"Spirit Paint" gel pen sketch

"Spirit Paint"
gel pen
small leather sketchbook

My last gel pen died, so when I found another one on my dresser, I was perhaps absurdly delighted.  I love the clean, crisp look of ink, and my recent stylized horses lend themselves well to the medium.  Today, I was the happiest while drawing that I have been in a few weeks.  I even feel up to the commitment of drawing as frequently as the pros suggest.  Maybe it's the simple, classic black and white that helps my brain focus and engenders a sense of excitement and passion.

I'm also trying a new style of signing my name; while I do like signing my full name, I've enjoyed other artists' very simple yet elegant signatures enough to try it myself.  RCF.  Rebecca creates forever.

Leaping the Moon- graphite sketch

"Leaping the Moon"
graphite
small leather sketchbook

Today I was looking at videos of some eventing horses.  Cross country jumping is always impressive to look at, and the bold spirit of these horses in soaring over solid obstacles served as my inspiration.  Proudly arched necks, neatly tucked forelegs, grace and athletic power- all this I hope to capture.

It's been freeing moving away from realism, yet having a grasp of equine anatomy lends authenticity to these drawings.  On a deeper level, they are symbolic of the lines of power and life in our own bodies.  They express my journey towards finding balance in life and connection with my inner spirit.

I'm mentally turning over how to execute one of these style figures into a color painting.  Should each line be a different color?  Should I fill in the in between spaces?  One color family?  Complementary colors?  Acrylic?  Gouache?  Oil pastels?  I imagine that I'll try everything at least once to see what looks best and what works on a practical level.

First sketches of the new year

Chiaroscuro Arabian
graphite
small leather sketchbook

Leaping OTTB
graphite
small leather sketchbook

"Balboa Lusitano" and the perils of cats and charcoal

"Balboa Lusitano"
detail with cat's pawprint

I was waiting for my turkey to brine on the night of Friday, November 28th.  I had about four hours to kill, and I was inspired to take out my charcoal for the first time in quite a while.  Working from a reference photo by Bob Langrish in one of my many horse books, I became lost in capturing the spirit of this fiery Lusitano stallion.  His bay coloring and fierce eye put me in mind of Rocky Balboa; Rocky IV had been playing in the pizza parlor earlier that day.  Hence, the title for this piece: "Balboa Lusitano."  I will probably almost certainly do some more work on it.  As you can see in the above photo, my cat Arya decided to take a closer look at this drawing.  I took the picture for evidence before erasing the paw print with a kneaded eraser, so I could photograph the entire drawing.

"Balboa Lusitano"
pen and charcoal
11x14

During the process of photographing, Arya came to investigate.  Most of the time, I love how she follows me around the house.  Most of the time.  I like it rather less when she gets her little paws (and claws) into my artwork and supplies.  She is terribly adorable, regardless.

Who, me?

On Friday, I became frustrated with the lighting at my desk job while working some more on my Suffolk Punch team graphite.  It's rather dim and yellowish light, and I literally could not see what I was doing with the lighter gray details.  So I decided to make this tracing off of the computer monitor to feel some sort of sense of accomplishment.  This revealed to me that my free hand drawing was not quite accurate in its proportions, but fairly close.  I might take some watercolor or acrylic paint to it and just have fun.

I was talking to my significant other about all that I had/have in mind to do: finish matting and framing my prints, acquiring more supplies, going to Greens and Beans, blogging, trying to become good enough to have an art show, going to other people's galleries.  He said that he had no idea that there was so much to art.  As one of my professors said, there's a reason why artwork is called Art. Work: yet I want to continue enjoying the fulfillment of my creative process.
 

Some sketches, and more thoughts on matting

Some quick internet searching has revealed the depth of my lack of knowledge on how to mat my prints.  However, my googling has also shown that this can easily be remedied, and now I have a few more items on my wish list: namely those supplies required to cut my own mat board.  I also saw some good ideas on picking up frames from Goodwill and the like, since places like Michael's will charge you a simply ridiculous amount of money.

I'm always a little nervous about using sharp edges and power tools (I walked in on The Machinist at a very scarring moment), which is one of the reasons why I only ever visited the wood shop at Mason Gross once to attempt making my own frame for a canvas.  If only somebody would cut the frames for me, then I would happily stretch my own canvas!  I do think that I can handle a mat cutter, though.  I want to be a serious artist, and a serious artist can and will cut her own mats.  I will start with simple archival-quality matboard until I have a little more recognition and funding, then I will look into the museum-quality stuff.

Meanwhile, here are some sketches for your amusement.

"Palomino"
colored pencil
small leather sketchbok

"I Love Snow"
EnerGel pen
small leather sketchbook

"Dappled Stud"
EnerGel pen
small leather sketchbook

"Jumper"

"Jumper"
graphite sketch
small leather sketchbook

I spent about an hour sketching this horse and rider, working from a photo which originally had a vertical jump in it.  The jump was obscuring the horse's hind legs, and I wanted to capture the strength of this horse's leap, so I did not incorporate the jump into the drawing.

The rider was probably the easiest part; I tried very hard not to draw my pre-conceived notion of a human and focused instead on angles and shapes in relation to the horse.  Lately I've noticed that I've improved in paying attention to the negative space which "outlines" objects in reference photos, which results in a more accurate drawing.

There's a lot of Western style equine and equestrian portraits, but not as many English style riding works of art.  I appreciate both styles, but have spent most of my riding time in an English saddle.  If I am going to draw mounted horses, I am leaning towards focusing on what I am most familiar with (and what subjects are most readily available in my geographical area).

Paint Pony, graphite pencil sketch

Despite being incredibly tired last Thursday, I promised myself that I would achieve my goal of drawing something, anything, every (week) day.  This was the end result, after some doodling beforehand.

I am working with limited equipment currently; I took the photo of this sketch with my cell phone and used its editing software to crop the photo.  My laptop's keyboard no longer works, and it doesn't connect to the Internet anymore.  I miss Lightroom, and all of the photos and documents on my laptop.  Hopefully all I need is a USB keyboard for now, because I really don't want to shop for a whole new laptop.  When I have a better photo, I will edit this post.

I am planning to get a new USB drive or two, to store pictures of my artwork and photography.  When my budget allows for it, I would love to get a graphic arts quality scanner.

My next goal is to make a couple of small laser copies of three pen and ink drawings I did this past month and mat and frame them.  Then, I will go to Greens & Beans, where Paula's friend runs a floral shop, and see if she can sell any of my prints.  Paula said that she warned her to be nice to me, haha.