"Sock Horse"
Give yourself five minutes, some left over paint on your pallet, an old sock and see what happens. Here's a paint horse, looking at the plateaus of Montana! Pretty funky painting but it sure was fun.

Perhaps I'll perfect this technique! :) Who knows?
donna

"Murphy's Muzzle"
Murphy has the softest, most wrinkliest nose. I was trying to capture it in this little ACEO horse art card. I also want to do a large painting of this same picture so this one was practise. There are many more ACEO horse art cards on my website and in my ebay store.
donna

"Devil Horse"
I finished "Ana" and I was thinking I'd do a sweet little carousel horse to go with her. One you could hang on the wall facing her and they'd go together! Look what came out!

I called him the Devil Horse and you can see why. He's got a glare on him from wet paint but he still shows up pretty good.

We watched a movie last night called Crash. It was like this horse and Ana, the good and evil in us and when and how it comes out. It was a good show, a complicated show. The writers were really thinking when they created it. If you feel like watching a show about human nature, that one was good.
donna

This is "Ana". She's a little 5X7 carousel horse painted on an oval canvas. I didn't use any reference photo when I was painting "Ana" so she's just herself. She looks a little worried, maybe she's wondering if the child on her back is having a good time, or if it's going to rain and her shiny new paint will get all spotted.

I think she's kind of cute and I'll probably put her for sale on ebay for a week.
Donna

This little lake is at the bottom of Split Mountain. It's on private land. You climb a steep hill to get to the lake so from this picture, it looks like you'd drop off the end of the earth if you took one step beyond that dead tree. I liked that feeling, plus the colors in the clouds in this photo. donna

Here's the back side of Split Mountain, and this is me, looking at it through the binoculars. It was really cold when we were there, it snowed on us twice. donna

Naturally, there's a story behind this nail!

We were target shooting with the .22. Robert handed me the gun and said see if you can hit that old stump over there.... . I said "no, that stump is to big, I want a harder target. I'm going to bend that nail over there." (Take it in mind, he's never been shooting with me before.) He says "no, just try the stump, take something easy the first time." I was 50-60 feet from the nail, I pulled up the gun and popped off a shot. You could hear the whine of the ricochet! I still don't think he believed I 'd hit the nail so later on I walked up to it, and showed him where I'd knocked the rust off the nail.

He'd made rank in the Marine corp, expert marksman. Even though he knows good shooting, he could hardly believe I clipped that nail like I did. Of course it was a luck shot....but I won't tell him. donna

Plain old wood was no challenge for this woodpecker. He had to wake us up in the morning by pecking away at this yellow metal. He was so persistent about it! donna

Here's the front of Split Mountain. You can see how part of the mountain slid downhill. When I'm fishing below it, I wonder what it must have been like when the mountain came apart. donna

There's a mountain near Swift Dam, that split apart. It's called Split Mountain. What else would you call it? :) Near the top of the split on the northwest side, I see a gargoyle. He's there at the top of this picture. donna

This is one of the views we had all week. There are a little group of deer to the right of that tree, but they're just a dot in the small version of this picture. Since I was a kid, we called this mountain the VYA. When the snow melts a little more, those letters will be clearly defined on the side of the mountain.
donna

I got up early one morning to take photos and heard the strangest thumping/bugling sound. I tracked it down until I found the source. There were two cranes on a hill, under the trees, calling away to each other. I took several pictures of them, but I liked this one with the both of them against the sky.
donna

Something was chasing these elk, but we never did find out what it was. They ran across a ridge directly in front of us. They'd been running hard, their mouths were open panting. We saw one bull this entire week, with his antlers in the velvet. All the other elk we saw were cows. Donna

We just spent a week in the mountains and this photo pretty much sums up what we did. We saw elk everywhere! We were coming through the middle of a thicket of aspens without knowing a herd of elk had begun to cross the meadow below us. When we came into sight, the elk headed back the way they'd come. This one crossed our path. I like it when we're close enough to them, to hear them breathe and the calls they make to each other.

Where we camped, a herd came by our window each morning and they were eating hay with the cattle beside our camper at night. I suppose we saw a hundred or more elk and probably 500 deer over the weekend. I can go to the mountains and be happy with the scenery, but when you have a week like this last one, with all the wildlife, it's better!
donna

"Pup on the Table"
"Magpie"
Two more ACEO cards I posted on ebay today. I've always wanted to do a Magpie. They're so crisp looking with their black and white design of feathers. A friend in Italy sent me pictures of her Labrador puppies. I just had to draw this one. He looked so cute, peeking over the edge of the table.
donna

"Angus Calf"
We're visiting on the Equine Art Guild about the baby calves and how cute they are. I have pictures of calves we took when we went to my cousin's branding two weekends ago. It was raining the day of her branding and her calves were in the barn, where I couldn't get photos. We came home two days later, by then the weather had cleared up and we could get photos of calves. We found this little angus by Choteau, MT. More cow art....
Donna

"Scarlet On the Green Chair"
I haven't done an ACEO card for quite a while, so I got started on them again today. This is my cat Scarlet sleeping on the back of my chair. A while back, I did a painting of her asleep on the antique radio. She can fall asleep anywhere! I put this card on auction on ebay today starting at $4.95. She''ll be there for a week. If you'd like to see more of my cat art, you can see it on my website here.
donna

This is a work in progress, another "wip". We got photos at one of the Hutterite dairies the other day. These cows make me laugh when I look at them. They look so happy, like they don't have a care in the world beyond the next bit of gossip, or ray of sunshine that comes their way. I'll post it again when it's finished. You can see more cow art on my website.

I'm also working on a carousel horse called "Irish". He's going to be cute when he's done. I haven't got a picture of him yet. I'll post it when I do.

It's good to be in my new studio working, instead of putting things away and trying to arrange the space. I have so much room now! I love it. I have four paintings I'm working on at once....some elk, some mules, Irish and these cows. There's room for all of them!
donna