Blue Sky Highland Heifer 6x6" Acrylic

I really like the look of the highland cattle and the real challenge is getting the volume of hair that these animals produce to look like something other than Cousin It from the Addams Family! It makes you appreciate the smooth coated animals.

This is How My Garden Grows 6x6 acrylic Private Collection

It is that time of year, and since I neglected certain portions of my gardens last year, this year, weeding is especially fruitful. I tugged, pulled and removed not just weeds but perennials that decided that world domination was a grand idea. In an effort to curtail their take over of the entire place I had to toss them into the wheelbarrow.

That inspired this painting. I used a pallet knife which I never use and worked with lush excessive amounts of paint replicating life in my garden. It was fun, the painting, not the weeding!

The Awassi

The Awassi 6"x 6" Acrylic Portrait

I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to Qatar a few months a go and visit a large sheep farm outside the city of Doha. The farm raises both sheep and goats. Since I raised sheep myself, I found this new breed of fat tail sheep to be very interesting.

They are the primary sheep used in the middle east and are well adapted to the weather in that region. If you are interested in them you should google them. They have a number of physical abilities that make them uniquely suited to the desert.

Joe

Sue's Gelding Joe

Oil portrait

My latest challenge is to get some paintings completed in time for our local Art Show celebrating Canada's 150th Anniversary. Ten paintings to be exact. The theme of the show is to have 15 artists create 10 - 6"x 6"pieces so we can have 150 pieces of art on the wall. Might be a wee bit ambitious but sometimes you have to be!

I chose this picture as it is a Canadian Gelding (Canada's own National Horse) that belongs to a long time friend. I thought having our National colours behind him would work out well. In my mind I had something entirely differently planned, a very realistic smooth piece with shadows of maple leaves falling all over the place but I love the way this piece turned out. Sometimes you have to let go and follow where that brush leads you!

Connor and Chloe

Connor and Chloe- Two perspectives

I am very fortunate that I come from a very artistic family. My daughter Anna is a gifted artist in her own right. She prefers to create portraits of people with water colour. I love doing portraits but of animals and I use oils. We usually never paint together. We might live in the same house but our studios are in different places.

Our local arts society is having a "Generations" themed show where people from different age groups collaborate on art. It is meant to highlight how everyone can learn from another artist regardless of age and create beautiful harmonious pieces that bridges the age gap.

Anna and I struggled with our collaboration. What could we create together? With our differing medias, working on a single piece was ruled out. We finally decided to work on the same picture and then compare the final results. I never paint people, Anna never paints animals, it could have been a recipe for disaster. It was fun and the result is beautiful.

This whole process has been so very exciting for me. We painted my son Connor and the family horse, Chloe. I even used an old 10x8 canvas that my son had painted when he was a child and if you look at the original you can see little glimmers of his art peeking through.

As an artist I am always looking at new ways to expand my creative expression. Working with another artist was fun, challenging and competitive. I worried my person would look like a muppet, Anna worried her horse would look like a stump. I think the Fullerton Women excelled!