An elk painting. Work in Progress, WIP

I've laid in the basic elk, and a little bit of an idea, but need to figure out where to go from here. This painting is 8X10 inch, on canvas. I started it with watercolor, to place basic colors and draw the elk onto the support. I've now moved on to acrylics and covered most of the painting over with some under layers.

More to follow later!
Donna Ridgway

The Unconventional Yearling

I call this the Unconventional Yearling. In real life, this little filly had the strangest coloring, a dark bay roan, with tan points. I began to draw her with blue paint on the support, and this followed. She has a mind of her own! She wanted to be this way, truly she did!

She seemed really cute and full of personality when I finished her, kind of like she could come to life and be a real horse!

It's so relaxing and interesting to paint in an unconventional way. Kind of challenges my brain to create something new, and make it work.

Hope you enjoyed the Unconventional Yearling. She's for sale in my etsy shop for $35.
Donna Ridgway

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She's Pink!

A few days ago, I felt honored when Linda Shantz asked me to create a guest blog post for her blog. She asked me a few days ahead of the needed post, so I had plenty of time to create a horse painting for her blog.

You can find Linda's blog by clicking her name above. You'll enjoy her work, she paints a lot of thoroughbreds, and she also paints dogs... Oh yes, she's also writing a very good book!

So take a minute, and check out her blog, you'll see my work in progress, along with her wonderful paintings and stories of the horses she's caring for.

Donna Ridgway
PS, I'll be posting this pink lady in my Etsy store. You can purchase her there. I can just see her in a little girls room!

Emmie, finished. Cat oil painting by Donna Ridgway

Here's Emmie, with some whiskers, eye brow whiskers, a shine on her nose, and a bigger chin. She still has a funny little pug nose look on her face. But some cats are like that, so I'm leaving her like she is. She was so much fun to paint. I could imagine her soft fur in my hands as her form took life.

I'm using my limited palette of French Ultramarine Blue, Lemon Yellow and Grumbacher Red paint. You can call that a limited palette, if you wish, but in reality, it's the most UNLIMITED palette there is, for you can use these three colors and create any color in the universe. In this cat you can see ranges of orange, brown, green, violets...almost everything but blue! Even though you don't see blue, it's there in the mixtures.

Hope you like Emmie, I'll be posting her in my Etsy store.

Donna Ridgway

I thank you so much for stopping by this blog, if I could make this blog become my kitchen table, we'd be having coffee and cookies together right now!

Hope you're having an exceptional day, and if you would like to tweet this post on twitter, just click the little blue bird below.

Emmie, a cat oil painting by Donna Ridgway.

I began this painting while looking at a photo of my own kittie, Scarlet. Suddenly a different cat began to emerge. This new cat has long hair and Scarlet has short hair, so I had to find a new name for this little fuzz ball! I decided to call her Emmie, because she has such pretty emerald eyes.

I'm almost finished with this. She needs an addition of whiskers, then I'll post her for sale in my etsy shop.
Donna Ridgway

Sing Song, black cat with green eyes, oil painting by Donna Ridgway.

This is our cat, Sing Song. Our neighbor went to a party at the bar in Vaughn, one October night, 4 or 5 years ago. When our neighbor left the bar, she heard pitiful sounds coming from beneath a vehicle. Lucky for Sing Song, our neighbor loves animals and couldn't bear to leave this starving kitten there in a snow storm, on the wet ground, under a vehicle that was about to move.

Our neighbor brought Sing Song home, and came to ask us if we wanted this scroungy little cat. Of course we said yes! :) We were remodeling the house we lived in at that time. When Shelley turned Sing Song loose, Sing Song headed into the open heater vents and we didn't see her again for a week!

I waited until she was used to coming out one certain vent in the night to get food. I blocked off the other vents. When the right night came along, I sat and waited, as quiet as a mouse until she came out the vent to eat. I used a stick and poked the vent shut so she couldn't go down the hole any longer. From that moment on, she had to learn to live with us. :)

She's quite independent, very bossy, and loves to control things around here. Never let her dish go empty, never let the water bowl go empty, never let Scarlet get to close to her....the list goes on....but she's a happy cat now.

Hope you enjoyed meeting Sing Song!
Donna Ridgway