Online Exhibition Society Of Equestrian Artists

Well the small works are not getting published here at the moment as I seem to be selling them "Off the easel" at the moment but they will be resumed very shortly!

Meanwhile I am proud to announce that the Society of Equestrian Artists Annual Exhibition "Horse In Art" is available online for the first time ever as a full slideshow of 230 works of art... Proud as the slideshow is my contribution this year to the Society, I hope that the artists are happy with what I have done and that I have been accurate with the information. (Checked and double checked! So fingers crossed. )

I was fortunate to have two works accepted into the exhibition this year and one of them has been shortlisted for the John Noott Galleries Best Oil Painting Award. Excited? Very! 

"Parthenon" Shortlisted for John Noott Galleries Oil Painting Award

 

Please take time to go to the website and have a look at the work on offer and remember that almost all the work is for sale and can be purchased by contacting the Society Admin through the links on the home page of the slideshow below.
Enjoy!

Horse In Art Slideshow

No4 "Foxhounds Study" and No5 Pennal Calon LanStudy 5 Pennal Calon Lan

Well I have still been doing my daily paintings but I have not been publishing my blog!

Todays offfering is a very slightly larger piece and is a loose acrylic sketch of a pair of foxhounds. I am enjoying playing around and seeing what can be done with this medium, but I am beginning to think that I could do with a sightly less restricted palatte, which is unusual for me as I like to keep the colours to an absolute minimum and really push myself to mix my hues and colours myself! Currently at my disposal I have;

• quinacridone magenta
• titanium white
• ultramarine
• mars black
• coeruleum blue
• cadmium yellow 
• cadmium red and
• vandyke brown

So... any recommendations from you acrylic users out there? What colours would you not be without on your palatte?

"Foxhounds Study"
9.5" x 7" Acrylic on panel - Price £40 plus £1.99 p&p

No 5 Pennal Calon Lan. Revisiting an old favourite of mine, love the look n his face. a real cob attitude!

"Pennal Calon Lan" Price £55 plus £1.99 p&p

5" x 7" Acrylic on panel

Each painting is signed, and on the reverse it will be numbered, dated and titled. You can buy via paypal either through your own account or just using a credit/debit card. Your painting will be carefully wrapped to keep it safe and posted to you. If you wish to pay by another method, or if you are outside the UK and want a quote for postage or have any questions please do contact me by email debbie@debbiedunbar.co.uk

In the event that two people buy the painting using the buy it now button the first person to purchase will be the new owner and I will make a full refund to the other party immediately I am made aware of the problem. I hope this will not happen but if it does my apologies.

No Three - Colossus

Have had trouble getting back to the easel for one reason or another since my trip to Somerset.  
But I had such a good time meeting with like minded PRE enthusiasts and collecting lots and lots of reference materials for a new set of Spanish Horse paintings! More on that later! 

Posting number three in the "daily" paintings series, where I get to experiment and paint whatever I fancy! It is also a great way to start the day, before moving on to the larger piecesthat I am working on. These pieces are all (so far) in acrylics which is a new medium for me. Or at lest one that I used a little when I was younger but could not get on with. Now I am really enjoying learning about the paint and how it handles and how to mix the colour palette I need.
This little one, 5" x 7" is a miniature shetland called Colossus, and belongs to a lovely lady called Debbie Wright who kindly allowed me to use her photo. Thank you Debbie. I loved the challenge of the unusual angle and soft colours, and enjoyed trying to capture this little chap's character so close in. 
Debbie amongst many other things, - she is a talented lady! - breeds these cuties and you can see more of them on her blog, Hericus Miniature Shetlands

Number Three "Colossus" 5" x 7" Acrylic on panel £55 plus £1.99 p&p

SOLD

Each painting is signed, and on the reverse it will be numbered, dated and titled. You can buy via paypal either through your own account or just using a credit/debit card. Your painting will be carefully wrapped to keep it safe and posted to you. If you wish to pay by another method, or if you are outside the UK and want a quote for postage or have any questions please do contact me by email debbie@debbiedunbar.co.uk
In the event that two people buy the painting using the buy it now button the first person to purchase will be the new owner and I will make a full refund to the other party immediately I am made aware of the problem. I hope this will not happen but if it does my apologies.

No 1 New Beginnings

Okay this is the very first of my new adventure with small "daily" paintings. I felt it was appropriate to choose a Welsh Cob as Number 1!

Very nearly fell at the first hurdle this morning as I could not decide what to paint! Took totally forever faffing about trying to decide! Note to self, get sorted out exactly what I am going to paint the following day before I pack up and leave the studio for the day and leave it out ready!

Anyway, for good or bad here it is. I found it very difficult to adjust to working this size, it s a tiny 5" x 7"

 SOLD

Number 1 "Welsh Cob Study" 5" x 7" acrylic on panel

As promised all of these little works will be available at very competetive prices, each one is signed, and dated and numbered and titled on the reverse. Postage is at cost of £1.99 You will recieve your painting wrapped n cellophane and bubble wrap in a jiffy bag to protect it in transit.
Any questions or to arrange alternative payment please email me debbie@debbiedunbar.co.uk

Archives

Just thought I would add a picture testing the email subscribe! This post will be removed!

