Digital painting of Triple Crown Winner Justify

Triple Crown Winner Justify

I did a digital painting of the latest Triple Crown Winner yesterday and today. I did one of  American Pharoah so I thought I should do one of Justify as well.

Fine Art Prints of this painting are available in many sizes on my website.

2017 Reno Cattle Drive

I am so fortunate that the Reno Cattle Drive goes right by our apartment complex, right through my favorite field for walking the dog and photographing nature. This year I hiked up to the top of the hill so I could follow them down toward town. I had a nice canyon to photograph in without power lines or buildings which was what I was looking for. Here are some of my favorite images from this year. 

Cattle Drive 22 BW

All of these photographs are available as Fine Art prints on my website. 

Check it out when you have some free time.

Rider of the Purple Sage -Work in Progress 10

I decided to change the direction on my painting today. 

Here is the painting as it sits on my easel right now.

To see how I got to this point step by step, read on after the break.

Check out more of my work by visiting my website.

Rider of the Purple Sage -Work in Progress 9

Here is my progress today. Working a little slower but still working wet in wet at this point.

I'm getting happier with the results so I must be winning the battle at least a little. 

Be sure to check out my website, I'm constantly posting new work.

For step by step progress reports check after the break.

Rider of the Purple Sage -Work in Progress 8

The slow drying of the oil is slowing me down a little which I have to think is probably a good thing. Here is the painting as it sits right now.

I think I will just keep plugging along until I get tired of painting and then call it done.

To see the step by step versions read on after the break and remember 

to check  out more of my work on my website.

Rider of the Purple Sage -Work in Progress 7

I got my free Artisan Oil Colors and immediately messed up. I learned not to paint with just water. So I had to go out and buy some medium to use with the paint. I guess it's just water clean up. Still it works pretty well but dries really slow. Almost like painting with linseed oil so I guess I'll have to get some of the fast dry medium as well. Anyway here is the painting as it sits on my easel this afternoon.

I still haven't used the oil on the foreground yet. I'll probably start that later today.

To see step by step how I got to this point read on after the break.

As always feel free to check out my work on my website.

Rider of the Purple Sage -Work in Progress 6

I've been slowly working on the horse and rider for the past couple days. I want to get the harness and tack looking right and doing a little on the horses musculature. 

Here is how it sits on my easel this afternoon.

I'm waiting for the water based oil color before doing any more work on the background.

To check out more of my work visit my website.

To see the step by step process of how I got to this point read on after the break.

Rider of the Purple Sage -Work in Progress 5

I've been documenting my last few paintings by photographing them step by step as I paint and the process has allowed me to discover some things about my painting process. It seems I focus on defects the entire way through a painting, spotting them and then trying to fix them. So I am looking at the bad parts pretty much continuously, I think this is why it is such a battle of self doubt, sometimes even after the work is done it may take a year before I finally like it. So to help battle this I am going to try to also focus on the things I really like in a painting. By focusing more on the positive I can make more areas like that instead of constantly putting out fires.  

Here are some close ups of the areas I really like in this painting. 

I'm going for an impressionistic style in this painting and in these areas I think I have been pretty successful. Some of the background and sky I'm not as happy with at this point. So now I will transfer the foreground technique to the sky as well. I always want to add a lot more detail but on this painting I want to back off from that more photographic look. We'll see how that goes.Water based oils should be here next week so I'm just looking at the painting and doing my own critique for now.

To see more of my work and order Fine Art Prints check out my website.

Rider of the Purple Sage -Work In Progress 4

I'm making slow progress but got a good bit accomplished this morning. Thanks to free gift card from Jerry's Artarama for $50 I ordered some Artisan Water-Mixable Oil Color that I have been wanting to try out. The gift card was a real surprise, so thank you to the people at Jerry's Artarama! They should be here next week so that is what I will be using for my final layers.

Here is the painting as it sits on my easel right now.

As always to see more of my work check out my website where you can order Fine Art Prints.

To see step by step how I got to this point read on after the break.

Rider of the Purple Sage -Work In Progress 3

This one is going to take a while to get done. I am not in a hurry though as I'm starting to like how it's looking again. Here it is this afternoon on my easel.

I did a few changes to the background and started working on the horse and rider in a little more detail. I think the horse will be done in mostly red, purple, blue and yellow. I'm starting to get the proportions right on the horse and rider and then it will be a lot of pointillism style painting from there. Meanwhile since I had a little time today I made a video of some of my Woodies.

 

 

Check it out and drop by my website to see more of my work. 

Rider of the Purple Sage -Work In Progress 2

This one is fun to paint. Here it is as it sits on my easel right now.

It's at that "I don't like it right now" stage but I'm getting used to that. It's just part of the process, I think all artists struggle with self-doubt in the process of creating art. I'm trying to keep this one more impressionistic in style and it is the perfect subject for that.

To see more of my work check out my website, to see step by step how I got to this point,

 read on after the break.

Cowboy

I made this one from multiple images starting with a panorama for the background to allow it to be printed large. On my website this image will print at 60.00"x 39.625".  Here is the final image.

Cowboy

I made the composite image and added textures to each layer as I went. 

Cowgirl

I realized I have some great material for artwork from my photographs of the Reno cattle drive. This seems to be one of the more popular images on social networks so I thought I would do a texturized photo of this one. I like the way the final image came out so I thought I would post a before and after.

Before

Reno Cattle Drive 5

After

Cowgirl

 Fine quality art prints are available of both images on my website.

2016 Reno Cattle Drive

The Reno Cattle drive went right by my house today so I was able to get out and capture some great photos of the event. The Reno Rodeo Association committee figured out 15 years ago that the perfect way to open their rodeo was with an old-time cattle drive.

Paying guests from various parts of the world join volunteer drovers to trail 300 head of Corriente rodeo steers from Doyle, California, to the Reno Livestock Event Center, where the rodeo's held downtown. The horseback drive takes five days and covers about a hundred miles. Along the way, seven 1800s-style horse- or mule-drawn wagons carry bedrolls and cowboy tepees for everyone. Riders put in some long hours in the saddle as they move the herd and handle whatever rigors the trail offers. But no one goes hungry, with plenty of delicious Dutch-oven cooking in camp, and sleep comes easy for those who unroll their beds among the High Desert sagebrush each night.

If you're interested in participating, tickets are $2000 and everything is provided. If I had an extra $2000 I think I would sign up. You can apply here. 

Nyquist

I couldn't resist making another painting of Nyquist winning the Kentucky Derby. 

This one shows the beauty of the horse much better I think.  

Nyquist winning the Kentucky Derby 2016

New Digital Painting of Nyquist winning the 2016 Kentucky Derby

I love the pageantry of the triple Crown races each year and the horses are beautiful. Last year I did a painting of American Pahroah the Triple crown winner and this year I thought I would get in early just in case we have a repeat. So I worked all day in Photoshop making my digital painting of Nyquist. 

Nyquist

 

 I kept the style very loose with the brush strokes to capture the feeling of the race.