Horse paintings going to Equis Art Gallery

Another box of paintings is heading out today to The Equis Art Gallery in Red Hook, New York. These paintings will be represented by Juliet Harrison at the gallery so all inquiries go through the gallery. I'm honored to be in her "stable" of artists.

 

War Ponies

Meet N Greet

Horses of the Plains

Three Black Buffalo Runners

One Purple Horse

If you're near Red Hook, stop in and see the gallery!

 

Floating watercolor on Yupo paper, horse art.

There's a technique I like to do on Yupo paper, where I lay down a color, let it dry, and then carefully "float" another color over the top of the dry color.  This is not easy to do on Yupo paper.  It's fairly simple on normal watercolor paper because the paint soaks into the paper and doesn't rewet that easily.

But on Yupo paper, the paint dries sitting on top of the surface.  That is because Yupo is plastic paper. It's surface is slick and totally non absorbent.

With this horse, I covered the paper with a very wet wash of Cerulean Blue.  It was random, and variegated in value. As that was drying, I drew into the wet paint, making marks that determined where the eyes were, where the nose was, where the ears went....As the paint dries, I am able to refine the drawing and create details.

After that layer  of paint was completely dry, I mixed a very loose wash of yellow ochre paint, making sure I had plenty of it to finish the painting. I knew I had to lay that color down without making one mistake, which is quite terrifying when you have spent hours creating a drawing you like!

I began laying the yellow ochre down in areas of brightest light on the horse. That went well so I continued with a very wet brush, laying the color over the blue in shadowed and detailed areas.

If this failed, and the color mixed, I'd get a green horse, if it was successful, I'd get a horse in which the colors seem to vibrate and have a life of their own.

The colors did not mix, they seem vibrant and lively and I loved what happend here. The horse kind of looks like he's ready to blink or move toward you.  I think those lively colors help to create that effect of life in this piece.

He was posted on the dailypaintworks.com today and now he is sold. Thank you very much to those of you who purchase my work. It means the world to me. :)

Donna

Wake up Mr Moon! Equine art painting.

"Wake up Mr Moon!"

9X12 inch original painting

Acrylic, inks, varnish on acrylic paper.

"Wake up Mr Moon! You gave your stars new slippers yesterday and they are driving me crazy now. Your stars like the new boots and they're so excited about them, they tumble out of the sky. They land on my back, dance their way up my spine and use my ears for springboards. I'm getting real tired of this."

"My mistress and I moved 200 head of cattle to summer pasture today and I'm tired! I want to rest!" The horse shook his head and neighed impatiently, " WAKE UP MOON!"

The moon raised one sleepy eye and replied," Yesterday you complained the pointed toes on my stars hurt your back. So I worked myself silly yesterday to create new slippers for every star." The moon yawned a big big yawn and rubbed his eyes. "Now! Appreciate the slippers and let me sleep!"

The horse bowed his head and thought. He felt terrible. He didn't know the moon had been thinking of HIM when he made those slippers for his stars. He slunk over the hill while the soft slippers of the stars danced across his back. The stars had heard his complaints to the moon.

Each star came softly to the horse's ears, and whispered, "We're sorry. We were just having so much fun." And they spun away into the sky.

The horse felt lonely after they'd gone, after all they were kind of cute with their new slippers and their goofy ways.

He shook his head and his mane fell softly over his neck, silvery in the moonlight that shone from the still sleepy moon.

"I'm sorry", he spoke to the moon, "Next time you do something like this, I'll ask you why you did it before I get angry with you."

Many low whispers echoed to the horse on the wind, "Apology accepted. Are we still friends?" And he knew they came from the moon -and the stars.

"Yes, we are still friends."

The stars went along to dance and play somewhere else and the moon and horse had the good nights sleep they craved.

copyright Donna Ridgway 2015

She wants to be a star! Equine art acrylic painting.

"She wants to be a star"

9X12 inch

Acrylic on heavy paper

After working so hard to create my painting "Thinking of Cecil" yesterday, I wanted something fun and relaxing to work on today.  So I began to paint, and in my mind I'm asking this horse what do you want to be?  How do you want me to paint you?

