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Cold inspiration

December 16th, 2008 | By Judy Wood





Two themes to this post, reflecting some of my preoccupations of the past week. One is “inspiration”, which I have been exploring in the form of motivational posters for a rider friend, the other is “cold”, which has been an unavoidable subject here for the past couple of days. The “high” temperatures for the last day or so have been -25, with the overnight lows going down to -35. Throw in a briskish wind and the wind chill (which gives the equivalent temperature if you combine the effects of the cold and the wind) is in the mid minus 40s.

Despite (or perhaps because of) these extreme temperatures, I’ve been out getting shots with the camera. I had occasion to go past the weir on the river on Saturday, and was struck by the visuals of the atmospheric steam rising off the open water on the river. The city’s power plant is upstream, and it returns enough warm water to the river that most of the time the west channel of the river remains free of ice. I wanted to get some shots of these clouds of steam over the river, so on Sunday morning grandson Mark and I headed off to the weir in the minus 35 degree temperatures. I didn’t stay for an extended length of time as I usually do at this location in the summer when I am gathering pelican shots, but I got a satisfactory number of shots.  Mark opted (wisely under the circumstances) to stay in the car which by that point was reasonably warm and cozy. I wondered what the three odd lumps were at the edge of a bit of open water until I trained the telephoto lens on them and discovered, somewhat to my horror, three Canada geese hunkered down in the snow, right at the edge of the open water.

Never content with just one go at any given subject matter, I decided to pass by the site again today while I was doing my shopping on that side of the city. In addition, I was a bit worried that the geese might have been frozen into the ice, in which case I would alert my wildlife rescue friends, although I really don’t know what they could do in such extreme and dangerous conditions. To my surprise, when I got back to the weir this afternoon, there were no clouds of water vapor in the air above the open water. In point of fact, there was suddenly very little open water at all. The channel that was unfrozen yesterday was almost totally solid today, with only the occasional little area of open water. Not nearly the interesting visuals of yesterday, but I got some shots anyway, and noted that the goose hangout area had about twenty or so geese today, doubtless including the three from yesterday, and all facing a different direction, so quite definitely not frozen into the ice. That was a relief.

Top shot in this grouping is one I took this afternoon of the larger group of geese, probably rethinking their decision not to have headed south several weeks ago. In fact, most years there is usually a small group of hardy waterfowl who stay through the winter, so it can be done.

Shot two is of the water going over the weir, with the lacey ice and snow around it. Shot three shows one of the bridge supports with the mists obscuring the far shore of the river. That shot was taken yesterday. By today all the open water in this shot was solid with chunks of ice. Brrr.
There have been some motivational speakers for riders at the barn this fall, and my friend Shawna (daughter of my instructor at the barn and a trainer in her own right) wondered if I would be willing to make up a personal motivational poster for her, based on some shots I got of her this summer. She provided the quote, which is meaningful to her, and I put it together with the shots. I like doing this kind of work every now and then, and indeed am fond of using text with my visuals.

The bottom shot is the first one I did, with “her” quote and selected images. But then she made a comment about another of the horses she rides (she is the one who puts the miles on all the young horses from their breeding program, so she usually has a number of horses in her show string) saying something to the effect that Brook would probably never be a “poster child”. That made me feel badly for Brook who is a valiant little (relatively speaking for a Warmblood) mare with a lot of heart and try in her. She’s been doing well in her training and showing, and I thought she really *should* be a poster girl, so I had to make up the “moon” poster featuring Brook, so she would have equal billing. She’s definitely a “poster worthy” mare in my opinion.

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Judy Wood’s website.

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What you plan….

October 27th, 2008 | By Judy Wood

…and what you end up doing sometimes just wave at each other as they whiz by in opposite directions. This was totally the case for me today. The morning was set aside for getting a flu shot and doing several errands on this side of the city. Got stuck into my endless playing with Photoshopping  new images for my upcoming shows, and the time just vanished. I did manage to get a flu shot but that was it for extras.

