Horse Paintings by Carrie L. Lewis

Posted By Carrie L. Lewis on September 3, 2010

Original Colored Pencil

Rising Stonehenge Paper, 90 lb. Natural, 16″ x 20″

It’s been a long time coming, but I’m very pleased to announce that Lockkeeper in Colored Pencil is finished!

After the last painting session, I set the painting aside for a few days out of sight, then reviewed it again. I could find nothing to do to improve it.

The painting was then sprayed for its protection and to prevent wax bloom, then unmounted.  It is now waiting for framing or for sale, whichever happens first.

My thanks to photographer, Mark Adair, for the use of his reference photo in the creation of this painting.

The image measures 16×20 with a two-inch margin all around. It is available for sale as is for $900. Custom framing is also available.

Category: Classical Painting, Colored Pencil, Landscape Paintings, Studio News | No Comments »
Tags: Colored Pencil, Colored Pencil Painting, Horse Painting, Landscape Painting, Studio News

Posted By Carrie L. Lewis on September 3, 2010

Original Colored Pencil Painting
14 x 18 Light Tan Mat Board

This is Aeropostale. Aeropostale is a Michigan Standardbred.

I first met Aeropostale in 2000 as a result of selling a custom portrait to his owner at the Michigan Harness Horseman’s Association Auction. He and I were both at the Midland County Fair that year, so I photographed him in the stables and on the track. It was a great day and the only way it could have been better would have been for him to win his race, instead of finishing a strong third.

From the photographic trip, references were chosen and the portrait was completed in oils and delivered later that year.

But there were several other photographs with potential, so I decided to do a second portrait for myself. I chose the second of my favorite photographs (shown above) and set to work on it.

I had time to work on it for a few weeks before paid portraits took precedence and this one was set aside. Within the year, I met Neal and began to correspond with him and over the course of that year of courtship, this colored pencil portrait of Aeropostale was completely forgotten.

That was sometime in late 2000 or 2001. The summer of 2006, I found it again and was quite surprised to discover that it had survived the move to Kansas and at least five years of storage.

I even more surprised at how good it was. It was stunning! Better and more detailed even at that stage, than any colored pencil painting I had done recently. I cleaned it up and put it up on an easel in the living room so I could look at it for a while and decide what to do with it.

The support is mat board, but it’s been so long that I don’t even know what color it is beyond saying it’s a light color. Probably bone or light tan. The size is roughly 11×14.

When I found this painting again, enough color had been placed to begin to establish the basic coat color and the lights and darks.

There had also been the basic establishment of details, especially in the muzzle and the eye. It was, in fact, the area around the mouth that so impressed me when I first saw the painting again after six or seven years.

Nothing had been done with the background. It was the same color as the original mat board and I had no memory at all of what I had been intending to do. A lot of horse portraits from that time were done on plain or very simple backgrounds and it seems likely that had been my intent in choosing a colored support for the painting.

But when I went back to work on the piece, the first thing I did was decide to add a background. In looking back at what I did, I would have to say that was probably a mistake. The appeal of the painting dropped immediately with the first wash of color, but it was too late to take it back.

I layered color into the background, using blues to make a sky and greens for trees and grass. Then I decided I didn’t like that, so I lifted and erased as much color as I could. Then I decided to try some thinner to smooth out and weaken the remaining color. I used clean thinner first, applying it with a cotton ball. Then I used some purple-tinted thinner and ended up making a rather nice purple wash throughout the background.

Painting portraits is as much about problem solving as it is about painting, so I set about finding ways to solve this particular problem. I applied broad blocks of color over the wash of purple using Prismacolor thick lead pencils. The top part of the painting was done with Indigo Blue, Ultramarine Blue and possibly a Violet Blue, mixed with a little bit of green.

In the lower portions, the mixture was reversed, with the predominant colors being Grass Green, Peacock Green and Dark Green toned with a little bit of blue.

Strokes were kept broad and loose. The purpose at this point was to lay down as much color as quickly as possible, then to blend it with Bestine (also known as rubber cement thinner). This is a technique used by artists such as Cecile Baird and it was in reading one of her books that I first realized the use of solvent of some kind might help solve the problem I’d created in the background.

