Ruairidh

"Ruairidh" (pastel, 24x12 inches) $1150

Painting 16 of my 21-in-31 in March!

OMG! I just found out how to stitch scans together using Photoshop! I can't believe it took me this long to learn it; I had been doing it manually for years. One quick Google search, and BAM! Hours of future labor saved! (*Happy dance*)

I named this one Ruairidh because I've already used "Rusty" twice, and "Rory" once, and "Ruairidh" is the root of Rory, which means Red-Haired King in Scottish Gaelic.

I began this painting years ago, while working an event, and it was failing miserably. At home later I wiped it all back down to the under-painting and put it aside. Today I was feeling confident, and decided it was time to finish it.

This young king will be with me at the Bayou City Art Festival, March 29-31, 2019. Find me in booth 519.

Shaggy

"Shaggy"  (pastel, 8x8 inches)  $375 framed

Well, the time has finally come that I'm reusing titles.
Here was my first "Shaggy", from 2011:

Today's Shaggy is really Iris the highland cow (Thanks to Frances of the Garden Gallery!) which I've painted three times now. But honestly, could there possibly be a better name for this face?

Here are some progress shots of today's Shaggy. (Be sure to scroll down to the very bottom for a sneak peek at my new batch of circle paintings exclusively for my show in Rockport!)

Aaaannnd... check out these new underpaintings! I'm having fun! (Many of these will be my posts over the next few days...)

Ivy (aka: Iris)

"Ivy"  (pastel, 6x6 inches) click here to bid

You guessed it, Ivy is another view of the Real Iris. But, different painting, different title...

I had a very productive weekend! But I now have a framing dilemma for my abundance of new 6x6's. I have more paintings than frames that size! So, good for you, I have to choose about 8 or 9 of them to frame and bring with me to the Bayou City Art Festival in Houston this weekend, and let the rest of them stay unframed and on auction at DailyPaintworks. I've decided to let Ivy join the DPW crowd!

Stay tuned the next two days for my latest large works (yes, more!); the 32x32 Herefords and the 16x16 deer (hopefully will have titles before I have to post them!)

Here are some Ivy progress shots (Thank you to Frances of the Garden Gallery for the great reference shot!)

Thanks for watching! Please share!

.

The Real Iris

"The Real Iris"  (pastel, 6x6 inches)  click here to bid

This friendly young cow really is named Iris! Many thanks again to Frances of the Garden Gallery for the great photos!

And... your sneak peek for today... two new underpaintings, and early pastel progress on the longhorn calves I posted a few days ago:

new underpainting, 32x32 inches

new underpainting "Generations", 36x36 inches

The underpainting above uses my usual gold and terra cotta pastel primers, and then I added white. For those of you new to my process, the Gold primer is Quiacridone Nickel Azo Gold fluid acrylic color mixed into Golden (brand) Fine Pumice Gel. The gel is clear, so the color mixture is semi-transparent, and gets darker on each application. The terra cotta and the white are both Art Spectrum (brand) Pastel Primer, which is opaque, but I do scuffle and dry-brush it on in some areas.
(No, that's not a volcano behind the adult longhorn. Ha! What looks like smoke rising is where the gold primer overlapped on the initial application. That won't show when I'm done with the sky. The hill is my first attempt at some sort of background element. Supposed to be a tree line. Most likely it will change as I'm not sure I like the shape of it so far.)

And below is how far I got today on my first of this big batch.. (see the underpainting at the bottom of last Wednesday's post!) Started with the the darks and cooling down the shadows, with a bit of the highlights in for balance.

Hopefully, these new ones will all be with me at the Bayou City Art Festival in Houston, March 27-29. You can find me in Booth #3 near the main entrance!

Hyacinth

"Hyacinth"  (pastel, 6x6 inches)  sold

Hyacinth went out to Frances of the Garden Gallery, who has been so generous with her photos of a neighbor's Highland Cattle, a breed in short supply in my part of Texas.

And for you patient subscribers: Here's a peek at 2 new large underpaintings. I'm gearing up for a couple weeks of intense painting to have some new work at the Bayou City Art Fest later this month.

pastel primer underpainting, 24x24

pastel primer underpainting, 16x16