30x30 Direct Watercolor #3

My friend, Suzala and I headed up to Oyster Bay where they were having a reenactment event of Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. We sat near the entertainment where horse riders were taking part in shooting and lancing events. Drawing horses is difficult enough, but they were moving a lot while I was trying to paint in direct watercolors. I was fairly successful.

Even after I did one painting for the 30x30 challenge that day I did a few more directly in watercolor.

This one below was done in water-soluble graphite and watercolors.

Horse Theme

 Last Wednesday the Patchogue Sketch Club met and our theme was horses. Luckily several of the other members had statues and horse models for everyone to use. I borrowed this one to sketch.

You can see from these photos that we had no shortage of models.

We do a lot of our sketching at the Patchogue/Medford Library. For the month of February our group has some of our sketches in the showcase at the front entrance of the library. The 3 sketchbooks on the top left are mine.

Horses

The Patchogue Sketch Club met at the Pat/Med Library last night and our theme was horses. It was not my favorite theme and I had no horse figurines to bring in. I find horses very difficult to draw. Two of the members have collections of horse figures. Pat's were bought as toys when her kids were younger, but Gina collects them and has done model horse shows for years. When I got to the library Pat was already there and must have had about a dozen horses lined up on the table. Not one to sketch the ordinary, my eyes went to "Old Paint" immediately. He looks like a skinny, starving, bony horse and I immediately sat down nearby to sketch him.

Pat told me that  Old Paint belonged to her uncle and it was on display in his house for years and years. She has no idea where it came from. When her aunt and uncle had both passed away her brother inherited the house and he asked Pat if she wanted anything from the house. The only thing she wanted was Old Paint and he has been on display in her house ever since.

This second sketch is of a horse that Pat bought in Sweden. I liked that it was so colorful.

Here are a few photos of us working and you can see the number of horses we had to choose from for sketching.

30 in 30 - Day 21 - Molly

This painting for Day 21 of the "30 Paintings in 30 Days" Challenge is a deviation from the dogs and cats that I've been doing. Molly belongs to my friend, Pat Sweeney who lives here on Long Island. Molly is in Virginia. I find horses difficult to paint and a photo of a horse in a pasture doesn't give much detail. I relied on additional photos from the internet to get some of the horse's features.

You can check out the other paintings for the challenge here on Leslie Saeta's blog:https://www.saetastudio.com/30-in-30-blog

I still find myself returning to the water scenes around here, no matter how many times I've already painted them. This was painted down by the bay in West Sayville.

On Saturday my plan was to put up my Christmas tree and then if I had the energy to go out and paint a nighttime Christmas scene. So I called my friend, Susan, and asked her if she wanted to come out and play. When it was dark we went over to a Christmas tree lot nearby. Imagine our delight when we pulled up to see Santa, 2 big white horses, and a carriage. Santa was giving rides to customers but luckily for us he was not too busy and always returned to the same spot right in front of my parked car. With a bit of light from my car we were able to capture Santa in action. I sketched him while he was feeding the horses. I also did some editing and only put in one horse.

 

 

And here is my decorated tree.