The afternoon was to involve a trip with a couple of friends to the Devic centre to check out the labyrinth and do some shopping. They’d never been before and we were all looking forward to the outing. Got home to a message that one of them was sick, so that outing was going to be postponed. No problem, I have a friend on a farm west of the city who has a new puppy I want to photograph. I could run out there with the “extra” time I now had, get the photos and do the errands I needed to do on that side of the city. I try to optimize my driving outings to encompass as many errands as possible, in the interests of time and fuel efficiency.
Phoned her to make arrangements, to discover that she had just made a commitment to visit with relatives in town and wouldn’t be home. OK, no problem, still needed to buy some art supplies and do a library run, plus the leftover stuff from the morning, so that would be my afternoon. Mondays are my only “non barn” days so I schedule running-around type chores for Mondays. But, before I could get out the door for the afternoon (having yet again been temporarily sucked into the depths of Photoshop), the phone rang, and it was my horse vet friend Sue, summoning me to the barn where Alpac could get his semi-annual health update (shots, worming, teeth checked, whatever needs attention) today rather than Wednesday as scheduled, since they were at the barn and had done all their other business early.
OK, I’m flexible, so off to the barn I go. Guess I can do all that other stuff later in the week sometime. I get to the barn where Sue says she has given him a pre-exam mild sedative (needed as he is very large and doesn’t much like most vet processes) and I can bring him into the designated examination stall in a few minutes. I brought him in and got him into the right stall to await developments. Things started to go sideways at this point. One of the vets noted a trickle of blood coming out of his right nostril. Sue didn’t recall seeing that when she gave him his shot a few minutes earlier, and quizzed me on any history of this happening before. Since she is head of field services at the vet college, and there are always students on the calls with her as part of their practical  learning, she asked the students what this might  indicate. Turns out one of the things it *could* suggest is a fungal infection of the gutteral pouch which in turn could eat its way through the carotid artery and cause sudden death by a massive bleedout. Often the first indication that this is the case is the owner finding the horse dead in a huge pool of blood. Not exactly what I wanted to hear.
Having had this suggested as one of several scenarios, I was pretty adamant that we had to do whatever it took *right now* to rule this out as a possibility. They would need to put a scope up his nostril on the affected side and do a visual check to see where the bleeding was coming from, and of course all the scopes were at the clinic back in town. As luck would have it, one of the experts at doing this procedure and evaluating the results happened to be at the clinic and not too busy to come out (a rare occurence) so he hustled out to the stable to do further investigation. We still don’t know what caused it, but thank goodness it *isn’t* the fungal infection, so now I will be able to sleep tonight, although I’m still pretty strung out a number of hours later by the thought of the bullet dodged. They plan to do a head x-ray to check one more possibility, but Sue assures me that the life-threatening options have been ruled out, and whatever it is will be something we can handle. Or maybe we’ll never know, which is always one of the options as well. So none of this was on the agenda when I got out of bed this morning to contemplate my carefully planned day, and I’ll be happy never to have a repeat performance of the anxiety-inducing parts that I had to endure.
I’ve been doing a few “fall light” shots of various sorts in the past week, which I am featuring today. No horse vet shots. I had the wrong lens on for that at the barn and was too distraught to do that type of shot, although I did take the camera out to the outside horses to distract myself with some “photo therapy” while we were waiting for the scope to arrive. Better than chewing my nails, but somehow my heart wasn’t in it.
Shot number one is one I took of my friend’s horse who is in a west end stall where the light creates interesting shadows in the mid to late afternoon if the big door is open, as it was today. I love shadows and reflections and will play with them whenever the opportunity arises.
Second shot is one I took on the way home from the barn yesterday, of the lowering sun backlighting the fall reeds and grasses of the prairies.
Shot three is one of a series I am working on of two stumps in a ditch. I found them by accident earlier in the summer on a side road between the barn and the city, and I pass by every now and then to add to my collection of photos of them in different light and at different seasons. Somehow they make me think of the bones of prehistoric creatures.
We had a “three day blow” here on the weekend, with huge winds night and day, and wind warnings issued for much of the province. Shot four shows the leaves piled up against the fence of the public swimming pool down the street from us. The fence is about ten feet (3 M) tall.
Shot five is of my hops vine on the trellis near the driveway, with the colourful leaves of the bush whose name I can’t remember in back. I liked the combination of colours and textures in this one.

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Judy Wood’s website.

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Cattle call

September 29th, 2008 | By Judy Wood

It’s been some week for my camera and for me! Every second day (literally) I had a wonderful chance to gather images of various sorts. I figure I’d better not flit about for this post, will stick to just one of the events I attended, and the other subject matter and photo outings I did will have to wait their turn.

I’d been waiting and hoping for a while to get a promised phone call from my working cowhorse contacts south of the city, letting me know that a cattle sorting was going to be happening and that I would be welcome to attend with my camera. Wednesday of last week was the designated day, and only snow or driving rain (heck, maybe even not the snow) would have prevented me from being there. Rain, yes. My camera is too valuable to me to be abused that way! In any event, it was a spectacularly beautiful fall day, with temperatures just right, so no concerns on that front.

