Tag Archives: warmblood

Horse Mode

I seem to have spent much of the past week out standing in the field, or, to be more accurate, out standing in various fields, as well as ringside at horse shows. I’ve logged a lot of hours and quite a few hundred photos, but it’s nice to be getting caught up after all the cancelled shoots and shows of earlier in the season.
I’ve been making good use of my monopod and now feel quite comfortable handling it. I’ve also started to learn when it is a help and when it can be a hindrance, depending on the type of shots I’m working on. It’s great for horse show shots, especially “over fences” ones, where you know where the horse is going to be heading and can be set up for the action. Less good for fast and erratic action shots which require instant responses and quick reactions to get the shot. For those situations (as I learned the hard way), hand-held is still best. Added uses of the monopod include using it as a leaning pole to prop myself up while waiting for things to happen when there is no seating available, and as an aid in fending off overly curious and pushy young horses (which most of them tend to be). All in all, a very useful bit of equipment to have.
Shot one shows part of the herd of Gypsy cob mare and foals from the shoot I did at North Fork Stables last week. We had a lovely morning for our shoot, with none of the deep mud that plagued my last visit there a couple of weeks ago. There didn’t even seem to be any mosquitoes or other insect pests to inhibit the sheer pleasure of being out with my camera in the midst of a whole herd of mares and foals. I continue to be fascinated with this breed, in a visual sense for their extravagant movement, colour, and “big hair”, and as a horse person for the opportunity to observe their interactions and special personalities, which are in many ways quite different from other breeds with which I am familiar.

Shot two is also from the North Fork shoot. Before we moved the herd out to the pasture for their action shots, this mare took the opportunity for a good stretch to work out the kinks she had acquired during her nap. I’ll bet that felt really good!

Another photo shoot took me east of the city to get photos of the Warmbloods owned by a breeder friend. She has a lovely collection of youngsters and a couple of new babies from this year’s foal crop. I always enjoy photo shoots where I have nice backgrounds to work with, and this location provides that in spades, especially this year as the large amounts of moisture we’ve had means that things are still lush and green, with many wildflowers that we only see in a wet year. Normally at this time of year the grass and pasture areas in the country would be pretty brown and crunchy by now. Shot three shows a couple of the two-year-olds having a canter. We were trying to get individual shots of the youngsters by getting them into this turnout one at a time, but these two are best friends and couldn’t be separated. The fellow in the foreground is sporting an “artificial” tail as his real tail had some trauma last year and is very sparse. He needs something to whisk away the insect life that was absolutely voracious the day I was out there, so his owner fashioned this substitute for him until his real tail grows enough to become functional. Looks kind of odd but does the job nicely.

Shot four is from the same location. This shows Cody, the very old gelding (early 30s) who has adopted Galahad, now six weeks old, whose mother died immediately after giving birth. This little guy is healthy and sassy with the devoted attention he receives from his owner (who was doing four hour feeding shifts twenty-four hours a day for the first few weeks, taking time off work to do so) and the steadying influence and company of old Cody, who has a new interest in life now that he has a job to do with his young adoptee. Galahad has another foal to visit with over the fence, and when they both get a little older, no doubt they’ll be having play dates and running together.

Shot five is from the Ebon Stables horse show of the weekend. Strangely for an Ebon three day show, it didn’t rain once, and we were all quite thrilled to note that not only were the rings oddly free of deep mud for the first time this year, but there was actual dust!! Wow. This shot features Shawna and Ben (Ebon’s Baby Grand) making their way around the jumper ring. The trees in the background started showing fall colours in mid-July, which I have found very distressing on a number of levels. Since summer only just got underway here a week ago, I’m not yet ready for fall which is what these bushes look like. I think it more likely, though, that they have been seriously compromised in some way by the several months of extremely wet conditions, and I fear they may be dying. Time, as usual, will tell.

©Copyright 2010 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

The Many Faces of Bellator


Shanghai Spring, 4 x 6 watercolour and ink, Christine Trevino

We had our best turnout yet for a pARTy with this March edition – now you can see what took me so long getting them up! Thanks to all of our participants, and to our handsome model, Bellator. Hope you all had fun!

Artists – I included the “specs” on your piece and a link for those I had – I didn’t have time to go searching this time. Send me an email and the pARTy address if yours is missing and you’d like me to add it. And if I’ve missed someone, please let me know!

