I was asked to paint a commission painting for the Equi-Kids Therapeutic Riding Center, in Virginia Beach, Virginia some time ago.  I was excited, because I had been heavily involved in therapeutic riding for about 25 years.  I ran a center, here in Virginia, for 20+ years, and loved it.  It is such a help to the riders.  The volunteers get so much out of it too, and the horses can tell they have a special job.  I could go on and on, but I will stick to the commission painting!

Equi-Kids is in the enviable position of having been able to build their dream facility.  They were given 90 acres, outside of Virginia Beach.  For those of you interested in therapeutic riding and know the wonderful benefits that it has for so many people, look up Equi-Kids’ website, www. equikids.com, and the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association at www.narha.com.  Equi-Kids has been working for a very long time to make this dream a reality, by working very hard to write grants, get donations, and holding fundraisers.  They are most of the way through construction of a wonderful, state-of-the-art horse facility.  The indoor isn’t in yet, but everything else is wonderful!  They came from one pony and 6 riders, to this.  Way to go everyone!!

They wanted an oil painting, as well as a painting/drawing for reproduction purposes.  The oil painting is 18″ x 24″, the watercolor/ink drawing is 11″ x 14″.  I forgot to take photos of the watercolor/ink, but took several of the oil.  I am including them, from the beginning, in the “ugly” stage, all the way to the finished piece.  I am also including some photos of the new facility.  I took a wonderful paint horse, Dookie, now known as Frank, to donate to Equi-Kids.  So I got to take a lot of wonderful photos of everything!

The oil painting is now hanging on a wonderful, tall purple, with gold flakes wall the is the centerpiece of the reception area of the main entrance area.  You will notice that I made changes, in the background, in the placement of the wheelchair, of the size of the main figures, etc.

Two wonderful trips in one summer!  How fantastic!  I flew off from Dulles Airport to Heathrow airport in London, on the evening of June 1.  I arrived bright and early at 7:00 am in London on June 2, 2009.  My English friends, Rosemary and Antony picked me up, and off we drove, on the left side as is the rule in the UK.  About an hour and a half later we arrived at their wonderful home, and vision of an English garden and house.  There is a 5 hour difference in time between here in Virginia, USA, and Tiptoe, England, where Rosemary and Antony live.  I love how the homes have names, instead of numbers.  It is so much more personal!

Rosemary and I had planned to paint out a good bit.  So we painted with some of her friends in the New Forest.  How fun to not do the touristy things and rather go and do things that as “the locals”.  Painting in the New Forest, painting with a class that Rosemary taught, a week long trip, with painting to Cornwall, and sketching all over.

Our trip to Cornwall was wonderful!  Full of hills.  No matter where you go, there is a hill, so in addition to seeing so many things, we got in shape!  We stayed in Polruan, and went across the River Fowey (pronounced Foy), to the village of Fowey.  We could look out the window and see the house where the famous author, Daphne DeMauerier lived.  Cream Teas, pasties, Irish Coffee, tea time, happy hour, eating supper in the pubs, ording a pint of Guinness (I found a half pint is less filling!), listening to the wonderful Cornish accent.

So many memories….staying with great friends, meeting lots of people, never seeing another American the whole two + weeks, pubs, pasties, a day trip to Cherbourg, France, via ferry, wine in the sun in Cherbourg, castles, the wonderful New Forest, the wonderful New Forest ponies, Izzy, the New Forest pony, people riding all over the place!!!  So much more!!!

There are so many photos that are wonderful.  I have only included a few here.  Mostly painting, and being in the New Forest.  I will be doing paintings from so many, and working on many of the paintings I did there.  I took my oil paints, which was a whole new experience to travel by plane with painting supplies.  I got things paired down as much as possible, creating a painting box which my husband made to attach to a photo tripod.  It wasn’t totally weightless, but less than taking my French easel.  I hope to put up the paintings and sketches I did over there.  No horse paintings, but lots of reference photos to work from!