To be quite honest, my attitude at this point was that I would experiment and if it worked out great. If I ruined the painting, no great loss, since it had languished so long anyway!

When the color was a deep as I wanted it or thought I could make it without scuffing up the surface of the mat board, I took everything outside and proceeded to blend and work the color layers with rubber cement thinner and a good, stiff bristle brush.

The first round of blending wasn’t very impressive, so I blended again, scrubbing lightly (and sometimes not so lightly) to produce a very even, even saturated color layer. My understanding from reading was that additional color could be added and blended later and as many times as necessary to get the desired results. So I blended for all I was worth and almost dared it not to work.

Once again, the end results were not at all what I was looking for. Brushstrokes everywhere and no way to smooth them out.

Chunky blocks of color with edges that were too well-defined.

Nice colors, but not a very nice overall color layer.

Disappointed, I set the painting up to dry thoroughly, telling myself I would get back to it when I got back to it. I wasn’t convinced it was ruined, but I didn’t have a lot of hope for it, either.

Category: Color Work, Colored Pencil, The Painting Process | No Comments »
Tags: Colored Pencil, Colored Pencil Paintings, Horse Paintings, Michigan Standardbreds, The Painting Process

Posted By Carrie L. Lewis on September 2, 2010

Fall has officially arrived in Kansas and I saw it come!

In this part of the country, it’s not at all unusual to know when summer ends and fall arrives. It’s usually pretty obvious.

Big thunderheads form in the southwest. The east wind starts to blow. The sky grows dark. The temperature drops from over 100 to down in the seventies in half an hour or less. You can feel it get cold.

Then the summer drought is broken with a downpour. There’s lots of lightning and thunder and sometimes flooding. Summer is washed away. Fall rides in on the storm.

This year was a little different, but no less dramatic.

We had that big thunderstorm shortly after the middle of August. I was snapped awake at 1:30 a.m. by one humongous thunder clap and while I was still adjusting to that, the rain started pouring. It rained the rest of the night and into the morning and it was cool the following day.

We figured summer was over at that point, but after a few days, temperatures started easing upward again and we’ve spent most of the last week in the humid nineties. No, it didn’t reach 100 again, but it sure felt like it.

Today, I was minding my own business, working out a promising story design, when I heard the wind suddenly gust through the trees. A glance out the west window showed black clouds, so I got up to take a look. Can’t take a chance on missing meteorological marvels, after all.

It had been in the nineties all day, so when I opened the window to get a good whiff of the wind and felt the chill, I checked the thermometer. Eighty.

And falling.

The wind continued to rattle the windows and blow papers around the office desk. Dark clouds continued to roll through and the temperature continued to drop. But there wasn’t enough rain in this weather front to wash the dust off the windshield. Neal and I walked to the bank (half a mile away) and were windswept on the way north and pushed along on the way south. It was quite invigorating!

By evening, the sun was out again and I was able to snap this beautiful light in the front yard. It was cool enough to have a flannel shirt on and it was obvious no air conditioning would be needed this night.

It was also obvious summer had ended and Fall was most likely settling in. Hopefully the stay is a long one, because Fall is one of my favorite times of the year.

The neat thing for me is that I was aware enough to have noted when Fall arrived. 2:30 p.m., Central Daylight Savings Time. It came on a blustery wind out of the north and was welcomed by all in the neighborhood.

Or at least all in this household!

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Tags: Personal Musings

Posted By Carrie L. Lewis on September 1, 2010

Original Oil Painting
9 x 12 Baltic Birch Panel

Monday, July 28, 2010

Technique: Direct
Colors Used: Titanium White, Azo Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber, Manganese Blue, Quinacridone Magenta
Medium Used: Walnut Oil

I photographed this painting and almost put it back up to dry because the work from the last two days was still wet. Then I decided to work on the foreground because that hadn’t been worked on for some time. So I used Walnut Oil to oil the lower part of the panel, wiped the excess off with a paper towel, then used my fingers to rub in patches of white tinted with Azo Yellow and Yellow Ochre, Yellow Ochre tinted with white and, in the immediate foreground, Yellow Ochre and Burnt Umber.