Yvonne Todd, 6 x 2.5 oil

“Why The Long Face?” 16 x 8 oil on canvas, Linda Massey

Sue Kroll, 10 x 8 acrylic

“Fuzzy Ears,” 7 x 5 oil, Marilyn Sadler

Miriam Hughes

Mary Agarwal
Lisa Guarino, 4 x 3 watercolour pencil

Linda Ward, 3.5 x 2.5 (ACEO) pencil

“Vertical (Bellator)” 16 x 8 acrylic on canvas board, Kim Santini

Kathy Roeth, 14 x 10 gouache and watercolour on coldpress

Karen Thumm, 12 x 9 oil on canvas board

Karen Bowden

“Just a Bit of Blarney” 6 x 4 acrylic on coldpress watercolour paper, Linda Martin

Judy Johnson, 6 x 4 watercolour

“Nice ‘N’ Cozy”, 6 x 6 acrylic, Elizabeth McCrindle

“Hay?” 11 x 4 oil on canvas, Diana Lancaster

Charlotte Tanner, acrylic on cardboard


“Bellator #2″ 7 x 5 oil on shellaced masonite, Linda Shantz

©Copyright 2010 by The Virtual pARTy and participating artists. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist challenge, visit The Virtual pARTy Blog.

Party Painting and Purple Wraps


“Bellator” 9×12 oil on canvas board – photo provided by fellow artist, Linda Shantz

Last weekend I participated in something called The Virtual Party. Artists are provided with a reference photo and required to paint their interpretation of it within a twenty four hour period. It’s amazing how different many of the images can be, all from the same image!

We were given five days to do this. Since I’d been sick and tending to my lame horse, I didn’t decide to give it a try until the last day. After a little over five hours of painting, I managed to produce my version of Bellator, a young warmblood, in his winter blanket. After doing the one hour paintings, this one seemed like a snap to do, and I’m fairly happy with the results, even though it’s not perfect. Maybe I’ll work on it some more some day, but for now it’s drying on the easel.

Meanwhile back at the ranch I was making frequent trips to the barn to check on my horse and to treat his leg. Some slight swelling had appeared in his knee since the vet’s visit and then some swelling of the ligaments behind the cannon bone. We began cold hosing the leg or icing it, and both front legs were wrapped for added support. With the help of bute, he’s gradually come around.

Last weekend my husband came with me to the barn to help. He’s not really a horse person and hadn’t taken much interest in my horse before now. In fact, he hadn’t seen Scottie in a very long time. But they managed to get along quite well anyway. We had Scott in the barn aisle in the cross ties, and a few of the other horses came in to the arena to see what was going on. John was standing at Scottie’s head, patting him and talking to him while I iced his leg. Every time John moved away to pat one of the other horses, Scottie started pawing. I told John that meant he wanted attention, and John would hurry back to him. The pawing stopped immediately. This scenario repeated itself several times and warmed my heart to think that two of the three most important men in my life were making a connection. John was even talking to Scottie the way he does to small children and our cat, and Scottie was eating it up!

On my last visit to the barn, Scott was much better with very little sign of a limp. He had purple wraps on, it was a sunny day and perfect for getting some photos. The first one below is Scottie who had just had a good roll before getting up from his nap. He’s still very shaggy because it’s too early up here to get rid of that winter coat. Snow and cold could return anytime for Winter’s last gasp.

The second photo is of Scott and his best friend, Mikey. I had turned Scott loose in the indoor arena, and he wasn’t quite ready to go back outside into the heat. After greeting Mikey, they engaged in a game of what looked like lip wrestling. Mikey is a Morgan with a lovely arched neck. These two never seem to tire of playing together but are separated for now to keep the lame horses quieter. I love the play of light on Scott in this photo and the way it shows off the arch in Mikey’s neck.

I think it will make a great painting.

©Copyright 2010 by Karen Baker Thumm. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Ready….Set…pARTy! March 2010


Here’s your image for the March pARTy. You have from midnight tonight until midnight March 20th to get your painting to us. Remember the idea is to complete your painting in a 24-hour span of time. Complete instructions are above. Email a low-res image (72 dpi, approx. 4 x 6 inches dimensionally) of your painting to us at thevirtualparty77@yahoo.ca – if you don’t get a reply acknowledging receipt, that means something went awry!

