Birthday party for a one year old.

One of our great grandsons had his first birthday party on Saturday. He's such a good little guy, and he's full of action, so it was a fun time watching him open presents and eat cake. My dad is 94 and he was there also, he's holding the baby in this photo. My daughter is in the red shirt, a friend in the green.

Robert with our granddaughter Hannah.

The birthday had a cow theme, Holy Cow you're One! So the cake was a Scottish Highlander cow, very cute.

Kids having fun making bubbles.

Here's that first bite of birthday cake!

The day after the birthday party, we went to the Bison Range to watch the bison.  They weren't very lively, about the most action we saw was this bull taking a dust bath. Always fun to watch them, even if they just roam around eating.

We'll be setting up at an outdoor art show on Sept 10.  It will be at the Paris Gibson Museum in Great Falls, Mt.  We dug out our upright supports today so we could begin to get ready.  It takes a lot more preparation for an outdoor show simply because of wind and weather.  We're trying to figure out the best ways to tie the supports to heavy sand bags or cinder blocks. The tenth will be a busy day!

 

Over 3000 artist reference photos on our Patreon site.

 We started a Patreon site for artists.  We have over 3000 photos uploaded to our site, most of them are Montana wildlife, some are scenery and other things.  Some dog portraits, some interesting things but mostly wildlife.

If you are looking for photos, there are so many there, that are like having exclusive photos without having to purchase an exclusive license.  The photos are exclusively for artists to use as reference and that is what the license there states.

We are not finished uploading photos, I've only gone through a couple of years worth of photos. I haven't begun on our older hard drives yet.

So if you are looking for reference photos for your art, come join our Patreon site. You'll hardly ever run out of something to paint.

Artist reference photos for you to use.

And if you like to paint elk, there are hundreds of elk photos there.  Elk, deer, mountain sheep, bears, and more!

Montana Outdoors Photo Issue

 

This photo of a porcupine's quills was published in the Montana Outdoors photo issue this year. I was following the porcupine below, begging him as I went along to turn his little face toward me for just a second.  He finally did do that, but not before I gave up and told him if he wouldn't turn around, I'd just take a photo of his rear end.  In the end, pun there, I sent the quills in to be juried as I liked the patterns they made as the porky raised them. He sure was a cute little guy. And I was glad he gave me the photo that made it into the issue.

This burrowing owl was also published in a Montana Outdoors Photo Issue.  The photo issue comes out each year in December and there are 10,000 images vying for publication so I am always honored when one of my images is chosen.  Subscribe to Montana Outdoors and you will see that issue when it comes out each year.  It's only something like $12 a year and it's a great magazine.

More tribal, southwest horses paintings.

 

War Horses Welcoming Spring

Mother Earth is bursting full of spring and beginning to shower the meadows with flowers and spring colors of new grass and plants. This painting is 16x20, it is unframed, but it's on a half inch wrapped canvas so you can frame it if you wish. I have a wide golden frame here and this painting looks fantastic in that frame. As of December 5, 2021 I've got it listed in my Etsy shop.

"One Herd, Many Colors"

Horse herd racing across the prairie, many horses, of different colors, but all one herd.

This painting is 22X28 and is on a flat piece of masonite. It would require special framing. It's available in my Etsy shop.

"She Carries Light to her Horses"

What is this world without light? It helps us see, and it makes things grow! Mother Earth is doing her job.

This painting is small and is in my Etsy shop.

All three of these paintings are available as of Dec 5, 2021. I won't update this post as things sell, but all links go to my shop, so you might find something you like there even if these are gone.

I also have paintings represented by Equis Art Gallery, Red Hook, New York, and Paris Gibson Museum, Great Falls, Mt.

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!

 

The Soap Gypsy

Long time ago, we had a bar of soap wash down to this shape. It looked like a gypsy fortune teller to me, so I did this little painting from looking at the soap. Robert likes the painting so he keeps it beside his chair.

And here are some funny faces I painted on rocks and hid for people to find. I don't usually do faces, but a couple of years ago, I began to draw people for practice. It's enjoyable and a nice way to sharpen drawing skills.

When I was a kid, on the farm, we had an old Dodge Power Wagon. My dad would send my brother, sister and I out to the field to pick rocks. Where we lived rocks, the size of your fist covered the top of the ground. There was no end to how deep those rocks went under the surface, they went on and on forever.  Our job was to fill the box of the power wagon with rocks, then take it to the rock piles at the edge of the field and throw them out.  When empty, go fill it up again.  We spent days doing that. I hated it. Most boring job in the world, right?

Now I'm painting on rocks. My husband and I get in the truck, head out to a field and pick rocks for hours, lol! We pick and hunt for rocks that are just right, we don't have to pick up every single rock, I guess that's why it's more fun.  We can come home with a pickup load of rocks and have the greatest day ever. Somehow that tickles my funny bone. I can laugh right out loud when I think of being a kid and hating those rocks so much.

