Quick Sketches, charcoal and pastel.

When I haven't drawn anything or painted for a while, such as when I spent time at the Charlie Russell show....I like to get into the groove again by doing some sketching. These are some images I sketched out, maybe spending 10-20 minutes on each one. I don't try to make them perfect, I just play. It puts me in the mood to do something more serious!

The hands are fun. I start out by doing them. The Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain thing! Don't look at your hand as you draw it. Sit so you're facing away from your paper and draw your hand in different positions. They look so funny when you're done, but they look just like your hands! It's amazing. Each time I do this, I think what fat, arthritic hands I have! :) Oh well, they still work, that's all I care about.

Donna

Sled dog, Polebridge, MT, charcoal sketch

My dad gave me some reams of paper. He found lots of paper. So I'm doing some quick sketches to begin using it up!

My fire went out in the studio last night, and it got cold. My fingers were getting stiff as boards over there and my coffee was like ice in the cup. So I came back to the house, waiting for it to warm up over there! The pellet stove we put over there is working good but I turned it to the very lowest setting and it went out. I guess you can't do that with a pellet stove as they don't seem to like it. Why put that low setting on them if you can't burn them that way? :)

This is one of the sled dogs I photographed at Polebridge when we went to the sled dog races there. I've never seen so much intensity before! Those dogs are psycho to run. I hope I catch some of their personalities in the sketches and paintings I'll be doing.

I'm starting with a lot of sketches to get more familiar with the dogs and the shapes of them. They aren't like pet dogs in the fact they're so lean, and muscled. Also this intensity of expression they have....I'll draw them until I feel I'm getting somewhere with them.

If you've never been to Polebridge, Mt you need to find it. There's an old store there, been there since the 1800's. They bake bread and the store smells wonderful! The bread is out of this world.

Polebridge is North of Columbia Falls, up the North Fork of the Flathead River.
Donna

Equine art, online show.

If you love seeing horses in art, you'll love the new online show over at the Equine Art Guild.

In our member forum, we began a discussion, looking for ideas for an online show. It came to us, out of all the horses we paint, we seldomly paint our own. We're to busy, painting everyone elses' horses!

It also came out in the discussions, how, if we were free to do portraits of horses in any way we wished, how would we paint them? So we turned ourselves loose with our mediums and brushes and away we went. The show is extraordinary and full. Full of emotion, full of images and full of talent. I feel so honored to belong to this group of equine artists.

Click the link above and see the show, you won't want to miss it.
Donna

Charlie Russell art week, Great Falls, Mt

During one week in March, Great Falls, MT becomes the Western Art Capitol of the world. There are art shows in some of the hotels, at the fair grounds and other places around town.

The Studio 706 Artist Guild, of which I'm a member has a member show in the back room of the History Museum. This year the museum invited some of us to a museum show that will be ongoing for two months. I was honored to be one of the artists chosen. Of course I'm doing the happy dance all around the farm....

Three of my paintings were chosen for the show, "Her Ears are Up", "I'm Coming", and "Girls Night Out".
Donna