Then I used a 10/0 and 20/0, a bristle round, and a bristle flat to make vertical strokes through the patches of color to create the look of grass. I started with the tiny brushes, then switched to the bristles for a finer look and to create variety.

Saturday, July 31, 2010
I moved this painting upstairs to the front room for the weekend, so it could get better light and some heat. The last work I did is still a little tacky and the hope was that it would dry more completely and more quickly up there than in the studio, where the air conditioning runs at night.

Tuesday, August 03, 2010
I was up late tonight, so decided to work on this painting. I only worked on it for about fifteen minutes, but it was long enough to see I was making a mistake by putting a bush in the lower left corner of the painting. I should probably have wiped it right back off again, but decided to let it sit over night.

Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Colors Used: Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber, Prussian Blue
Medium Used: Walnut Oil

This morning, I wiped off as much of last night’s work as I could manage with a rag.

Tonight, I scraped the place, then covered it up by rubbing various mixtures of grass colors over the area, the stroking in grass. I intended to just block in the color, but got to painting grass and liked the way it looked, so continued until the corner was complete.

In the foreground, I used a color shaper to ‘scratch’ out some color, then used the 10/0 and 20/0 brushes to draw in tall grasses. I was very careful about these, wanting them to be as accurate as possible. I was able to draw in the base color, but will have to wait to add lighter grasses and highlights.

I also mixed Burnt Umber, Manganese Blue and Quinacridone Magenta to add darker shadows to the two trees on the right, then set the painting aside to dry.

The result of that work was a painting that looks nearly complete even without horses or any other type of animal. I think I want to cut a mask and spatter more color into the canopies of the trees, but other than adding lighter colored grasses in the foreground, I’m not sure what to do.

Category: Landscape Paintings, Oils, The Painting Process | No Comments »
Tags: Direct Technique, Landscape Painting, Oil Painting

Posted By Carrie L. Lewis on August 30, 2010

Over the course of the last two or three weeks, I’ve been engaged in an art project that is so far outside the realm of my artistic experience, I had no idea whether or not I could do it when I accepted it. One of those “oh my gosh, what WAS I thinking?” projects.

Without saying any more than that, I will say the project has sailed forward beyond my wildest imaginations and with a speed that makes my head spin.

It has also has infused me with a confidence in my drawing and rendering abilities, my artwork in general, enthusiasm, and dare I say passion, I haven’t felt for artwork in a long, long time.

It has also opened up a vista of new possibilities that sent me to my reference photos looking for material and to considerations of taking pictures and gathering reference materials wherever I couldn’t find what I was looking for.

One thing I have never thought myself capable of was figure drawing or human portraits.

I’m rethinking that these days.

My husband, Neal, has very kindly agreed to be my guinea pig/model. I’ve done gesture sketches from life and made drawings from reference photographs. So far, I’ve worked only in graphite or colored pencil and have done very little shading work.

My favorite drawing so far is shown here.  The only place I’ve deliberately strayed from the original is his glasses, which I’ve chosen to ignore for the purpose of this drawing. I’m thinking about adding them if I do a ‘portrait’, since they are as much a part of his face as his nose or ears.

I’m ecstatic it’s turning out so well. It didn’t progress beyond this stage before the weekend caught up with me, but you can bet my mind is still working on it at top speed. How can I make use of it for color work? Is it suitable for a portrait? Should I do colored pencil or oil? How large or small?

As I said, I haven’t felt this kind of excitement for making art in a long time and it is a thrill!

So much so, in fact, that I’m even considering a self-portrait. Egads! I never thought I’d do that! Never!

What is the studio coming to?

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Tags: Studio News

Posted By Carrie L. Lewis on August 27, 2010

I’d like to thank Melanie Brasher for featuring me and my artwork on her blog, Our Journey Home.

Melanie does a Fun Friday feature every Friday and today, I’m it!

