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My childhood dream was to be a jockey. I never wanted to be a ballerina or a princess or anything like that. Suffice to say, I haven't achieved that dream despite being short enough - alas, I wouldn't make the weight requirement! The last remnant of that dream faded around Grade 9 or 10. Before my family moved to Calgary, I seriously thought about attending Olds College for their Equine Science or Exercise Rider and Jockey program. Alberta has a thriving horse industry and if the new Balzac racetrack ever gets built, it will have two major racetracks.

But my parents favoured career plans that were more practical and less dirty, so I never did have the encouragement in that area either. I practically grew up at Northlands Park, which was my Dad's way of babysitting us when Mom worked weekends or evenings. It was great, if a little odd - we could run around wherever we wanted, there were always fries after the eighth race and there were horses to watch! There was never a shortage of Dad's friends who doted on my brother and I as well. Like bowling, an afternoon at the racetrack seems like an antiquated hobby.

Naturally, I loved The Black Stallion as well. I wish I could find it, but I have a Grade 1 drawing of me riding The Black. It's such an adorable picture - I love kid's art - but it's a picture I keep finding and losing over the years. The next time I find it, I promise to scan it in!
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Livejournal recently had a Writer's Block question about things people collect...well, as you might have seen from my YouTube videos, I collect model horses. Many people think at first that model horses are like model cars, and while some people do enjoy repositioning, rehairing and repainting models, most of mine are straight out of the box!

In fact, I just unboxed this beautiful silver fella, Esprit, Breyer's 2010 World Equestrian Games model. I only get a couple of new models every year nowadays - with over 300 Breyer and Peter Stone horses, so space is a bit of a premium!

One of the many facets of showing model horses is photo showing. This is where you take pictures of your horse, find a show to enter (either online or snail mail) and wait for the results. They are fun to enter and I used to be really into it! I had a really poor camera though - an Olympus Mini. Now I have a great camera and no enthusiasm for photoshowing. Go figure!

I love Esprit so much that I just had to take some pictures and this one was my favourite.
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I need a little sign that says "Make Hay While the Sun Shines" because then it would remind me to do more productive things when our wacky weather is behaving nicely! For instance, I should have taken a photo of this ACEO outdoors on Saturday when I had the chance.

I drew it a few weeks ago at an artist trading card get together graciously hosted by Studio Todorovic at Art Central. Originally it was going to be one horse, but I didn't have an eraser, so I thought I would just go ahead and make it two horses in tandem. I used Copic markers for whole card. This line of markers is just wonderful to use, unlike Prismacolors. The nibs are replaceable and they have no odour.

The original card is for sale on Etsy - I do believe it's the first new thing I have listed in a long time!



Purple Pony ACEO

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The distortion I was going for didn't quite happen, and the pose is almost more of an homage to Geroge Stubb's "Whistlejacket" but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Painting "loose" or "different" is not usually something I do :-)



Big Yellow Horse Painting


Acrylic ::: 24x24" ::: December 29, 2009

Pony Card

Jan. 1st, 2010 09:45 am
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I had a plan to make handcut Christmas cards this year, but it didn't quite happen...but I was able to make my friend a pony birthday card. It's based on a drawing called "Just for Fun" that I did a year or two ago. Click for larger.


Birthday Card

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I put the final tweaks on my yellow horse painting this morning and when it's light enough, I'll photograph it tomorrow. It felt so good to mark it down as complete today in my sketchbook.

For those of you who have seen it in progress, it's not a very complicated painting. The complications came from the horse's legs (which I'm still not entirely satisfied with) and the green colour field. The original green colour more or less cancelled out the darkness of the horse's legs, and it needed to be pushed back. It really killed me on Sunday to paint out the whole area including the horse's legs. Then I discovered that the distortion I was going for was part of the problem with the legs - I ended up mixing some light blue to slim down the rump. I spent all day painting on Sunday and I found myself mentally exhausted just from the sheer amount of thinking and problem solving required.

Monday was far easier - I touched up some areas and then gave myself some time to think about it. The colours I chose were based on Franz Marc's colour theories - some of you may recall that I wrote an art history essay on one of his paintings and this was inspired by it. He called yellow the "feminine principle" and I discovered it's very, very hard to paint around yellow, nevermind mixing up the purest shade of it. There are some areas where the colours vibrate against each other and I like that effect.

Hopefully by tomorrow I'll think of a catchy name for it. My husband suggested "Horse Dodging Laser Beams" and then threw in a few sound effects to boot!
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It's time for the annual trimming of the rose bushes, which is taking longer than usual. One of the bushes is providing too much shade for an ant hill, and last night I had ants all up and my leg :-P The temperatures have been a little up or down, or too hot to do that, or too blah to do this, which is pretty much how the whole summer went!