In the photo above, you'll see a rock painted a neutral grey, with the beginnings of a bull elk drawn there.  First I found the angle of the slant of his head, then began to draw the shape of his body and the antlers.

Now I'm finding his facial features, and laying down a basic color on his body.

Just adding and correcting his shape here.

Now I added in some background color.  This elk was on a sagebrush flat, so he was surrounded by that soft green color of sage.

Here are a few more details, and placing darks next to lights, and vice versa.  Just to emphasize the elk from his background.

Adding in some sagebrush details and background work.

And here it is finished.  It was so nice, the way his antlers wrapped around the edges of the rock, he just fit! If you've ever spent time with elk during the rut, you can easily "hear" the sound of that bugle coming from his mouth! It's the wildest, free-est sound in the world.  I love it. I can't get enough of watching the elk, and the rut is coming upon us quickly! I can't wait.

If you want to see more bugling elk, visit our store, where you can find rustic wildlife decor for your home!

Thank you for coming by my blog, I hope you enjoyed seeing this bull elk come to life in a painting on a rock! :)

 

 

I had a few more interesting photos from our trip up the Teton Canyon the other day, here's a black bear walking down the dappled trail, looking back at us. We rarely see bears on our excursions so it's extra fun when we got to spend time with this one.

We've watched this tree growing from the rock since we moved here in 2003. In real life, it looks 30 feet tall.  We'd feel sad if we took this drive and saw where it was broken or it gave up on life. It's hard to imagine it can live and thrive in that place, but it does!

There are little streams alongside the road along with empty beaver dams. It seems odd they trap the beaver out of there and don't let them live.  The dams they create are beautiful, the water is so clear there....they make this soft deep green  color.

I loved seeing this shaft of light come through the forest and light up this patch of thimbleberry bushes. It only lasted a second! I was glad I caught it!

This little squirrel was running around a campground where we stopped. Of course he was a busy fellow, up and down trees, throwing pine cones to the ground then coming down in a streak to hide them in the ground or tuck them into hidey holes.

Here's a stump where the squirrel sits to eat when he gets hungry and needs a break from storing food for winter.

Hope you enjoyed the photos, we're planning to take another photo trip before long, possibly up the Sun River Canyon to Gibson Dam.  If we're lucky we'll see more bears in the chokecherries, and possibly the mountain sheep! We never know when we'll be lucky and see wildlife.

Photos and art prints for sale in our Wildlife Indoors store.

Here are some of my latest paintings. This one is named, "On the Cave Wall".  It was represented by the Equis Art Gallery in Red Hook, New York and is sold.

"Carrying Sunshine to her Horses"

"She Reaches out to Many Things but Only Touches the Horse"

This is how some of the paintings begin. I painted the canvas black, I added a thick layer of white paint.  I drew and scribbled into the white paint, threw water on it and picked up the wet paint, and I dropped India Ink into the surface. That created the black and white image you see above.

"Oh How They Danced When The Horse was Created"

When I began to add color, I noticed those wild figures dancing in the background. This kind of reminded me of the days when I was in high school and I loved reading Greek Mythology. One figure is kind of devilish with horns and a tail but I left him in there as some horses are kind of full of mischief and devilish, they're not all perfect, lol!

When I'm painting, I have learned to step myself back and let a painting become what it wants. They just about always let me know. A day or two after I've created a painting, I can not recall the process of painting it, it feels like someone else must have done it.  It's hard to explain what happens when a painting is being created. The process takes over and I'm just a conduit.

"Thank You for the Blessings of the Horse"

Through much the same process a painting is created, the horse came about and Mother Earth loves her creation.

If you happen to come across this blog, I hope you enjoy it. It began many years ago and has a lot of posts.  Take a minute to look back on some of them! And thank you for being here.

Donna

 

Robert had his right shoulder replaced August 11th. It's healing nicely and we were tired of sitting in the house so we took a drive up the Teton Canyon. We'd barely entered the canyon  when we spotted this bear in a huge chokecherry bush.  When we drove forward to see him, he backed up, when we backed up-he went forward.  So we were laughing and playing peek a boo with a bear. It was pretty fun after a couple weeks of staying tight to the house.

When you drive by the ski run and continue on down the pass, you enter the burned area and find an elephant!

Thousands of Montana forests look like this now. It would be a much needed miracle if we could return to the days of well managed forests and prevent this needless waste.

Trees that are this warm color really stand out in the burns. As a photographer, I like the interplay of the warm and cool colors.

This little guy was zooming around in the rocks at the edge of the road. I think they're so cute. We don't find many of them anymore for some reason or another so we're always tickled when one comes out where we can see it.

Ear Mountain, pretty well obscured by smoke in the air from forest fires.

Skinny legged hawk flying off a post. I almost missed a shot at him. :) All in all, it was a good day along the Rocky Mountain Front and we enjoyed it a lot.