Step on over to Melanie’s blog and take a look. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Category: Studio News | 2 Comments »
Tags: Shameless Promotion

Posted By Carrie L. Lewis on August 25, 2010

Original Oil Painting
9 x 12 Baltic Birch Panel

Monday, July 19, 2010
Technique: Direct
Colors Used: Titanium White, Burnt Umber, Yellow Ochre
Medium Use: None

I worked on Autumn Fields 2 today, but almost didn’t. When I looked at it, I saw that the paint film was very lumpy, bumpy and ugly and I thought about scraping the panel and using it for something else.

Then I decided to scrape the lumps out of it, like Alexei Antonov recommends. That worked very well.

After that was done, I used my fingers to paint in new foreground colors, paying more attention to the shades of color changes and value changes into the foreground. I rubbed in color without concern for details and liked the end result a lot better.

Monday, July 20, 2010
Colors Used: Ivory Black, Titanium White, Burnt Umber, Yellow Ochre
Medium Used: Walnut Oil

Today I began painting tress in the middle ground. I used paint thinned with Walnut Oil for better paint handling and a 20/0 sable round to ‘draw’ in the trees and branches. I did two  or three threes on the right side of the middle ground, then added another one on the left side. I took my time with each one, painting them as though they couldn’t be fixed. The lights and darks may need to be punched up a little, but the ‘shape’ of the trees looked very good.

Monday, July 26, 2010
Colors Used: Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Manganese Blue, Burnt Umber
Medium Used: Walnut Oil

I started out intending to just finish the dead trees and began work with a 10/0 sable round and the earth tones listed above to do so. I added Yellow Ochre to the leafy trees on the horizon to make them a more seasonal color.

Then, beginning with the tree on the left, which is deepest in the background, I added more and more branches and twigs, drawing them out to the edge of the panel and making a fuller canopy. Then I moved to the tree on the right, which is closest to the foreground and did the same thing with that.

But before I finished, I began tapping in leaves on the trees on the right, using Burnt Umber in the shadows and Yellow Ochre as the base color.  I began that work thinking about having the trees be nearly denuded, but continued to add leaf masses until it was too late for a late season look.

So I decided to try spattering color over the canopies of the nearest trees and blocked off parts of the painting I didn’t want to spatter with a couple of sheets of paper. The spattering worked well, though the spatters were too fine. I would also have been better off to use a contoured mask instead of uncut paper because I ended up with rather poorly shaped canopies.

To fix that, I used the 10/0 brush again (I’d used a half inch bristle flat for spattering) and tapped in more leaf masses over the spatter. The on-the-panel blending of colors was very nice.

By the time I decided to stop and let that work dry, I’d spattered and tapped leaves into all three trees, had put in a smaller bush around the base of the nearest tree and worked on the cast shadows from that tree and bush.

The painting looks pretty good. I’m thinking about adding some water to the foreground to make some nice reflections, but I’ve already suggested wind in the way the leaves are painted, so I may have to rethink that idea. The painting was set aside to dry lying flat because some of the spattering involved quite a bit of Walnut Oil and I didn’t want the paint to run.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Colors Used: Titanium White, Azo Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber, Manganese Blue, Quinacridone Magenta
Medium Used: Walnut Oil

Yesterday’s work was partly dry and partly wet, but I decided to tap in more leaves anyway. I used the magenta and white in combination with other colors to add a red-tone to the bush, then used white, Azo Yellow and Yellow Ochre to add highlights to the trees on the right. For the tree on the left, I added Burnt Umber to the mix to add additional shadow masses.

Category: Landscape Paintings, Oils, The Painting Process | No Comments »
Tags: Direct Technique, Landscape Painting, Oil Painting

Posted By Carrie L. Lewis on August 23, 2010

Alas, I have no new ACEOs this week. A project with a short deadline began on Monday and although it is advancing beyond my wildest imagination, it is taking up most of my studio time.

So I’m going to share the work of a fellow artist from right here in Newton, Kansas.

A scrap-booker by trade, Melody also makes the most delightful and interesting things using the same tools and materials, but that are definitely not scrap books!

Take these wonderful little boxes, for example.

