Hands Off, Porcupine t-shirt for sale.

When you wake up feeling grumpy, and you want the world to know it, wear this t-shirt! It says "Hands Off!" This little porcupine will get your message out.

Clicking the link will take you to the zazzle store where you can purchase the shirt and more of my gift items.

There's also horse art, equine art, and Montana photos on my other sites.

Civil War Soldiers, 2 hour challenge, 3 and 4.

Here they are at 2 hours. I had to quit and post the painting at this stage.

I'm calling them finished now, but I suppose tomorrow, when I look at them again, I'll work on them some more! It's really hard to stop.

I had major fun working on this project, I had no idea, I could get these looking as much like real people as they do. So from that standpoint, I feel this was a success, even though I put an extra half hour into this painting.

You can see more horse art, equine art, and Montana nature photos on my other websites.

Civil War Soldiers, 2 hour challenge, 2

Here are my soldiers after another half hours work. I rarely paint people, as I'm no good at it, and I rarely paint anything with so much detail on it! This is a real departure for me.

You can see more horse art, equine art and Montana nature photos on my other websites. Thank you for stopping by.
donna

Civil War Soldiers, 2 hour challenge

This is my first lay in of shapes and colors working from a photo supplied by a member of an art organization I belong to. The idea is, to create a painting in two hours. If the painting isn't finished in the alloted time, you must stop painting and post what you've done to the group. You can later finish the painting if you wish.

There's more equine art, horse art, and Montana photos on my other websites.

Thanks for stopping by. The follow ups of the two hour challenge will be posted soon.

A Montana Christmas Present for you.

I've posted some Montana photos from our last two photo shoots. Hope you enjoy them, and have a Merry Christmas!
Donna

Paint horse photo, Christmas gift item!

I took photos of this beautiful paint horse this week on a photo shoot near Belt, Mt. He's the perfect Christmas gift for someone who loves horses.

Photo is 8X10 inch, on archival paper, using archival inks. Purchase with your credit card by clicking the paypal button below. Shipping is free on this item. You can see more equine art on my website.

Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful holiday season. Donna

How to begin your painting.

This is the easiest, fastest way to begin painting. Place your primed or gessoed support flat on a table. Dip a large round oil painting brush in your turpentine or odorless thinner. Dip your brush into any color of paint on your palette. I like to use colors that will be complimentary to major colors in the painting. This gives the painting a glow you don't achive otherwise. Smear the paint and turpentine around the canvas. Your goal is to cover the support with some color. You want this color to be loose and what a painter will call "washy". The color doesn't need to be dark.

While I'm finding my image on the board, I'm constantly thinking. How far away from the edge should this line be? How does this shape curve? Where does it meet the next shape? Is this line half way across the painting horizontally? Where does it cross this vertical line? You can see in the image above, you might call this a complicated painting. It really isn't. While you're drawing, never think about horses. Don't say to yourself, is this horse's neck long enough? Is his head big enough? Gosh, I don't know how to draw horses. I can never get the eyes right. Toss all of those thoughts out of your head and think about your lines and shapes and where they need to be on the painting. You'll be surprised at how easily your drawing will appear.

This method of drawing the image right onto the support will save so much time and energy for you. You don't have to bother with drawing an image on paper or transferring it to canvas. It's there on the painting as you go along. When you make a mistake on your drawing, dip your brush in some more paint and turpentine, and smear paint over the area you wish to correct. Dip your brush back into the turpentine and begin to find your image again. Keep the drawing light in color and you can paint over it and redraw it over and over until it looks right. When you grow used to this method, you'll find it easier and easier to create each painting.

I read many books on how to draw before I found one that made perfect sense to me. I didn't like methods where I learned to draw circles, put the circles together and try to make them form the shape of a horse. I didn't like other methods I found. Nothing seemed to work for me. Then I took a drawing class put on by an artist friend of mine. She used the Betty Edwards book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". It was like a light came on in my head! After I studied this method of learning to see, I could draw anything!

Save on Art Supplies at MisterArt.com

I hope this lesson was helpful to you. You can see some of my horse art on my website. I've also posted pages of Christmas gifts there. You'll find gifts you can't get any where else for a horse loving person.