I drove down to my contact’s ranch (Dale and Teri Clearwater) to meet up with Teri and their little son Caleb. Dale had already been at the community pasture down the road for several hours at that point. Teri kindly offered to drive me to the pasture since the road was a bit challenging for city cars, and a few minutes later we were at the scene of the sorting, where all the cattle that had summered together in large herds now had to be identified by their brands, sorted out, and eventually sent off to their owner’s places for the winter months. Since the cows have been running on this range according to their own set of rules for quite a while, they don’t take kindly to men on horses disturbing their established way of doing things, so it’s a bit of a process to get this chore done.

The cattle had been herded into a large fenced area by the time I arrived, and the slow and tedious work of figuring out which cow and calf went together, and whose brand they wore, was well underway. All of this was being done by a cadre of about six or eight mounted cowboys/girls, with a few more arriving from other parts of the property as the day went on.

The noise of the cattle is really quite astonishing. It’s loud and continuous, ranging from plaintive mooing to aggressive bellowing, with everything imaginable in between. They tend to bunch up in a huge seething mass, which slowly but continuously moves and shifts. Some horses and riders work their way quietly and slowly into the midst of the herd to do brand spotting and to work out which cattle belong together, while others form a loose line a distance away from of the herd, to keep an eye on the big picture and to turn back any cattle that try to make a run for it. They seemed to rotate positions, taking turns going in or hanging back.

Once I settled down from the excitement of just being there, I was able to observe that cattle sorting seems to involve a lot of staying in one spot and watching and waiting, moving slowly and carefully within the herd, and the occasional adrenaline rush (for rider and horse) of the fast-paced pursuit of a cow or calf that is bound and determined to break through the lines and get the heck out of there. Both horses and riders need a huge amount of stamina (this is a *long* process when there are a lot of cows to be dealt with) and patience, as despite relentless efforts on everyone’s part, nothing much seemed very different after several hours of sorting and removing cattle from the main herd, although I knew there had to be a lot less cattle in the bunch than when they started out. The cattle just seem to expand to fill the available space so it was pretty hard to tell (from my vantage point, anyway) that anything was being accomplished at all.

My first shot of today shows a scene that was replayed a few times over by several of the cowboys, which is what I think of as “the connected cowboy” taking a cell phone call in the field. How they could actually communicate over the din of the herd is more than I can understand, and many of the calls were taken by riders who were sticking up above a sea of cattle like ships on the ocean, chatting away, just another day at the office.
In shot number two, Peter, the manager of the community pasture and head man of this sorting, is working at his end of a cow that needed to be roped and laid down for some badly needed assistance. She had poked her nose into a porcupine and had a fair number of quills ringing her tender nose. Unimpressed though she was with being roped and laid out on the ground, I’m sure she was greatly relieved to have the quills removed.

Shot number three shows Dale Clearwater and his horse who were responsible for the head end of the cow. The neat thing for me in all this (in addition to getting to photograph it!) was that Peter was one of the instructors at the summer working cowboy camp (see my post “When Worlds Collide”, June 23) held at Dale’s place. I was down to do photos one of the afternoons when Peter was teaching and doing demos of how to do this exact thing–rope a cow head and heels, get it laid out on the ground so it could be doctored, and how to do it in the quickest, safest and least stressful way possible for all concerned. I’d have to say this operation went exactly by the book from what I remember of Peter’s teaching and it was satisfying to see his lessons applied in a real-life situation.

Shot number four is a cute one of young Caleb Clearwater, who seems to be able to settle in with his construction equipment just about anywhere, and one of the cowboys (whose name I didn’t get) on their lunch break just before saddling up for the afternoon’s session.

The final shot for today’s post shows Peter working the kinks out of his fresh horse before the afternoon’s work began. This horse seems to need to have a little buck before settling down to work, and indeed I seem to recall getting a few shots like this of Peter and the same horse during working cowboy camp as well. The amusing thing with these shots was they started out bucking directly away from me which wasn’t the angle I wanted, so I yelled out “Can you turn around and buck parallel to me?”and by gosh they did!! Too funny.

So all in all, I had an absolutely wonderful time and have way too many shots to prove it. Also spotted a really nice herd of black Belgians in the field across the road from the community pasture that belong to the Clearwater’s neighbours, so you’ve got to know that I’ll be making at least one trip back there before too long, I hope.

You can check out another shot of one of the young woman riders in the sea of cattle here , post of September 26 .

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Judy Wood’s website.

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It’s official

September 22nd, 2008 | By Judy Wood

It’s officially fall now, no going back to the summer no matter how much we whine and snivel. Actually fall is a favourite season for me, so other than hoping it will  last a good while, I don’t have much in the way of complaints. I like the cooler days where you can be comfortable in jeans and a light shirt, the welcome visuals with all the outrageous and improbable colours that briefly replace the relentless green of summer, and the bittersweet appreciation that comes with knowing winter will soon be shutting us indoors for the most part of the next five or so months. Luckily I like winter too, or I could be getting a tad discouraged at the prospect.