They are designed for ACEOs and ATCs and feature pull out drawers snug enough to keep ACEOs in order, but deep enough to hold up to six ACEOs painted on archival mat board.

Melody has been auditing my colored pencil class for several weeks now although she says she can’t draw worth anything.

That’s all right. She has a wonderful talent of her own. We’ve all learned from the talents of the others and we just plain have a good time, too.

Melody has provided four ATC collectible boxes for me to list on eBay. You can see her work by going to this link and scrolling down to the end of the page.

Melody will be beginning a scrap booking class to coincide with my colored pencil class beginning August 26.

Anyone who is interested in Melody’s scrap booking skills or in getting customized gifts (including ATC boxes with a matching ATC inside!) can let me know and I’ll pass the message along.

Category: ACEO/ATC, Recommendations | No Comments »
Tags: ACEOs, Shameless Promotion

Posted By Carrie L. Lewis on August 20, 2010

Original Colored Pencil

Rising Stonehenge Paper, 90 lb. Natural, 16″ x 20″

Colors Used: Bruynzeel Permanent Orange, PS True Blue, PS Dark Brown

I layered Permanent Orange over all of the body, neck and head except the reflected lights and brightest highlights. I did work into some areas of the highlights that hadn’t previously been worked, but only very lightly. I used the side of the pencil and worked from several different directions to get a good, even layer.

Then I used True Blue and the side of the pencil to layer color into the reflected lights along the back, top of the neck and rump, as well as on the off side of the shoulder and the front leg. That was followed by layering the same color throughout the body to gray and darken the orange.

When I finished with that, I used Dark Brown to deepen the shadows, concentrating most on the chest and neck.

By the time I finished, I was thinking that I needed to either burnish or spray the paper with fixative, maybe both. I’m losing tooth quite a bit and not getting the kind of coverage I want at this stage.

Colors Used: PS Black, PS Dark Brown, PS White, PS Deco Yellow, PS Sienna Brown, PS Deco Blue, PS Yellow Chartreuse, PS Chartreuse, PS Apple Green.

I took a page from Gemma Gylling’s book and from my own book on oil paintings and worked on a specific area tonight: the head. I wanted to have the head finished when I stopped for the day. I don’t know if I succeeded or not, but it was a lot closer to completion when I finished than when I started.

I began work with the muzzle using Dark Brown, Black and White to place lights and darks, burnishing with white. While working on this area, I also used the greens to adjust the background colors, then went over them with Dark Brown so they weren’t quite so bright. Then I worked up into the head with my handful of pencils, placing lights and darks as I went, adjusting edges and shapes, and burnishing area by area. I don’t like the muzzle very much, but the rest of the face looks very good.

From there, I worked the ears, then began working down along the neck, using the same method and colors, adding darks, mid-tones, and lights, then burnishing with the lightest color.

Already, with just the head and legs done, I can see that it would be better for me to work this way, section by section, because I have a sharper, clearer image sooner. There would also be the appearance of faster progress as more and more surface was covered.

I used the enlarged reference photo on the computer for this work because I could enlarge each area and focus on it, work through it, then move the photo to see another area. It not only enlarged the detail, it cut down on distractions.

Colors Used: Bruynzeel Permanent Orange, PS Sienna Brown, PS Dark Brown, PS Dark Green, PS Deco Blue

I worked pretty much over all of the horse this evening using the printed reference. I wasn’t very ambitious and had thoughts of  laying on the color to finish it, and moving on to something more appealing. I tried to be as accurate as I could be, but there isn’t much to work with when I’m using the printed reference.

Colors used: PS Sienna Brown, PS Tuscan Red, PS Cream
I worked on the final layers of color on the neck, shoulders, chest, body and rump during colored pencil class this afternoon. Everything but the rump is done, I think. There will need to be some fine tuning once the painting is complete and I’m still thinking about using either rubbing alcohol or Bestine to do a little blending. I’m undecided about that, though, so I’m also holding off until I’m certain one way or another.