This handsome boy is Bellator, a young Warmblood gelding that lives at Inish’Or Farm in Puslinch, Ontario. Please remember to give credit to the photographer – in this case, Linda Shantz.

PS – if you’d like a high-res file from which to work, just send a request to the address above.

©Copyright 2010 by The Virtual pARTy and participating artists. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist challenge, visit The Virtual pARTy Blog.

Just A Little Break


I’m feeling like I have several of my paintings in the ‘uglies’ all at once right now. I know it will pass, but I just wanted to do something small and quick today. I was up at the other barn to pay Monster a brief visit yesterday, and it was such a nice sunny day I took my camera along. While this other farm is less than ten minutes away, the landscape is different enough that it is probably a few degrees colder than my place, because it’s not sheltered from the wind at all. I had trouble holding the camera steady! I didn’t take a lot of photos because I got cold so fast, but I got a few shots that will inspire more of these little paintings.

This one is just 4 x 6 oil on Raymar panel -a tiny painting of a huge horse! Bellator is a young Warmblood gelding. I’ve photographed him a few times – once ‘officially’ for his owner – and I expect I will be doing another painting of him!

It’s always good to take these litte breaks from the more serious paintings. I need to do more – I miss them! We’ll see how April shapes up – perhaps another “Thirty Days” is in order!

©Copyright 2009 by Linda Shantz. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Life goes on—





Another week of non-dramatic “life carrying on” in my part of the world. I eventually was able to get my car off my property (didn’t dare attempt it from Sunday noon until Tuesday afternoon due to the large amounts of snow dumped in the weekend storm of last week) without incident and could carry on with my daily activities. Driving is still a bit questionable on the side streets (including the one immediately outside my door), but if you can make it to the main thoroughfares, you can get where you need to go. I’ve started carrying a snow shovel in the car just in case, something I likely should have been doing in any event. Nothing like a good weather crisis to make us start behaving in a sensible fashion.
While I was trapped in my house I took the opportunity to deal with a few ongoing concerns, including dealing with my broken monopod. It broke on the second time it was used, and I tried the glue fix suggested by my camera store contact, but it broke again during the blizzard shoot at the ice rink. It came to me (as I was researching glue options) that I had actually never run this problem by the manufacturers, and that perhaps that would be a good course of action. I have to say they were very satisfactory to deal with. I emailed my complaint to the faceless “fill in the blanks with your problem” standard form on their website in the evening. By the next morning I had received replies from two different people, climbing the accountability ladder as they went.
Once I detailed my problem (complete with photos to show it exactly), I got the hoped-for answer that this was a manufacturing defect of this monopod and that I should send it and proof of purchase to them and I would receive a new one in the mail. I have done that and look forward to getting my new monopod in due course. I have no particular complaints about the initial failure. In this imperfect world, things will occasionally go wrong. What I can’t tolerate nearly so well is when the manufacturer/responsible party neither accepts ownership of the breakdown nor offers a satisfactory solution. Luckily for me, I was dealing with a company that offers excellent customer service and support, so all in all I am happy with how this has been resolved. Another thing that came out of this was my sudden recollection of a very good website for those occasions when gluing *is* the appropriate solution. It is This to That and well worth a look if you want to know the right glue for any adhesive situation. Comprehensive and user friendly. Can’t ask for better than that.
I’m still not doing a lot of photos these days due to the weather, but have managed to cobble a few together for today’s post. Shot one hearkens back to the indoor chute jumping event of a few weeks back. This was my first effort with the new camera for this style of shot, and I’m quite happy with the end result. These are the most challenging conditions I face in the course of a year, due to poor light, fast and sometimes erratically-moving young horses, and the technical limitations of indoor flash photos, so getting this quality in a “first shoot with this camera” gives me quite a bit of encouragement. I actually almost enjoyed the process this time, instead of heading in to it with the customary combination of performance anxiety and dread. That’s got to count as progress!
I enjoy night visuals, and got shot number two last week of the full moon rising in the east through a cloud bank. So far I have been limited to shots of this sort that I can get by hand-holding my camera, but when it’s a little less cold I would like to work with using the tripod and figuring out the optimal settings for this sort of shot.
Shot three shows some of the nicely sculpted snowbanks on the south side of the tree-break at Ebon. I’ll need to dig out my snowshoes to get closer to these some day soon.
Shot four shows the scene facing west along my street. The centre of the road is a deeply rutted ice chute that is quite difficult to navigate. If you inadvertently go too fast (more than about 20 km/15 mph) you can spin out on the ice and get thrown to the side of the street. It feels like the rut has grabbed the wheels and given the car a good fling, and comes out of nowhere. After a very nasty experience of this sort in a previous year ( I still have no idea why I didn’t hit the parked car I was being thrown at), I now proceed with extreme caution in this sort of “goat track”. You can see towards the top of this picture that the next block has had snowplows clear each lane with the snow piled in the middle for eventual removal. No such luck on my block!
I got shot five yesterday on the way home from the barn. This is the part of the young warmblood herd that lives down the hill from Ebon. They were milling about a little closer to the road than is usual, so were within range for my big lens. I found out the hard way that the snow in the ditches is a lot deeper than I expected. As I tried to get closer to the horses by traversing the ditch, I went from being in only a few inches of snow to being most of the way to my hips in a drift. I got my shots as the snow filled my boots, then slowly and awkwardly extracted myself as best I could and struggled back to my car. Guess it really is time to pack the snowshoes in the car.