I’ve been scurrying about with the camera trying to make the most of it all, with some success. I went to the zoo last week as there are generally good “colourful trees reflected in water shots” to be had most falls, with the added touch of various forms of waterfowl (including the swans I am so enamored with) on said water. I did get some nice shots, but will have to try again later this week or early the following one, as there was surprisingly little in the way of colour change on the big trees last week.

Saturday we went back to the site of the wood-firing at the potters place down the road from Ebon to witness the unloading of the kiln. There was a *lot* of stuff in there! We hadn’t seen the inside before so didn’t realize what the capacity was. Suffice it to say that at one point after the pots were all off-loaded, there were three potters totally inside the kiln doing I’m not sure what. The point here being, this kiln is pretty big inside! Sounds like they are planning another firing towards the end of October, so we will try to get back for that one as well. It’s an odd form of entertainment, but we seem to be hooked on it.

Sunday morning we had grandson Mark and his dad here for breakfast, his mother being off to the lake cabin for a “ladies only” event. I’ve been meaning to get some shots of Mark running with  our Oscar, so we went to the park down the road for a mini photo shoot. Oscar and Mark have pretty well grown up together (Mark was two or three when we got Oscar as a tiny puppy) and they have a special relationship. One of Oscar’s greatest joys in life is to get to go “galumphing” across the grass of the park with Mark when we are on our neighbourhood walks. Oscar leaps and bounds along, joyous and proud to be with his boy, and never misusing his considerable strength to pull Mark over, which he could easily do.

Today I wanted to head out to my friend Pearl’s place (see post of Jan 25) where she and her partner Denis have a wonderful assortment of creatures of many species. The original plan was for late afternoon, but I rethought that this morning as I have extra horse duties at Ebon while my friend Elsie is away for the week. Her gelding needs special tending, so I decided to do the shoot this morning in order to be at the barn at the time JJ is used to getting his goodies and attention. This worked out perfectly as by the time noon came along and I was finishing my shoot, the clouds had thickened, the temperature was dropping, and we had rain. Another good example of things working out for the best in the long run even when they run counter to what we originally hoped to do.

The animal theme in my life of this past week seems to have been kittens. I can go years without ever seeing a kitten, then suddenly they seem to be wherever I go. There were the beautiful tri-colour girls at the B and B when we went to Spruce Meadows early in the month. There were various kittens in evidence on the farm where the potters are located, including one very bold (and heedless) little one who marched right into the kiln when it was opened. Then there was a very cute and bratty little guy at Pearl’s place today as well. He was very like a young male version of our one remaining cat, Scout. Scoutie is eighteen now and quite enjoying her life as the only household cat since we lost Bud in the spring, and tempted though I am by all these cute little guys, I don’t think I’d be doing her a kindness by bringing another feline into the household at this stage. Especially a kitten. I’m not sure I have another kitten in me, for that matter. When the time comes, a nice “used” adult cat that needs a good home will be just fine. Preferably a Siamese.

I’ve got a couple more shoots in the planning stages for later in the week, so I hope we get through this rainy bit fairly quickly. I can work around lowish light, cold, and wind, but rain and/or moisture is the dealbreaker when it comes to my camera. We just don’t go there.

One of the shoots is a cattle/horse/cowboy one, set for Wednesday morning. I haven’t been to a working cowboy shoot since July so I’m greatly looking forward to this one.

At the end of the week, I hope to get out to a horse facility that I just learned about, with a considerable number of horses in what looks to be a very picturesque riverside setting. If the weather, the light, the fall colours and the horses all work with me, it could be a spectacular shoot. No telling until the time comes, though!

Top shot today (a tad out of synch with my narrative) is of the kiln with the pots waiting to be offloaded.

Shot number two is of some of the ducks on the pond at the zoo. I almost opted for a swan shot here but this one was more colourful and in the “fall theme” mode.

Shot three shows Mark struggling manfully to keep up with a bounding Oscar.

Shot four is a totally silly one of the young tom at Pearl’s this morning. This is one of those shots that is crying out for a caption. My take it that it’s either the “invisible motorcycle” or that he’s just been caught in the process of beaming down from the mother ship. Either way, it’s pretty funny.