Doug and I went out to Missoula, Montana, to visit our daughter, Erin.  She was graduating from the University of MT, in the Forestry and Resource Conservation Department.  We also go to have wonderful hikes in the area, meet wonderful new people, and have fantastic time with Erin!  The weather was great, and we loved Missoula!  I really like the bumper stickers that say: “Keep Missoula weird, do your part”.  Perfect!

We hiked in various places, the Rattlesnake area, the Bitterroot Valley, around Missoula itself, and lots more.  Licorice ice cream from “The Dipper”.  Dollar sushi night, staying at wonderful Judy and Dwayne Wright’s house, and meeting all the super friends of Erin.

I have been working on a series of painting centered around horses in Virginia.  I titled the series, “Virginia’s Finest Equines”.  I’ve been working on this for almost a year.  Originally I had wanted to have a “real” exhibit of the paintings, in a “real” gallery.  In the economy of our times that did not seem to possible.  So I wanted to put on an online  show of the work I did.   Many of these paintings were done from people around the state who were generous enough to allow me to use photos of their horses.  Others were done from photos that I took of various horses around our state.  It has been a wonderful challenge.  I actually have two more paintings which are not on here now, which are not finished yet!  Most are done in oil, a few in pastels.  Many of the people wrote short stories about their horses.  I am enclosing these her also.  I will be posting these on my website also, elainehurst@mac.com.  There will be a short write-up going into The Virginia Horse Journal and Horse Talk. I hope you enjoy my work, and what others have written about their special equines.  Thank you all!

I have been excited to start this painting, because it has everything that I like play with in a painting, light/dark, warm/cools, infocus/out of focus and the subject.  I am working from a photograph I took of my horse, Duncan, last summer.  He is a 16 hand Quarter Horse gelding, with great dapples and light mane and tail.  His color worked beautifully with the grass, the trees behind him, and above him.  I really enjoyed starting out with the shadow areas on the horse being done in purple.

I am showing you two images, one from the start of the painting, the other one that is part way through the painting.  It is an oil, done on a really neat kind of linen which has a clear gesso which lets the color of the linen come through.  I have bought the linen on a roll, and I stretch it myself.

On the one that I worked on today, I am going over the purple layer of the shadow area with a more local color (actual color) of the shadow areas.  Some of the shadows are still too dark, and I have not done any sort of blending, but that will come.  These kinds of paintings really hold my interest, even though I can’t wait to get to the fun colors and areas.  Enjoy!

Happy holidays! No matter what holiday you observe, may it be filled with peace and joy to you, your family and friends.  Even thought the season is filled with rushing around, try to take time to slow down and enjoy your time with those around you.  Time goes by just as quickly if you are rushing, as it does if you take time to enjoy your family and friends, as well as some time for yourself.

Also, a heads up to everyone, about my up-coming new website! Although I have had a wonderful website, thanks to Sheri Gordon’s super web skills, thank you, Sheri! My daughter, Erin, is creating a new one for me!  How wonderful to have my daughter creating a website for mom!  Thanks Erin!! While she is home from Montana (where it is very cold), she is working on it for me.  So, keep a look out for a new look, new paintings, and new information!

Thank you to all those who have purchased paintings, commissions, or had me do framing for you,  this year! I truly appreciate your trust and patronage.  I will be again teaching in 2009 at Blue Ridge Community College, also at the Larkin Studio in Harrisonburg, as well as giving private lessons at my own studio.  Anyone interested, let me know!  Children and adults welcome!  Some special education art classes are in the works also.

Enjoy the holidays!

There are more and more musical events going on in the OASIS Gallery in Harrisonburg, VA. (103 S. Main St., Harrisonburg, VA 540-442-8188).  On the “Second Fridays”, different musical groups perform.  There is no fee to listen, just come in and enjoy the art all around you, and listen to some wonderful local musicians!  Then on “Fourth Fridays”, we have what we affectionaly call the “OASIS Jam Band”, jam night.  It is a group of people, who change from month to month, with a core group, who come in and jam.  We play lots of 1960’s and1970’s folk, as well as lots more.  Blues, folk, country, whatever strikesour fancy of the evening.  No fee to listen, just come enjoy the evening with us.  If you play an instrument, bring it and join us.  Don’t worry about your level, everyone is welcome!