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Christmas is coming…

I’ve been working hard this week on some new Christmas horses. I’m probably not going to put them on Ebay until next week, maybe even after Thanksgiving. I’m working on two horses kissing under mistletoe and a horse decorating the Christmas tree with a cat. Here’s the other three I’ve completed this week.
The Saddlebred is currently on ebay

That Fjord is so cute, I wanna kiss him on his soft nose:)


©Copyright 2009 by Jennifer MacNeill-Traylor. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Somebeachsomewhere ~ 2009 Hall of Fame Inductee


And here it is! 18 x 14 oil on Raphael linen panel of Somebeachsomewhere.

I took the painting to the photographer this morning – after some more crazy thunderstorms last night, the clear blue skies and light breeze made for a nice drive to Waterloo. Pirak Studios is where I get my artwork shot. Every time I talk to people about doing reproductions of artwork, I stress the importance of starting with a quality digital capture, and they do a great job at Pirak.

This afternoon I went to the framer, though I’ve brought the painting back home in order to put a coat of retouch varnish on it to protect it – something that can’t happen until after it’s photographed, but needs to be done before framing! Once again I’m fortunate to have a great framer who so often does jobs on a tight schedule for me! Corby Custom Framing is in Carlisle, Ontario.

Next Thursday is the induction ceremony, where the painting will be part of a silent auction to raise funds for the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame. I just wanted to mention and thank the ‘support crew’ that made it possible for me to meet the deadline for this project! I’ll have more details on the limited edition canvas giclées to be produced from the painting once it’s available. Again, proceeds will go to the Hall of Fame. If you’re ever at Woodbine, be sure to have a walk around – it’s located near the entrance at the west end of the grandstand.

In the midst of all this running around I also did a photo shoot of some of the beautiful warmblood youngsters at Inish’Or. Haven’t had the chance to get them off the camera yet, or I’d share some of the pictures! Now it’s time for something to eat – somehow I missed lunch! Wonder how that happened…

©Copyright 2009 by Linda Shantz. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

It’s A Matter of Opinion


Well, today it was back to more familiar territory – working with a reference photo! The photo in question was taken by Judy Wood, who responded admirably to my comments about wanting to do a series of “horses being bad” paintings, inspired by one of my own Monster in my first Thirty Days project. This is one of the youngsters at the farm at which Judy boards her own horse, and she captured a little disagreement between youngster and trainer during a long-lining session. And just so you know, this is *not* a Thoroughbred! Yes, that’s right, Warmbloods have such moments! I thought it was a fun contrast to the quiet scene of the other day. As I said, most of the time, things proceed without drama…but every now and then one will feel the need to express his or her own opinion!

