Cairo Portrait

new piece

First time I've picked up pencils in a long time.

This is 11x14, water-soluble pencils, titled "Waterlily".

AWB/ASP Inpections

I photographed the American Warmblood and American Sport Pony inspections yesterday in NH and learned so much. The judges were wonderful and when it came time to give ratings and ribbons, the head judge explained exactly how they award points. The foals were given ratings for their conformation and movement, and then there was one adult pony mare who also did free jumping and received a rating for that.

After the inspections were over, the foals were all branded. I have never seen branding done and I was surprised at how much the horses didn't care. They kicked out when the hot iron touched them but by the time they registered that it had happened, it was already over. A couple of the foals shook their heads but after that they all were kind of like, "well that sucked but now I want my mommy."

I was happy with how my equipment performed. I used my 70-200 f/2.8 IS L lens the most because that is my "mack daddy" of lenses and I knew I'd need something fast in the indoor.

Anyway, here are a few photos!

RISPCA Dog Walk T-shirt Design

Another RISPCA piece, for their dog walk in late August.

Framed RISPCA Ride artwork

All set and ready to go for this weekend's event!

Farm Cat

Heritage Farm, 4/18/10

Here are some shots from the Heritage Farm show on April 18, 2010:

Caution and Disregard

I get nervous to add colour to any line drawing like this. It's nerve-wracking! I spend maybe an hour getting all the lines in order and inking them on the sheet of paper, and then I pick up my paintbrush and kind of just have at it and hope for the best.

Sometimes the drawing gets ruined, either by a slip of a hand or improper planning on my part. You can only be so "careful" in art, and my style tends to be a delicate balance of caution and disregard.

So there you have it.

2010 Horse Ride design

Here is the finalized design for the 2010 RISPCA Horse Ride.

More info about the event is available here.

If anyone would like to pre-order a t-shirt, email Denise at rivestadog@aol.com and she will set one aside for you :)

Custom Save the Dates

My wedding in September will be here before we know it, and yesterday I completed the design for our save the dates. It will be printed on magnets so that people can plaster us all over their fridge for the next six months :)

Art inspired by my horse, Lucy

Forward

The weather here has been dull and dreary, and the horses are stuck inside thanks to the 2-4" of predicted rain for this weekend. I let Lucy out into the indoor to play and she had tons of extra energy. She spent almost half an hour running and bucking and playing, and when I got home from the barn, I was thinking about the way she moved today. I had this mental image of her tearing around, her haunches spring-loaded for action and her ears pricked foward, looking for the best route.

I also had been thinking a lot about forward energy, and how the energy for a horse comes from behind and goes in a circular motion, making its way through the horses back, shoulder, up the neck, through the jaw and then back towards the haunches again. I drew this tonight while the image was fresh in my mind and now I have to figure out how I'm going to finish it.

In the mean time, enjoy the work-in-progress, a memento of twenty-five minutes of orchestrated chaos.