The final shot is also one from this morning at Pearl and Denis’. This is the Hackney stallion having a bit of a discussion with his young son. Sonny was feeling pretty cocky and marched right up into his Dad’s face while I was observing them. Dad was pretty tolerant until junior pushed one too many buttons, then he had to pull rank and remind the kid just what the pecking order is in their small family unit. No actual touching happened, just some good plain body language on the part of the stallion. I love to see a stallion that is allowed to be with mares and foals and not isolated and treated like a dangerous animal. Of course they have to have manners and a good sense of how to treat their herd, but this fellow has that in spades. Next time I go Pearl has offered to get them moving for me as I didn’t get anything in the way of action shots today. This stallion being a Hackney, I know he’s got some fancy action and I’d love to be able to get shots of it.

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Judy Wood’s website.

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Summer shoots

August 18th, 2008 | By Judy Wood

Photo portrait of a teen girl in a long dress and a horse copyright Judy Wood, all rights reserved.

Photograph of grain elevators and rising moon in Canada copyright Judy Wood, all rights reserved.

Photograph of a Canadian sunset copyright Judy Wood, all rights reserved.

Photograph of a bear in a zoo copyright Judy Wood, all rights reserved.

Photograph of a canola (rape, rapeseed) field in Canada copyright Judy Wood, all rights reserved.

Well, the revolving door has whizzed around a few more times, leaving me feeling a bit spinny in the head and wondering where the week (the summer, the year to date!!) has gone. It continues hot and sticky, making everyday functioning a tad challenging, although I know there are a lot of parts of this continent that would be glad to have our summer weather–both in the areas where they aren’t getting enough summer, and those that have too much.

We’ve gone into hot and dry classic prairie mode here, and the fields and crops are all ripening almost visibly as you watch. No more nice yellow canola fields. They’ve dulled right down as they head into their next stage before harvest. I’m not enough of a field person that I can even tell which ones *are* canola any more now that they’re not bright yellow. And it has been years, perhaps decades, since I’ve seen endless miles of golden wheat in the fall as used to be the norm when I was younger. Not a lot of wheat being grown in this area at any rate.

I’ve done a fair few photo outings this past week, starting Monday with a visit to the local zoo with grandson Mark to check out what was happening. We saw the “new” bears that are recent arrivals, two young (as in teenage if they were human, I’d guess) grizzlies in a new display area that has just opened. One of them was making the best of his situation when we were there, interacting with the environment and generally seeming pretty relaxed. The other one, sadly, doesn’t appear to be adjusting well and spent its time pacing in repetitive patterns that I fear don’t bode well for its mental health.

I appreciate the chance to photograph animals like these and the other zoo species, but on the other hand if I let myself think about it at all I find zoos quite depressing and sad places to visit, for a variety of reasons. One “good” thing about the camera is it lets you focus (literally and figuratively) with a different mindset, and is definitely a tool that removes the photographer emotionally from the situation they are photographing. Works that way for me, anyway. This isn’t always a good thing, but it does help in these circumstances. And yes, I do realize that most zoos do the best they can for their animals and are in some cases the main hope for the survival of some species.

I decided this would be a good week to work on my sunset collection, so made a couple of trips out to the country in pursuit of good skies. One of the forays took me past the site of one of my favourite horse herds from last summer, who I hadn’t yet seen this year in their pasture. I was greatly heartened to see them back again when I went by on one of my sunset excursions, so I’ll be going to and from Ebon the long way from now on when I ride in the evenings in hopes of getting some shots of this herd.

An unlooked for but very welcome addition to the sunset shots were some moonrise shots I got the same evening. I was heading south from Ebon to the horse herd road when I glanced to the east and was astonished at the huge pinkish moon just rising beyond the inland terminal buildings by the train tracks. It was enormous and virtually full.  Moonrise and moon shots are another on-going fascination for me, and I got some good ones that night. You have to be in the right spot at the right time for these, as with my lens and the fact that I shoot hand-held only (no tripod or long exposures), they are pretty hard shots to capture. Another small victory for my photography this past week has been going manual, where I am setting the parameters for the shots, rather than going with having my very smart camera set the exposure etc for me. It’s taken me a long time to get to this point, but it really paid off with some of the sunset shots where I was able to optimize the images in a way I couldn’t achieve in the past. I’m basically a person with a good eye and art training who doesn’t know the mechanics of photography, so it’s an on-going learning process, and it’s nice to feel that I’m actually making some small progress in my understanding. Well, in truth I don’t *understand* it as such, but I know (sometimes) what to do to get the results I want, which is really all I care about.

No horse events on the week-end, unusually, to be made up for by two happening simultaneously next weekend at different stables. I had a booked shoot at Ebon on Saturday morning that was quite entertaining, with one of the young women riders wanting shots of herself in her graduation dress with her horse. We had planned to do this at the actual time of her graduation (from high school) in June, but the time got away from us then. We beat the worst of the heat and got a bunch of nice shots of the pair of them. I was going to feature one of them here but I have my limit plus I’m having technical problems, so I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead on this one!

