in loneliness, until the dirt is beat smooth around them. They have no dog house for cold weather, no human comfort and sometimes I wonder how much they get fed. I can't bear to see this but I thought if I painted it, it might help people to remember their pets.

Another reason for painting this right now. We're inundated with stray cats. In our neighborhood, when people don't want to feed their animals, they turn them out to fend for themselves. We've had cats coming into our house at night through the cat door to eat. If they'd eat and leave, I wouldn't care so much, but some of them came in, marked the house with spray, then left. It was a nightmare to clean up and expensive too.

So now our cat door is locked and I'm feeding the strays outside. By spring, we'll have a dozen cats I'm feeding, I suppose. I guess we'll take them to the pound as our own two cats are all we want. I feel so sorry for them, I can't stand watching them as they search for food.

Anyway, this is the first bunch of paint on the canvas for this painting. I throw some paint on there and move it around with lots of turpentine until I have the shape of the animal I'm painting.
Donna

Our Show

Here's the mess we made in the kitchen while we were setting up. One of our friends was helping us, that's her back!



We were in the process of setting up when I took these pictures so they're in various stages of progression. We serve coffee and cookies at First Friday shows in our Guild.

Front door of the little studio. It's an older house with the wood floors and wood moldings, it's cute as a button.






These were all taken before the public arrived. I didn't get any after this. The studio is tiny and so cozy. We loved having this show there, it was so comfortable, like being at home!
Donna

Hutterite Holsteins, Oil Painting, 24X30.

This painting isn't little like the ACEO c ards I've been doing lately. It's 24X30. I wanted to work on something more serious and these cows seemed to fit the bill. I started this a while back, and never finished it.

It isn't finished yet, it's still a WIP, Work in Progress, but I wanted it to look good enough to take to the First Friday show as an example of what's on my easel now.

To create this image, I've been using a palette of three values for each color. Each value blends a little with the one beside it as I lay the colors down, which gives me what looks like, a wide range of values. The light, as it strikes the tops of the cows backs, where the cows are black is a cad orange. Where the light strikes the white of the cows, I'm using a touch of the orange in the white.

The deep darkest color of white on the cows, where they're in shadow, is ultramarine blue and white. I tried to create the cattle by making quick strokes of the correct value in the shape I found it to be.

When I began this painting, I had my photo of these cows, and my memory of them to work from. Now, I've lost the photo! I burned it onto a cd and can't find which one of my hundreds of cd's it's on. :) Wouldn't you know it?

Many years ago, my ex husband and I had a 300 cow dairy. I guess I should remember what a dairy cow looks like. I'll have to wing it. If I get really stuck on some anatomy or how the light looks on these cows, we'll drive out to the dairy again. It's about 80 miles from here.

These are the things that make paintings cost money, we sometimes have more than painting into them by the time they're finished. Hopefully, I can finish this without that extra trip out there but you never know. When you're stuck, you're stuck! You might as well admit it, bite the bullet, do what you need to do to finish the painting and get on with the next one!

As this one gets finished, I'll keep posting the updates.
Donna
PS, thanks for stopping by!