I ended up cramming as much artsy stuff into one day as I could - I made a rough figure out of Model Magic clay for a future painting, I made an ATC of a friend's lovebird, packaged pink flower magnets for a breast cancer fundraiser, painted the background for a new horse picture and painted nine quarter horse ACEOs along with it. Whew! That's a lot of labour for Labour Day!

This new painting gives me hope that I can finish the acrylic version of Alberta Spirit - I need to pick up some pthalo blue (green shade) for it. I just hate wasting paint, so as the new horse picture involved black, green and blue, it was the perfect time to get started on these ACEOs. I can't wait until they're all finished.


QH aceos WIP

New ACEOs!

Aug. 16th, 2009 09:39 pm
purpleponyart: (Default)
Hot off my art desk :-) The one on the left is for sale on ArtFire while the one on the right is for sale on Etsy.



Pegasus ACEOs


Prismacolor ::: 2.5x3.5" ::: August 16, 2009
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Finished today - finished at last :-) Click for the large version. And of course a big hand to [livejournal.com profile] beybladesabre who made this picture possible.


Alberta Spirit

August1, 2009 ::: Pencil crayon and PanPastel ::: 9.5x13"
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Well, aren't I a Posty McPosteron today :-) I found out about Drawing Day 2009 yesterday and managed to get it done in time.


Running Blue Horse

June 6, 2009 ::: Oil Pastel ::: 10x11"
purpleponyart: (Default)
Unfortunately for feral horses in Alberta and British Columbia, someone is out to get them, and have been since at least the 1970s. Every year there are a few stories of horses found dead and this latest shooting where a stallion, yearling and pregnant mare were shot, is just absolutely sickening. Fortunately for the horses, they do have a voice with the Wild Horses of Alberta Society. Maybe next year I can donate something if they have an auction again.
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[livejournal.com profile] sighthoundlady and I did an ATC swap this week. Here is Inga, one of her characters:



Inga the Prehistoric Horse ATC



And this should look familiar to my friends, it's a purple My Little Pony. Thanks so much for doing the swap!



MLP ACEO Art card
by =sighthoundlady


If anyone else would like to swap cards, just LMK :-) I'm always up for it!
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The booklet for the Calgary Stampede Western Showcase came in the mail yesterday, and I'm going to give it a shot, if I can complete anything in time, that is. I don't have anything completed that would work, so I figure it's a great time to make a brand new horse painting! I have the perfect reference photos too, taken from my trip to Lethbridge in 2007. As for the horse part, I may have to wait until WetCanvas' reference picture library is up again. I plan on entering the card making and acrylic categories.
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It's been ages since I did an Illustration Friday entry. This week's word is "breezy" which makes me think of horses and blue! It's also another chance for me to do some papercutting. I want to do this horse in other colours, especially since I have some new X-acto blades. Nothing is worse than cutting with dull blades!


Breezy
March 5, 2009 ::: Watercolour and paper ::: 2.5x3.5"

Bay QH ACEO

Jan. 4th, 2009 07:26 am
purpleponyart: (Default)
First ACEO of the year! It sets the mood for my next series of horse cards, which I wasn't expecting to do in acrylic. This guy isn't a part of that set though. He's for sale on Etsy.


Click for larger
January 3, 2009 ::: Acrylic ::: 2.5x3.5"
purpleponyart: (Default)

Click for larger
November 30, 2008 ::: PanPastels and Pencil Crayon ::: 2.5x3.5"

#8 of 9

Nov. 13th, 2008 07:31 pm
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Click for larger
November 13, 2008 ::: PanPastels and Pencil Crayon ::: 2.5x3.5"
purpleponyart: (Default)
Just two more to go now, both chestnuts. It was hard to make this guy as "white" or "light gray" as possible.


White Arabian ACEO

October 30, 2008 ::: PanPastels and Pencil Crayon ::: 2.5x3.5"
purpleponyart: (Default)
Just three more to go now. I forgot to upload this one, it was done the same day as the previous one.


Gray Arabian ACEO

September 14, 2008 ::: PanPastels and Pencil Crayon ::: 2.5x3.5"
purpleponyart: (Default)
#5! I'm currently working on #7, but it's harder to colour a white horse than one would imagine :-)


Gray Arabian ACEO

September 14, 2008 ::: PanPastels and Pencil Crayon ::: 2.5x3.5"

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