Shots (not in the order I had planned, but since the system refused to load them at all the first two times I tried, I’m not going to be fussy about this for fear of it going rogue on me again) are of the big moon rising (no Photoshopping of the moon’s size here!!), sunset over the trees out in the country, the “well adjusted” young grizzly making a quick exit from his pool, and a field of canola taken a few weeks ago when it was in bloom. I love the total minimalism of this kind of landscape shot. That’s pretty flat, even for around here!

Re. technical problems–this is my first blog post from the new computer system, which considering how totally at sea I was a couple of weeks ago represents a major triumph for me. I’m still really struggling to make sense of things (mostly Bridge and iPhoto for downloads and photo organizing) and there’s a discouraging amount of things I still don’t even know how to look up, never mind actually execute, but I am making progress.

Ha!! Decided to give the shot of Kat and her boy a try and I got it to load as well. Maybe by next time I’ll be able to put them in the order I want. Or not.

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Judy Wood’s website.

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Queen’s Plate ‘08

June 27th, 2008 | By Linda Shantz

Not Bourbon and Ginger Brew at the finish of the 2008 Queen's Plate. Photo copyright Linda Shantz.
I want to be sure everyone knows that little Billy called it, and Gracie wasn’t far off! Not Bourbon held off Ginger Brew to win the 2008 Queen’s Plate in an exciting finish. Unfortunately, thanks to what I’ll call a two-minute rule, I didn’t get very great shots of the race itself. Apparently, for the duration of the Queen’s Plate, and the Plate only…and this year’s Plate only, for that matter…standing at the base of the stairs to the second floor seating is a fire hazard. I’m not sure why it wasn’t for the race before the Plate, or last year’s Plate, or the year before. What can I say!


The LongRun fundraiser auctioning off the saddle cloths of the Plate field is happening now on eBay. By pure coincidence I ended up with some pretty cool shots of the horses in the walking ring. Be sure to check out the auction. A couple of the cloths still have no bids, including the winner’s! His connections better step up!


Here in the studio, the painting goes on. The purple panel is on its way to Edmonton to rejoin its other mosaic pieces for a grand reunion. Stay posted for information on the unveiling! And keep track of the progress on the Mural Mosaic website!

©Copyright 2008 by Linda Shantz. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Linda Shantz’s website.

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The Morning Line

June 22nd, 2008 | By Linda Shantz

Ginger Brew copyright Linda Shantz

Plate morning! There’s always a special feel around the backstretch, whether you’re running in the big race or not. I remember we always made sure the shed was leveled and raked even more carefully than on normal days, and the apron and lawn outside was particularly clean. We even polished the brass on the halters. Being stabled close to the receiving barn, we witnessed the arrival of the horse guards first-hand, something that was sure to set my dear girl Petunia over the edge! Not her favourite morning, that’s for sure.

Colt bucking photo copyright Linda Shantz
When I turned the foals out this morning, they spent the first five minutes running and playing. It was probably inspired by the cool, damp air, but I entertained that they just know it’s Plate Day! Gracie is backing Ginger Brew, because, of course, chestnut fillies rule. Billy’s dad Mobil ran second in the Plate, and Gracie pointed out that it was a chestnut that beat him (stablemate Wando, 2003). Billy kind of likes Not Bourbon today, being Ontario-sired and all, but he let on that he’ll be rooting for Uncle Jerry and Deputiformer. Nothing wrong with picking a longshot! Just ask Monster…her dad Tejabo sired a whopper in TJ’s Lucky Moon back in 2002.

Filly bucking photo copyright Linda Shantz


Woodbine Entertainment and LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement are having a neat fundraiser after this year’s Plate. The saddle cloths of all the starters will be auctioned on eBay this week to raise money for LongRun. I’ll post a link to the auctions as soon as I have it so you can check it out.

Painting in progress of Mike Fox by artist Linda Shantz
Okay, so I’m hoping I’ve distracted you from asking about the Mike Fox painting. All right, I admit it, it’s not done. So I came up short. It’s getting very close though. At this stage I’m working on a lot of nit-picky stuff, so progress is a lot slower. Won’t be long now! And maybe I’ll start on this year’s winner a little earlier! Hope that grey sky brightens a little by post time!

©Copyright 2008 by Linda Shantz. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Linda Shantz’s website.

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Oaks Day!