The end of a painting is always one of the hardest things for an artist.  You, or at least I, want to keep noodling around with it.  “Oh, I should just tweak this,” or “maybe I should add/change/take out/put in this….”.  But, the end does have to arrive, especially when something has a deadline, or sorts.

So, the pastel commission painting, of the event rider on the lovely gray horse is done.  Now, because it has to be shipped, unframed, to the owners, it needs to be packed well, and mindfully.  First, because this was done on a board, I used foarm, removeable sticky things (so technical, huh??) to adhere the painting to the backing board.  Then I created raised edges around it, pulled Glasseine tightly around that, taped it all tightly, added a board on top of all that and there it is.  Added a hand written thank you note, on one of my own painting image notecards, and I will add my suggestions for when they have the painting framed.

I like to educated people about pastel paintings, especially when they are purchasing one from me.  Up to this point, I have waffled back and forth on the pricing of pastels vs oils.  Something a lot of people have trouble with in general, is pricing your work.  Up to this point, the pastels have been priced less than the oils.  I want to be sure that people don’t think of them as lesser artwork.  They are not.  Look at Degas, look at Cassatt, and many others whose pastels have stood the test of time well.  You do need to frame them differently than oils, but they are just as equal in their artist merit as an oil painting.  You just need to be more thoughtful about your framing of them.

A little on framing, then we’re off.  Pastels should always be framed behind glass.  You can use plexi, but you must spray the plexi with an anti static spray if you do that.  I recommend glass.  You may choose whether or not to use mat(s) with your frame.  I let the painting tell me what it needs.  If I were framing this commission piece, I think I would not use a mat(s), but would use a wide frame, with a linen liner, and be sure it had good spacers between the painting and the image (black spacers).  I like to use double mats when framing with mats.  I also perfer wide frames, but that is just my own personal choice.  As to the color of the mats, I usually have a lighter colored mat on the outside, and a darker color that picks something up in the painting, as an inner mat.  Always, always add spacers between the actual painting and the mat or frame.  Acid free foam core works well on the back of mats, and the spacers you can buy, which have an adhesive backing, to stick to the glass, inside the frame, black so you can’t see through to the inner part of the rabbit (inside of frame).

So.  That’s it for this piece.  Now off to mail it.  As a side note, since these posts are picked up by another equine art blog, I will be putting some non-equine painting, and other things in other pages on this blog.  I have a landscape painting, I’ll add here this time, that I will be working on and showing you, as well as some miniature paintings, both equine and landscape.  So, check out the other pages as well as this front one.  Peace.

I worked on the pastel commission piece again this morning, while the light was nice at my pastel corner.  I would like to say that things look more organized as I go on, but I’m afraid they don’t.  I just get out more pastels, and surround myself with them.  I also needed to bring the piece down from the easel and lay it on a drawing board.  This really isn’t the recommended way of working on pastels.  The reason being, that you want the excess pastel dust to fall away from your painting, and not sit on top of it.

But, due to my recent neck problems, I have had to make some adaptions.  I turn the piece over very often, and knock any excess dust off of it.  Also, as I get closer to adding some details, I have to admit, I have to get my reading glasses out, sigh.  But, whatever works!  I haven’t done much with the face yet, a little with the jump, but I am still debating about it.  Having taken these photos this morning, I see something a little “off” about the horse’s rear-end.  Sometimes, taking a photo and looking at it on your camera, if you have a digital, or the computer, can give you a different perspective to look at it from.  Anything that helps you see the whole, and not the little bits.  The whole has to work together.