Colors Used: None
Medium Used: Rubbing Alcohol
The only thing I did in this session was blend the colors on the horse with rubbing alcohol applied with a cotton swab. I wanted to see if the coverage was sufficient to consider the horse done or it that was only the next step. While the alcohol was wet, it looked sufficient to finish the horse, but it needs to dry before I can make judgment on that matter.

Colors Used:
Cast Shadow: PS Olive Green, PS Indigo Blue, PS Light Umber
Fence: PS Light Umber, PS Black, PS French Gray 50%, PS Cloud Blue, PS Limepeel
Horse: PS Light Umber, PS Dark Brown

I had no ambition for artwork today, so I told myself that I’d do the cast shadows for the fence and call it good on this painting.

As I had hoped would happen, I worked on the shadows, then on the fence and finally tweaked some areas of the horse that looked like they needed a little more work.

When I finished for the day, the painting was as finished as I could make it, praise the LORD!

I’m going to put it someplace where I don’t see it every day and let it sit idle, just as though it had to dry. Then I’ll look at it again and pronounce judgment on it at that time.

Category: Classical Painting, Color Work, Colored Pencil, Landscape Paintings, The Painting Process | No Comments »
Tags: Classical Painting Techniques, Colored Pencil, Colored Pencil Lesson, Horse Paintings, Landscape Painting, Lockkeeper, Michigan Standardbreds, The Painting Process

Posted By Carrie L. Lewis on August 18, 2010

Original Oil Painting
9 x 12 Baltic Birch Panel

Monday, July 06, 2010
Technique: Direct
Colors Used: Dark Palette Gray, Manganese Blue, Prussian Blue, Titanium White, Yellow Ochre
Medium Used: None

Yesterday’s work was still wet enough that paint came off when I scanned the image. But since I wanted to work in the clouds again today, I decided to proceed at least far enough to see if new work would damage yesterday’s work.

The paint was still tacky, but most of it could be moved a little without damaging it. The first thing I did was use a #2 Sable Fan Brush to coax the brush strokes out of the clouds. I used a feather light touch and small strokes to smooth out the brush strokes I found in the dark areas of the clouds. I also used the same brush and technique to pull dark color into the surrounding sky and to suggest the beginning of precipitation.

When that was finished, I used a #5 sable round to drop in white tinted slightly with yellow ochre to bring out sunny patches of cloud. There weren’t very many visible through the darker clouds, so I kept paint application to a minimum and attempted to apply color without leaving brushstrokes. In a couple of places, I used a finger tip to pat out the paint, then used the fan brush to smooth the edges between light and dark.

After that, the goal was to cover the rest of the panel with color. Using random mixtures of Yellow Ochre, Titanium White and Manganese Blue, I applied paint with a small trowel, then used a very well worn out white sable flat to create vertical strokes and a pattern of lights and darks that mimicked the slopes of hills and the passage of shadows. Some of the color had an olive green cast, some had a blue cast and some was nearly white. The common color in all was Yellow Ochre. I also incorporated touches of sky and cloud colors on the ground color to make the colors more natural and to create color unity. The final work on the grass was done with a 1” bristle flat, which I used to ‘pat in’ the look of tall grass.

The last work for the day was to begin creating distance by painting a line of trees on the horizon to connect the brooding sky and a brighter foreground. The trees were painted with a base color of Yellow Ochre, Manganese Blue, Dark Palette Gray and Titanium White, but as the tree line became more shadowed, I added a touch of Prussian Blue to tone down color temperature and darken the area.

Finally, using a sable round, I tapped in highlights on those trees using grass colors. The brightest highlights were to the right of the line of trees. As I moved into the shadow areas, I toned down the highlights by charging my brush, then making every first stroke in a brighter area and moving into shadow with each subsequent stroke. The paint the brush picked up automatically toned down the light color and, therefore, toned down the highlight.

The painting was then set aside to dry. I think this time it will dry completely so I can scrape some of the unwanted texture and begin the detail work in the foreground.

I think the sky is done. For the time being.

Category: Landscape Paintings, Oils, The Painting Process | No Comments »
Tags: Direct Technique, Landscape Painting, Oil Painting