June 8th, 2008 | By Linda Shantz

Jockey on race horse

This must be some kind of record for me - today was the first time this year that I got to the races. It was hot and humid today for the Canadian Oaks, with favoured Ginger Brew coming through to win it.

Ginger Brew winning the Canadian Oaks

And now, the Queen’s Plate is just two weeks away. Before I know it, it’ll be time for Saratoga!

The 40D did all the work today, so all I’m going to do is post a few photos. At the top is my artsy shot for the day. Next we have the winning filly at the wire, and below is the first time past the grandstand. I just love the late afternoon light in this one. Guess tomorrow it’s time to get back to painting!

Canadian Oaks

©Copyright 2008 by Linda Shantz. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Linda Shantz’s website.

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Le Cadeau Du Chevel in Progress

June 3rd, 2008 | By Michelle Grant

Le Cadeau du Cheval mural mosaic panel in progress

Le Cadeau du Cheval mural mosaic panel in progress

Working on this panel has brought many tears to my eyes.It was my hope that painting it would be part of the healing process for myself, of the loss of a great little horse! I hope that this painting will touch those who have shared in the suffering on the passing of our equine family members.

I worked on Peach’s eye in this next installment for most of the time and am very happy with how it turned out. I have been using Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, a tad of Alizarin Crimson and Naples Yellow so far in the palette. For the black of Peach’s eye I used a mixture of Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue. I then worked on the cheek and face around the eye, cheekbone and then the muzzle. I will be adjusting the muzzle somewhat for tone and shapes, but am happy with the results so far. I am definately going to have to get my main reference photo of Peach blown up at Costco though…my eyes are killing me!

I am concentrating on getting most of the tonal range and colour the original panel had on it, as well as the shape it had on that diagonal…once I get this down, I can adjust the painting as I go. I am going to have to sacrifice the light palomino colouration of Peach somewhat to make the panel work as a whole, but I feel I am capturing her character which is most important.I was blocking in some of the colour with my synthetic brights, and then working with my sable brushes for the application of the rest of the colour and some blending on the panel. I find the oil paints are SO JUICY on this panel. I had forgotten how much fun it is to paint on panels with hardly any texture to them. I am having a wonderful time with this piece!

©Copyright 2008 by Michelle Grant. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Michelle Grant’s website.

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Show season and flower season

June 2nd, 2008 | By Judy Wood

Bleeding hearts
Hunters

Early summer seems firmly entrenched now, with even the fear of a late frost (possible in this province in just about any month of the year) now a receding memory. The lilacs are in bloom in our back yard, and around much of the neighbourhood, with the scent almost enough to knock you over if you pass by too closely. I’ve got early irises in bloom, and things are greening up fast. We don’t get a whole lot of spring here, going from late winter to early summer without much time spent lingering in between. Our growing season is relatively short (late May to early September) so a lot gets compressed into that time frame, and once the snow is gone and things have warmed up a bit, get out of the way, as things are changing fast.

This past weekend saw the first of the outdoor horse shows at Ebon, another sure sign of the summer season being well on the way. This show was formerly on the third weekend in May for many years, but in the interests of not freezing to death during the inevitable downpours of rain (and occasionally snow) that traditionally occured (the combination of a long weekend and the first outdoor horse show being more than the weather gods could resist, for the most part), it has been moved to the first weekend in June. This year, conditions were as perfect as could be imagined for a show at any time of any year, leaving aside the ten minute downpour on Saturday. Sunday was one of those rare utterly idyllic days, with little wind, blue skies, sun but not excessive heat, and, almost miraculously for around here, no mosquitoes. It just couldn’t get any better.

This is about my favourite show of the year as everyone is so darn happy just to be able to be outside, it’s a “user-friendly” and low key show, and the atmosphere is pretty relaxed. The majority of the competitors are younger riders, keen to apply the knowledge they have acquired during their winter lessons in a show setting. I spent a couple of days and one evening at the show, getting client shots for my rather alarmingly large list of riders that want photos this year. I enjoy doing it (for about the first five hours each day, then it gets a bit old) but the ensuing time spent organizing the hundreds and hundreds of shots is a major chore.

Funny how when you are looking at scores of tiny thumbnail photos in the computer it’s a bit hard to sort out. Far too often I’m peering at the screen wondering which dark bay horse with a rider in dark hunt coat and light breeches *this* one is. Of course I’m the person that walked right past my own elder daughter once at a show, to ask her friends if they had seen her. That’s because she was holding a dark bay horse and was wearing a dark hunt coat and light breeches. Thank goodness for the occasional gray horse, or, better yet, Paint.