This painting is 8 x 10 oil on panel and I tried to work very loosely and quick and not think too much. The pressure helped – I had time to rough out the drawing on the board this morning, then had to go to a much-needed chiropractic appointment, picked up a few groceries (and absolutely *no* chocolate, I’ll have you know!) and then spent rest of the afternoon doing stalls. All that meant I didn’t get to the easel until after supper. True, it’s only 9pm, but, while this isn’t perfect, I wanted to preserve the freshness – what I’ve done probably took two hours, all told. It was a bit of a relief after the sweat that went into Monday’s painting.

Don’t worry, this horse did get things sorted out and agreeably carries a rider now. As the owner of a bay horse with a fair bit of attitude, I did enjoy the opportunity to paint someone else’s horse ‘being bad!’ Believe it or not, Monster was very easy to start under saddle, and we didn’t have any discussions like this. She was a star pupil – the fun began when she decided she knew what was going on!

See you tomorrow!

©Copyright 2009 by Linda Shantz. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Canadian Warmblood Association

Sometimes good news comes right when you need it. The Canadian Warmblood Association has chosen “First Class Flight” as it’s 2009 poster art , brochure and advertising image for their Fall Breeder’s Classic. I almost didn’t submit this painting because of it being a horizontal image and most all of the past images have been vertical. But obviously I submitted anyway and I’m glad I did. I can be pretty good at talking myself OUT of things …….but I’m working on it. :-)

The painting itself is a 24 x 36 oil on canvas. They will auction the original off to start the Breeder’s auction in Alberta this fall.

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

I Tried…Honest!

Well, I did paint yesterday, though it was a bit of a quick one because of a bunch of other stuff I needed to do – but it seemed I had a bit of “what can do wrong will” going on. First, I discovered we had no internet connection! As an apparently dedicated NaBloPoMo’er, I decided I would have to drive to a wireless spot. I live out in the country, so that’s no small decision at nine o’clock at night! As it turned out I didn’t have to go that far to get a connection, but was stopped dead when Blogger wouldn’t load. I tried for a couple of hours, but it wasn’t meant to be – I couldn’t make my post. I posted my sad story on the NaBloPoMo site here, though I don’t know if that “counts” for their purposes, so I guess I may have to admit defeat. I’m still going to continue my painting a day and blog a day…even if technology’s failings have left me out of the NaBlo running!

Today I did an 8 x 10 oil on Raphael linen panel of a friend’s Warmblood filly. I was teaching a workshop for the Credit Valley Artisans in Georgetown and due to my internet troubles last night, I didn’t get the drawing done as I’d hoped. That meant doing it on the spot – I was a little worrid that I might choke under the pressure of an audience! It didn’t go too badly though. So this is Chrystelle, a daughter of Dutch Warmblood Pacific Star STV out of a Thoroughbred mare. She was a baby at her mother’s side here, and as a yearling, she is still just as gorgeous. And available for sale, I believe. If you want more info, let me know and I’ll point you in the right direction! If I didn’t already have a horse of my own standing out there, I think I’d be finding a way to get this filly in my barn.

Hopefully tomorrow will be less eventful than the last couple of days. I know one thing though – with painting number 15 today, I’m officially half way!

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

Newsworthy


So I’ve been holding out on the art news…

Back in May, I received a call telling me my artwork had been chosen for the cover of the Canadian Warmblood Horse Breeders’ Association’s Fall Classic Breeders’ Sale catalogue. The artwork is also featured on the poster advertising the event, and the original painting was on display at the CWHBA booth at the Spruce Meadows Masters! The original will be auctioned as Lot 0 at the sale, to be held October 10&12, 2008. They did a great job putting together the cover design, and I’ll be looking forward to hearing the results of the auction! The painting in question is called “Air” and the reference photo for this work was purchased by Ottawa-area photographer Gleb Esman.


The second bit of news…I had two paintings accepted into the New Jersey Equine Artists’ Association Fall show. You’ll be familiar with both – one is the recently featured “Man on a Misison,” and the other is “Sunkissed.” The opening is this Sunday, September 15, and I’m actually going to be there. My friend Sheri lives in South Jersey, and I’m long overdue a visit, so this seemed a great opportunity. It was a real honour to be accepted into this show, as was the cover for the CWHBA auction.


I’ve been busy in and out of the studio getting ready for the upcoming FASM Studio Tour, October 4&5, 2008. More new paintings in the works; trips to the framer, trips to the photographer…and so on! Hopefully we’ll get past the rain and have a great weekend for the tour.

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

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