It happens so often, you work on a painting, you get a certain part of it working, it looks great, you step back and … ugh.  Everything else doesn’t work with it.  So you work and work and work to make the rest of it work for you.  Nope.  You may have to change your “precious” part.  I always remembe what my friend, and amazing equine artist, Rosemary Sarah Welch said to a workshop once, “don’t let it become too precious. ” Of course it sounded much better with her British accent, but you get the idea.  It is something on … a piece of paper, a canvas, a board, a this, or a that.

Yes, artwork is important, and we work hard at it, but, do not tie yourself up in one piece so much that it makes or breaks your day.  You learn from each piece you do, which reminds me of another fantastic artist, Dawn Emerson, who had us do a Quantity Exercise in a workshop.  How many charcoal drawings of a certain number of sculputures could we do in a specified amount of time?  You get this idea too, the more you do, the better you get.  It doesn’t even have to be a whole painting.  Do a 5 minute sketch, a section of a tree, whatever, just move your hand with something that will make a mark.  Muscle memory.

So, you can see some difference, I hope, between the work yesterday, and today.  I’m not always sure about computers, and whether they show the correct colors on different screens.

I did take time out to  take a photo of the three Quarter Horse babies that are wintering over here.  I was hoping they would run around.  But again, they were too interested in the green grass.  We still have very green grass here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Hi everyone!  I have had a request to show some paintings in progress.  Now I know that the person asking, is an oil painter, but what I am working on right now is a pastel.  It is a commission, which needs to be ready as  Christmas present, so I am focusing on it.

However, both pastel paintings and oil paintings have many similarities.  You wouldn’t think so, since one is a dry medium, and one a wet medium.  But, you paint with both of them in basically the same way.  In oils you usually work “thin to thick”, meaning you put thinner layers of oil paint onto you surface so it doesn’t just run off, if it is too thick.  You also create better luminosity, which I am so interested in.

With pastels, you work “hard to soft”.  Basically the same idea as for oils.  If you put a very soft pastel (pastels come in many, many different “levels” of hardnesses), on too heavily at the beginning of your painting, you fill up the “tooth”.  The tooth of your pastel surface (there are many, many of these too), is what holds the pastels onto the surface.  I like using sanded papers and boards.  Some I buy, some I make.

For this commission I am using a 11×14 Ampersand Pastel Board.  It has a gritty surface which holds the pastel well.  Since I will be shipping it unframed, I want it to be as rigid as possible.  More on shipping, and framing pastels later.  Let’s get to the actual painting.  I was given a photograph to work from, of a young woman riding an event horse.  Nice, a grey!!  Love those purples and blues you can use in greys!!

When painting, in any medium, you think in shapes, not objects.  A scary thought fo the commission owners!  But, in order for the objects to be meaningful, connect with the rest of the painting, they first must be painted, and seen, as shapes.

You also want to relate your darks to other darks, lights to other lights, dulls to other dulls, etc.  You want to know, through your “roadmap” of the sketch, and where your darks will be, where your lights will be, how to make certain areas become more focal points than others.  At the moment, I don’t like the jump in the background.  But, I am also not using my energy on it either.  It will resolve later.

But what I do want to know is where my dark shapes are, and the light ones.  In pastels, as in oils, you paint, generally, since we all know that in the end, there are no “Rules”.  The Art Police do not knock on our studio doors and tell you what to do, or not do.  But, there are things that will help the painting progress.  Starting with your darks first, keeping pastels put on lightly, and usually with harder pastels first, so as to not fill up the tooth of your paper or board.

I am using an Ampersand Pastel Board for this piece.  I use all sorts of surfaces for pastel paintings, but primarily they are all a sanded surface.  Also, just to be clear, my opinion of Fixatives, is not to use them, except as a help to darken an area, and add more tooth.  If you “fix” a pastel painting at the end, you dull down all those lovely pastel particles that glimmer.  Pastels are such beautiful pieces, that is why Degas’ and so many other pastelists from times past, their paintings still just glimmer.

Enjoy!  Peace.