In previous years I just downloaded, did a rough sorting, and left it to deal with it later. When “later” did come at the end of show season it was such a nightmare that this year I have vowed to stay current, and I’m proud to say that by dint of a lot of hours of work, so far I’m on track. Mind you, it’s early days and there’s still lots of time for me to go astray.

First shot today is a garden one. This is one I took on our Edmonton trip of last weekend. We stayed overnight at Fort Edmonton Park http://www.fortedmontonpark.ca/pages/FortEdmonton/default.aspx at the Hotel Selkirk (check the links in the park site for the pictures of the hotel) located on 1920s Street. It was a wonderfully quiet place to stay as the only people at the park after hours are the hotel guests. We walked all over the site once it had closed for the day to regular visitors, enjoying the feeling of peace and quiet in a tourist destination that was devoid of tourists. There were Canada geese wandering on the boardwalks and trolley tracks, and a happy little group of wild rabbits playing on the lawns. Across the street from the hotel was a recreated special peony garden of historic interest to the Edmonton area, and that’s where these beautiful bleeding hearts were in bloom. If you check the Fort Edmonton and/or Hotel Selkirk links, give it a few minutes as the main pictures are in slide show format and you’ll get a nice feel for both areas if you look at all the photos.

Shot number two is of a lineup in the hunter ring at the horse show, awaiting ribbon presentation. A point of interest is the concession building in the middle background. If you look back in my blog archives to the January 22 posting, you’ll see this same building with the snowbanks up to the rooftop after the big blizzard. I could actually snowshoe up to the same height as the roof (and did!) at that time. One of the things I always remark on is that in winter in Saskatchewan, it seems like no other season has ever or will ever exist, until you get into summer, and it’s the same story there. Fall and spring don’t really enter into this equation as they can be pretty fleeting and never have that feeling of permanence that the other two seasons convey. Odd.

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Judy Wood’s website.

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Mob rule

March 14th, 2008 | By Judy Wood


A few weeks ago, when grandson Mark and I were coming in from some sort of winter outing or other (on one of his seemingly endless number of days off school for various teacher non-teaching get-togethers) we heard a bit of a commotion down the street as we got out of the car. It sounded like the bluejays that frequent our feeder, but it wasn’t the usual one or two jays conversing from one part of the neighbourhood to the other. This was extra loud, sustained, frantic, and sounded like a heck of a lot of jays. I carried on into the house, thinking that the whole thing was a bit on the odd side, but when I got into the house and the uproar was still to be heard, totally undiminished, my curiosity got the better of me.

I reversed direction and headed south along the crescent towards the source of the noise. The closer I got, the louder it became, until I ended up at a large evergreen tree that was the epicenter, located in a neighbour’s yard about a half block down. Not only were there jays, there were sparrows, nuthatches, house finches, chickadees, and every other species of small bird that sticks around here in the wintertime. All were vocal and very agitated, flying about, flicking their tails and wings, and generally in a state of high dudgeon. I figured we were having a “mobbing” which is what small prey birds indulge in when they get an owl on their territory in the daytime, when it is unable to retaliate.

This isn’t a common occurence, and I’ve only witnessed it a few times, but it is a totally dramatic event. I lurked around at the base of the tree for a while, trying to figure out where the owl might be in the branches, but I never did see it. I was able to hear a rather strange and disgruntled clicking and deep muttering noise that I believe was likely the besieged owl, but for its own good it was deep within the very large tree, likely snugged up in a defensive position against the trunk.

By this time my husband Jim, who is the actual birder in the family, had arrived home for lunch, so he and Mark took the binoculars and went down to the mobbing site to see if they could be more successful at spotting the owl. They couldn’t locate it either, despite their best efforts. By the time I checked the neighbourhood noise levels later that afternoon, all was quiet and either the owl had made an escape or the rioting small bird population had grown tired and departed.

I was reminded of this earlier in the week while listening to the “bird line” phone-in on CBC radio where listeners and a local bird expert exchange reports of sightings. There were one or two callers from urban areas reporting Northern Saw-whet owl sightings. I wonder if that is what our neighbourhood owl was. Apparently there are considerably more of them being reported in the central and southern parts of the province this season than is the norm.

Today’s shots are an owl that I photographed at the zoo (not sure what sort it is, not being totally up on my owl species) that was the victim of one of my earlier Photoshop attempts. It’s a bit crude compared to what I am able to do now with Photoshop, but I still like it.

The second shot is a glass mosiac of a Northern Saw Whet owl that I did several years ago. At 8 1/2 inches tall in the mosaic, this is actually larger than lifesize for the real owl. They are a very tiny little bird. I’m always happy to do night scenes in whatever medium, and the owls are a pretty natural fit for the night-time setting.

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.

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