Big Baby, 2

I have to say, I've never had a painting go through such intense ugliness as this one did before I got it looking like I wanted it! I was going to throw it away at one point, then decided to gesso over a bunch of it and start over. Thank goodness for gesso.

This foal and his dam looked like Haflinger's to me, we found them near Ovando, the day we went over Huckleberry Pass. They seemed to belong to a pack string of close to one hundred horses and mules. They were cute with their white, creamy looking manes blowing in the wind.

You can purchase this original for $99 or an 8x10" print for $25. The original is approx 7.5x9". It's watercolor on gessoed mat board.

Thanks for stopping by and for passing the word about my paintings to your friends and relatives!

Once again, there's more horse paintings on my website.

Landscape, Square Butte, Vaughn, MT

We live below Square Butte, the butte of Charlie Russell fame. It's always changing, it never looks the same two days or two minutes in a row. I love the way the light plays across it's surface. I decided the other day I need to make more paintings of this wonderful landscape. So here's the first!

Quick studies on Yupo paper.

When I'm practising my drawing, or playing around with paints and papers, I'll spend 10-20 minutes on some quick study work. Mostly, I try to get the shape of a horse on paper and I'm using my how to draw horses books for examples of different positions horses can be in.

These studies are drawn on Yupo paper and I used my watercolor brush to do the drawing. Yupo is plastic paper so it's a unique experience. It's slick and it's not absorbent. The paint sits on top of the paper. You can wipe it off after it dries and you don't even know there was a mark there.

It's perfect for loose flowing things like the mane on the top horse. You can also flow in the shape of a horse, then go back in and draw the details on top. If you do this, you stroke the lines on fast or you'll melt the layer beneath them. Nice thing is, if you put a line where you don't want it, just wet it and pick it back up again. Let the paper dry, then place the line where you want it to be.

I suppose you could wash the same piece of Yupo off and paint on it forever! It's fun stuff. I think I went to Yupo.com to find the paper and they sent me nice sample packs so I could try the paper before I bought some. It comes in different weights and it's all fun to paint on. The title to this post is a link to their American website.
Donna

Toy Horse on the Desert, ACEO watercolor.

This is a little departure from my normal work but I like the old 50's graphic things. It reminds me of old cowboy posters from when I was a kid. This is a watercolor with permanent ink.
donna

Horse ACEO, foal painting.

This little guy has perfected the art of the stretch. It isn't easy when you have such long legs and not very much control over them.

He's a watercolor painting with a little pastel pencil on it at the end. To make the background look black, I layered burnt umber, alizarin crimson, cobalt blue, sap green, alizarin crimson, cobalt blue, more sap green, more cobalt blue, more sap green and more cobalt blue for the final layer. The straw was easier, just a few layers of burnt umber, throw on some yellow ochre then add some lighter and darker colored straws with the pastel pencil. He even has his little milk whiskers showing.

I'll post him on ebay, although who knows if he'll sell. Ebay isn't doing very well right now for a lot of us artists. I guess the stores are luring the shoppers in with tantalizing descriptions of electronic products....

If this doesn't sell, I'll take that as God's way of protecting me because I have some upcoming shows and I do need art for them also! If I sell it before it gets to the show, I won't have much to let people look at. So either way, if he doesn't sell on ebay, he becomes product for shows.
donna
This little guy is sold.

Elk watercolor painting by Donna Ridgway.

Here's a little painting, 9X4". It's a watercolor, made with using two colors. French Ultramarine blue and Burnt Umber. We took pictures of this herd of cow elk near the Swift Dam trail head into the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

I call this "Girls Night Out". Just because it looks like the girls are ready to head off by themselves somewhere and have some fun! Looks like they're taking one last look behind them to make sure no one sees them leaving!

This painting is on gessoed mat board. I like this surface as I can float color across it and it doesn't sink in. This makes it easilly manipulated. You can lift color after it dries, and push it around the entire time it's wet. Makes for a fun process.

I haven't been painting much lately as Robert had his back fused and I guess I was worried about him and wanting to help him more than I needed to paint. He's doing better now and things are settling down. I'm back to painting again!
donna