Weekly Bodey Painting!

'Bodey I' 12th June, 2013

My new little spare room studio is fast filling up with newly started paintings; I am keen to enter six to the Society of Equestrian Artists annual exhibition and the deadline is only 6 or 7 weeks away! Lots to do. That said, with my brilliant week painting in Somerset fresh in my mind I am remaining committed to my work from life and have thought myself up a project to keep me focused over the summer!

Meet Bodey, my wonderful friend Jo's beautiful cob, whom I am lucky enough to ride regularly. He is a real star of a horse; fantastic fun to ride, safe as they come, and great with children too. Bodey is such a credit to Jo, I adore him! I have been meaning to paint him for ages but somehow haven't got round to it, until today. Feeling inspired and armed with my new easel (which makes getting set up and packed away when painting outside so much easier) I managed a quick (one hour ish?) oil sketch today, and now plan to paint him every single week, without fail.

My eldest, Oliver, and Bodey

I have seen before just how much I improve when I paint the same thing over and over again, so I am hoping that when I look back on 'Bodey I' several weeks down the line I'll see a big difference compared with 'Bodey V', and so on. My expectations for today's painting were low and I wasn't sure whether knowing him well would help or hinder me? I worked fast and the end result wasn't as bad as I was expecting! Bodey was a great model, stood very nicely for me. I got in a bit of a muddle with his ever shifting hind legs but wasn't too worried about fiddling fixing them, wanted more just to capture him today and get a feel for painting him. Thoroughly enjoyed it! I'm very grateful to Jo for being so very generous with her lovely horse.

Bodey and I having fun!

Ultimately I'd love to one day get a life sketch accepted into the SEA exhibition... long way off being able to produce that sort of standard but perhaps with some hard work I might just manage it eventually!

Zebras from life!

Had a great day today visiting Yorkshire Wildlife Park with the Association of Animal Artists.

Painting from life is something that I am becoming increasingly interested in and dedicated to (had a wonderful time at a 2 day workshop with Malcolm Coward just last weekend, and of course there is my Beswick project!) so I decided that I would definitely have a bash at painting some kind of animal at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. I am not very good at it (yet!) but I get a real buzz out of it, and my studio work really benefits from the skills I develop via my life work, regardless of how bad the life paintings are!

Arrived this morning, met up with fellow artists, and then left our children with my husband Brian while I carted my easel about looking for a subject. Now, what I really fancied painting was a zebra (no surprises there!) but given how hard it is to paint horses from life even when you have someone to hold them and shift them back into place, I decided painting zebra loose in a giant paddock would be impossible. I decided maybe some kind of sleeping lion or such thing might be do-able?

Have to admit I felt a bit nervous wandering round choosing my subject- lots of people visiting the park who might potentially walk by and see me paint waaaayyyy out of my comfort zone- eek! Plenty of sleeping lions to be found, none close enough to paint though. There were some sleeping goats that probably would have sat long enough to be painted but it felt a bit of a cop out to come all that way to paint a goat... so I decided I might as well give the zebra a bash. Why not!

Chose a spot next to one zebra and couldn't believe my luck when a couple more came over. Of course, they didn't stay still for a minute and moved all the time but having sketched the initial position of the first I was able to kind of use all three to pick out useful bits to add to the painting. They wandered off after about 15-20 mins after which I just had a VERY distant view to try and finish it off.

Obviously there is a lot wrong with it BUT I expected to come home with a few suggested lines of a loose wild animal, not a recognisable painting of one, so I am very proud of it!

Looking forward to visiting Yorkshire Wildlife Park again soon, a beautiful place full of beautiful and happy looking animals. Great family day out.

Lots of photos taken too so brace yourselves for some zebra studio paintings coming soon!!

'Chestnut Arab' Finished

'Chestnut Arab' 12" x 12" oil on box canvas. 

Did some more glaze work since my last posting and today sat and had a nice long painting session getting it finished! Really pleased with it, be very happy to keep it myself but it is available if anyone wants it! Details on my website www.laurabarber-riley.com.