September Trail Ride; Just Me & Renegade

September Trail with Renegade

Before the rain the trails are dry. The little lizards scurry across; the horses don't even notice. They stop and perk up at the wild turkeys and the deer. We love to canter this uphill path until we are under the oaks.

Dapple Grey Horse Painting - cool colors

Grey Dapple • 18" x 24" • oil on canvas

I painted this stunning grey simultaneously with another canvas in warmer colors. I finished this one quite a few months ago and put the warmer version aside. Everyone has been enjoying this painting and complementing it. Yesterday I went to my studio and put another layer on the warm version, today another. I am not looking at this painting or the photo, yet, they are similar. It will be interesting to compare the two paintings side by side. Tonight I pulled this one up and it was interesting to see the areas I've been struggling with without a reference photo.

Tomorrow I will be riding a 17 hand grey warmblood so he has been on my mind. My daughter looks great jumping on him. It will be my first lesson in about 7 years. I have been lifting weights, running and doing yoga to get ready. It will be quite a different feeling than galloping through the beautiful California hills bareback.

Texture, Color, Light and Technique - Horseback Riding

Wild Horses • 48" x 48" • Mixed Media on Canvas • Available as Giclee Print

As I was painting my cupcakes, which I will post tomorrow, I was thinking of my Wild Horse painting with swirls of color and light. The bright colored sprinkles I added to the cupcakes are similar to these colors. My strokes of color around the image are also a technique that I have always used but is not in my abstacts and plein aire paintings. Wild Horses has a lot of texture as does the fronsting on the cupcakes. When creating this painting I also added sparkling clear fiber strands and drew with oil sticks. I started this painting by outlining the horses in black on a white canvas. It also brings to light my work as a designer, as it is very graphic.

I will be taking my first riding lesson in about 7 years at my daughters hunter/jumper barn this week. I haven't ridden in a few months and it is going to be quite different than the way I've been riding, which is mostly on trails and some dressage work in the arena. I will be riding the sweetest 17 hand warmblood and I have been riding horses under 16 hands. Quite exciting!