She did not reply so I began painting blind, adding some colors, Creating some textures with my homemade stamp, adding some more layers of color....and all the time asking what this horse wanted to be!  

Finally I heard this little whisper, "I want to be green.  Bright green, I'm Irish you know."

Well that was a start!  "A bright green horse you will become," I told my painting.

Then I began to ask more questions, like ok bright green horse, "What are your hopes and dreams?"

Finally I heard a shout! "I want to be a star!"

What a funny horse this is...she takes forever to answer my questions, and when she finally answers I'm so surprised.  I thought maybe she'd want to become an Indian war pony, or a race horse...

No way, she wants to be a green Irish star!  So I made her a star, she's the star in this painting.

You see it never hurts to tell someone your hopes and dreams.  Speaking up and telling someone your dreams helps them come true!

Doesn't matter if you're a green Irish star of a funny painting, or a wild Indian pony running over the plains, it's your dream.

I hope all your dreams come true!

Donna

Horse art, photos of Stormy

You probably haven't seen enough photos of my horse yet.  :)  So here are a couple more.  The top photo is Stormy in a winter storm, in the bottom photo, she's enjoying warm weather.  Her coloring is so unique, she makes a perfect photo subject.

If you like nature photos, of horses and other animals, see my Fine Art America site, on this link below.  

donna ridgway framed prints

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!

Horse picture, horse drinking, reflection.

I'd like some help naming this picture of Murphy as he stares into the water. What do you think I should call it?

I took this horse picture while we were at the ranch last week. I like the feeling of anticipation of a nice long drink of cool water on a hot day, I like the way he seems to be staring at his own reflection-I like the way you wonder what he's thinking....

What do you see in this photo? Leave a comment if you can suggest a name for this horse picture....
Donna Ridgway

Email Me if you have questions, or want to inquire about purchasing a painting.

Remember, you can find horse art , Western art, Mule and Donkey art
wildlife art, cow art, and animal paintings, my reference photosfor sale on my website.

A Roll in the Hay

Can you imagine, capturing two horses rolling at once, with all four legs in the air? I worked getting this photo! It took precision planning. Have you ever seen two horses rolling at once, in syncronization? (is that a word?) I haven't, in all my years of being around horses. You might see one rolling and get lucky enough to snap right when the feet are pointing up, but to see this, was so good. I was just excited.
This horse was rolling in the water, next to a road, that's why you see the fence in the photo, it was either get the photo with the fence in it, or not get the photo! I loved all the splashing and carrying on.

If you'd like to do some paintings of horses rolling, in the water, or out of the water, I'll be posting photos for artist's reference over on my photo reference blog with the ordering numbers.

I also took some great photos of paint horse's eyes. In one, the light comes through the horse's transparent eyeball, to light up the corner of his eye. It was one of the coolest things I've seen through my camera lens.

If you're looking for some horses to paint, head on over to my photo reference site and pick some out!

We just did a three day photo shoot, in the Little Belt mountains. I'll be posting some photos of that here also, you can't believe the road we found. We hung on the side of a cliff, bouncing over rocks for about three miles...I certainly breathed a sigh of relief when we got to the bottom.

I'll be posting that next!
Donna

Medicine Hat Paint, Pastel, ACEO Card

I bought some pastel pencils so I could work on ACEO cards in pastel. The large sticks are to hard to manage. This Medicine Hat paint looks worried but I'm not sure why!
Painting Sold
donna

The kids pony, ACEO, Oil painting

"Turned Out"
The kids show pony is turned out for the winter. The busy show season is over. His banged tail is growing out, his roached mane has grown so long, it's about to fall over on his neck again. He's wondering where the kids and all the activity went! He's all alone in a snowy pasture, looking for company. Hopefully, the kids will come by and spend some time with him after school, on weekends, and holidays....

You'll notice I'm signing my paintings differently and that's because I got married. My name is Donna Ridgway now! That's pretty exciting for me....:)
donna