Studio again, Pedro's coming.

We let Pedro out to roam around our whole place at night. He was up in the front yard when I called him so I could take his picture coming out to the studio where his pasture is. He actually came when I called him! He's getting so tame and he's so much my buddy. I need to show Robert some of the horse whispering techniques so Pedro will come to him too.

You can see our 56 or maybe 57 Chevy pickup in this picture. That's Robert's fun. He loves the old cars. He has a 56 Buick he's working on too. Someday, we hope to have them good enough to run around in. Our vehicles are old, but they're paid for and they run most of the time. I'd rather not have payments so I keep my old Dodge Shadow running too. I love that car. It has so many memories in it. It hauled my kids animals to 4-H shows, and it took them to the vet. The off driver's side door is dented in because my daughter's horse Patch kicked it one time. He died of colic, and it broke our hearts so I can't even replace that awful looking door because I think of him and how she loved him everytime I see it.

Studio from outside.

This is the studio from the outside. I can't imagine a 14X70 studio and I almost have it full. How did I fit all of this into a 10X12 bedroom? I think I have to many art supplies and I'd better get busy using them up!

My four wheeler is parked out side my door, it's my carrier! I use it to haul furniture around, and to carry all the supplies over here from the other house. It makes lots of trips. It's name is Nemo. That's because when I get into the mountains on my four wheeler, everyone is saying, "Where's Nemo?" I'm a psycho in the woods, I love exploring. Hard to tell where Nemo and I might be.

The studio is parked in the horse pasture and the grass we planted last year has grown. It's finally green somewhere on this place! Pedro loves that green grass. He doesn't care much for his pellets now that he has all that green.

More studio

This is looking into the kitchen area. There's a bar in the middle where that fan is. During the day, it gets hot enough now to use it. I've closed off the back of the trailer so where the hallway goes, there's a big piece of cardboard right now.

The small bedroom is where I'm keeping frames. We have a big shelf structure in it for storing frames we keep in stock. The back bathroom will be for storage also. We're taking out the toilet and shower and we'll put shelves in their space.

The back bedroom which is the second largest bedroom in here, will be for framing and holds all the framing supplies and the totes for carrying the paintings and poems to shows. It also holds the packing materials so it's easy to frame a painting and pack it right into a tote for a show.

We're trying to think of everything to make this handy as we go along.

More of my studio.

This is looking toward the front door, still in the living room. It sure is dark, I'll try to get a better picture here after the sun comes up. It's daylight, but no sun yet.

I'm starting to get the paintings on the walls, and the equipment organized. It sure takes time to get it all done. Maybe that's just because I'm slow!

Pictures of studio in horse pasture.

I'll show you some pictures of how my studio is coming along. It's a little dark in here as I like to get out here early. This is my main work area, in the living room of the 14' wide trailer house that's become my second home! Robert and I both love it out here. You can see Silver's World hanging on the wall and on that cupboard is a painting I began this morning of the Rocky Mountain Front. It's going to be of my Grandpa's ranch when it's finished.

Am I Blue? Oil painting of a donkey.

There are people who tell me I have a warped sense of humor and maybe they're right.

Yesterday, when I was in the middle of painting Pedro, my beloved Robert came over to the studio to talk. Maybe some artists can talk and paint but I can't, I need to be alone unless I've got my painting all planned out and know where it's going. I was in the middle of something great happening with this one...I just know it....:) when my concentration was totally broken with talk about getting a title for an old abandoned Honda car someone left on our place.

How can you paint seriously while you're discussing something like that!? I found myself putting orange behind Pedro and thinking, now what will happen here? Can I make those orange colors recede and the blue ones come forward? I'm always trying to break the rules, I hate rules. (in art, there's a rule that cool colors recede and warm colors come forward) So in between comments about the Honda title and how we might be able to get one, I was slapping paint around on this canvas.

It turned out, the more I painted, I started thinking of that song, Am I Blue? That might not be the title of the song, but those are some of the words. And I got to wondering, is this donkey blue, as in sad? He doesn't look blue, but he is blue! So to me that was funny. And way more fun than trying to get a title to an old car.....

My mind can put me in more than one place at a time as you may guess.... I'm sure I was carrying on a coherent conversation about the Honda car while all this was going on with the donkey painting..... Don't ask Robert, he'll just tell you some wild story about the dumb things I say sometimes.

Painting Pedro

My scan went a little bit crooked. But here's the start of my painting of Pedro, our new donkey. He's a very interesting donkey. My take on his actions is this, he had a wonderful home when he was growing up, then I think he was sold to someone who maybe wasn't so nice to him. We bought him from some people who were very kind to him so he doesn't totally expect the worst from you when you want to feed him pellets, or brush him down. But he's extremely shy and wary...very afraid you'll throw a bucket at him or hit him with it. He doesn't like buckets at all.

He doesn't like gloves either. So we hand feed him his treats and we don't wear gloves around him. He also jerks away from you when you try to lead him somewhere. Only if he doesn't want to go, or if he gets scared. Rest of the time, he leads like a dream. He's 10 years old so who knows how long it will take to get him to trust us.

Pedro let me brush him down the other day, he really liked it. I walked up to him carrying the dreaded bucket full of pellets under my left arm and the curry comb was in my left hand. When I reached into the bucket for pellets with my right hand, to get the pellets, he had to come close to the curry comb. He gradually accepted the idea of what I had in my hand. I knew he'd probably seen one before and he knew what they were for. It took about 15 minutes for him to decide I could brush his dirty little hide. But then he really liked it.

We're loving Pedro, he's very much a member of the family, along with Sing Song and Scarlet, and the wild rabbits and squirrels.

In this painting, I've just drawn his shape with my paint brush, onto the canvas and blocked in some forms behind him. I added a little burnt sienna to white to create the highlights on his form. I don't usually like the color that mixture makes, but on this painting, it's right because it is the color of Pedro.

Thanks for stopping by this blog and looking at my work in progress. Come back to see more! :) Donna