Changes

Well its been a strange year for me, lots of the shows I attend with my artwork have been cancelled because of the weather and I have been in an unproductive state of limbo. I finally seem to be shaking myself out of it, to be truthful I have been pretty depressed at times and have spent a lot of time soul searching and asking myself if I am really following the right path with my art.
It is I suppose partly to do with the fact that I support the family with what I do. Sometimes that gets a bit overwhelming! The temptation to get a  "proper" job? is frnakly appealing at times like this! I am so lucky that I have a job that I actually love doing, and I should quit moaning about it, I know I know! But it is very scary sometimes!
Having decided that giving up is not an option - not at my age, LOL, and if truth be known I am probably pretty unemployable these days :-) but that is another story..  I have decided that I will use this blog to challenge myself, and in doing so share my journey. I can procrastinate with the best of them and find all manner of excuses why I am not doing stuff, so by " going public" I hope it will instill that extra discipline I seem to need! I hope that it improve my working practices and maybe even help or inspire one or two others along the way.

So from now on I will mainly use this blog to post small works. My intention is to create at least three a week, I don't want to bore you all stiff with a daily offering, and besides I don't think I could keep it up!!
Keep checking the blog as I will be starting the journey and giving more details very soon!

Still Life "Blue and White" oil on board

Grant Wood

A chance reference in a Clive Cussler novel I have read recenty goes to show that you never know where new art discoveries are going to appear! The main character descibes a scene of dawn breaking over a texas town on the bank of the Rio Grande as " like a Grant Wood painting" I had never heard of the artist, shame on me!..didn't even know if it was an imaginary reference so when surfing the net later I Googled "Grant Wood Artist" I found myself captivated by his works, not my usual fare but they just have... well... something.. The website dedicated to him is http://www.grantwoodartgallery.org/grantwood.htm and gives a broad outline of his life, but not much else aside information about the Art Colony he founded.

The site says this:

"American art students were often encouraged to study and paint in the style of the great 19^th century French Impressionist artists.  In 1920, Grant decided to travel to Europe to study artists like Pierre Bonnard, Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro.  It was after his trip to Germany that Grant found a way to paint that was all his own.  He decided to paint the subjects he knew and loved, using some of the simple ideas of the old European masters.  Grant realized that scenes of the people and places he knew while growing up were as beautiful and important as anything he had seen in Europe..... Grant wood died in 1942.  It had taken him many years to find a way to paint that he felt was special enough to call his own.  After searching the art center of Europe, Grant had finally realized the best place to create art was right in his own backyard. "

It struck a chord with me because I have often felt like I have not found my "style" my way of working that expresses what I feel passionate about in my art. Even as a child my handwriting constantly changed and waved, never looking the same from one week to the next as I tried to force it into this style or that style.. so much for my handwriting but it was a taste of things to come. I spent years looking at different artists, wishing I could emulate some style or other but in the end coming up unsatisfied. I wonder if a lot of this comes down to confidence. As I grow older I realise that I cannot be all things to all people, and that not everybody is going to love what I do, but I have to be true to myself for my work to possess any integrity, warts and all, I suppose it is part of the journey of an artist. 

So this artist who I had never even head of until this week, he was just a couple of years older that I am now when he died, a sobering thought..

Lampeter Stallion Show and Barley Saturday

Kicked of the new showing season in April with visits to Lampeter Stallion Show and Cardigan's Barley Saturday Parade.
Despite the horrible weather in the morning and numbers of entries and spectators being down at Lampeter Stallion Show we still had a good day, and I have lots of new material to work from, there are two or three new works already in progress and these will be unveiled very soon!

Barley Saturday and the weather was kind and the sun shone for the parade through the town. Again numbers of horses and ponies was down but there was a large and enthusiastic crowd lining the streets, it is such a buzz to actually run up the high street with a horse and hopefully I will be doing it again in the future, but for this year I just spectated, which felt quite odd! Got some lovely reference material for traditiional coloured horses and again there are a couple of pieces on the easel. Or rather stacked up around the studio awaiting my attention.

In the mean time here is a link to Mili Peel's website, well worth a visit as she takes some great pics of Welsh Cobs and ponies. She also has a new site http://www.welshstallion.co.uk/ advertising Welsh Stallions.

Below are some of the paintings that resulted from my visits to both these shows last year. I think I am really going to enjoy this year too! Please keep an eye out for the new work.

Tyngwndwn Daniel

Glanvyrrnwy Temptation

Hywel

Guto

Horeb Tomboy

Copyright, or wrong?

The brilliant Equestrian artist Sally Martin posted this link on her facebook page, its probably the most concise and relevant article I have seen about this issue, and is by the wonderful photograper Robert Vavra.

I am pasting the link below.

Robert Vavra Article about copyright

Whilst I am at it I think it only fair to post a link to Sally's own website. Enjoy!

http://sallymartinfineart.com/http://sallymartinfineart.com/

A New Year Beckons

Well, that was a miserable failure! The blog petered out in April despite best intentions. My apologies to my followers. I did manage to keep up with my facebook page! But honestly...
I tend to convince myself that I don't have anything interesting to say.. maybe I don't...its certainly easier for me to write bite sizes comments about my work on fb that to commit my thoughts to a blog. I do know that my life is going through a time of considerable change.
Maybe it is something to do with getting older. I am starting to realise that experiences and opportunities are slipping by.
Its not a cliche that we do have to take what opportunities life sends us and grab it.
I don't intend to be looking back as an old woman saying to myself I wish I had done this or why was I not brave enough to go for that.. Okay maybe it is a mid life crisis!
Plans for this year are to continue to explore and learn. But most of all to make use of everyday.
Happy New Year Everybody!