The ART in HORSE

The Importance of Being Educated

2011-12-09T15:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had the very great honor of being awarded the 2012 HITS Themal Desert Circuit (CA) Show Program cover. HITS produces some of the richest and most highly attended and regarded hunter/ jumper show circuits in the country, and to be selected as the cover artist is quite a big deal. I've been invited to the HITS Ocala Fine Art Gala several times, and I was also honored to participate in the HITS Saugerties Art Gala in 2010. I've never been to Thermal - in fact, I've never been to California - but it looks like I now have an excuse to go! Hundreds of riders from across the country attend these multi-week shows, and I'm excited to be able to put my work in front of a West Coast audience.

The HITS Ocala cover was also awarded this week, and it went to a wonderful artist from Florida - Mary Verrandeaux. I've had the pleasure of meeting Mary a few times (at the Ocala Art Gala, in fact) and I really, really like her work. But my favorite thing about Mary is that she and I graduated from the same college - the Ringling College of Art and Design. She graduated in the 1980's, and I graduated in 2000, both of us with degrees in illustration.

I owe a debt of gratitude to my college, and I'm proud to say I'm an alum. I came to Ringling in 1996, with a decent amount of drawing skill from high school and middle school art classes. Magazine pictures, attempted photorealism, unremarkable still lifes, the usual. My first year in college, our professors took all we knew about art and threw it out the window. They challenged us to rethink the whole concept of how to draw, how to paint, how to SEE, and in the process, they tore down everything we thought we knew about art and forced us to start again from the beginning. My second year painting teacher had such a formidable reputation that almost of the students assigned to her class switched to the other painting instructor. I had an unspoken rule never to change professors, so I ended up in a painting class with only three other students, and for a whole year, we had almost an hour of one-on-one instruction every other day. (Painting classes were 3 hours each, three days a week.) We learned to PAINT. (We also learned to stretch our own canvas and make our own gesso, but that's another story.) I had only had one unhappy experience with oil paints (I painted a hideous flower and my mother rightfully banished the painting to the laundry room) before I walked into her class, so if I have any skill at painting today, a huge amount of credit goes to her. My illustration teacher was an innovator of American illustration (seriously, he's in the book "Innovators of American Illustration" by Steve Heller) and introduced us to the idea of art as narrative. He gave me some of the best art advice I've ever received in my life, and I often think of his words when I'm particularly vexed by a painting. His daughter was "into" horses, and she actually showed at Madison Square Garden (pony division, if I recall correctly), and so he and I spent a lot of time discussing horses. He gave me hope that a career revolving around equine and wildlife art was possible and encouraged me to continue on that path, and I'm forever grateful to him.

I had other influential teachers in figure, printmaking, English lit, and computer illustration, but I will forever cherish the four years of art history we were required to take. We weren't just taught art history with names of artists, dates and schools of thought, we were immersed in the time. We learned how the art and the music and the fashion of an era went together, how politics, war, famine, wealth and industry affected not only the art of a nation but impacted the entire worldview of its people, and how such events spurred and nurtured - or stifled - the proliferation of the arts worldwide. If I am ever fortunate enough to teach art history, that is the model I will use. Art doesn't develop in a vacuum, and to teach nothing but dry names and dates robs the student - and the teacher - of the most compelling parts of the story.

New! HoofPRINTS Notecard and Print

"To the Jumper Ring" Pen and marker on bristol board

Paintsgiving

2011-11-22T01:02:00.000-08:00

I admit it. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. There are lots of reasons for it - it is a secular holiday, so you don't have to worry about offending anyone or leaving someone out, it comes with yummy food and none of the calories, it brings back wonderful memories of my family gathered around the table when I was younger, and it reminds us to pause and be thankful for what we have. Kinda like a kinder, gentler New Year's Eve... without the calories.

So, what am I thankful for? First, I am thankful for this wonderful recording of Satie's Gymnopedie in my music library. I'm not a huge Satie fan, but sometimes he has the perfect music... like for stormy November nights, with icy rain sluicing down the windows and thoughts rattling against the inside of my skull like the leaves against the glass panes. Satie is a lovely, ponderous, purple sound. Maybe next we can segue into Copland's bright blue Saturday Night Waltz and take flight. (And in fact, we have...)

I am thankful for this studio I sit in, surrounded by my paintings, all waiting to be finished, full of potential and possibility. I am thankful that I was able to attend one of the best art colleges in the country, and thankful that enough people were terrified of my second year painting professor that they dropped the class, leaving a class of only four students to receive 9 hours of personalized instruction a week. I am grateful the aforementioned professor made us learn to mix our own gesso and stretch our own canvases, and I am thankful that I can now buy that crap already done from the store. I am thankful that my career path has followed my "artistic" path very closely, and that whatever I've learned in one field I've been able to use in the other. I am thankful that my parents never told me I couldn't draw, and thankful that years and years of practice have allowed me to be able to fake it fairly well these days.

I'm thankful for my subject matter. The horse for me is a neverending marvel, the perfect blend of power and containment. I'm thankful that there have been a wonderful herd of horses in my life, and that my "first" horse was an ancient Cleveland Bay. I've never looked at a "plain" brown horse the same way since. I'm thankful for the miracle of birds, and it's nice that they so often tend to live in those other awe-inspiring things: trees. And speaking of trees and the inherent majesty of Spanish moss and resurrection ferns, I'm thankful for literally the entire state of Louisiana. I think I could wander the wilds of Louisiana and Florida forever, dreamy and dazed, and never run out of things to delight the eye and inflame the senses.

I'm thankful for the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, and thankful that a public school music teacher told me I could and would learn to play it, and then made me do so. (And I'm thankful for this marvelous recording by the ever delightful Anne-Sophie Mutter.) Speaking of Ms. Mutter, I'm thankful for Anne Rice, both in literary and "fairy godmother" form, and I'm thankful I've been able to give something back to her for all the enjoyment she's brought me over the years.

I'm thankful for Rembrandt, Sargent, Mucha, Magritte, Leyendecker, Audubon, Parrish, Toulouse-Latrec, Rousseau, Mehl, St. Clair, Brenders, Pratt, Forbes, Hopper, Van Gogh, Caravaggio, Gorey, Stubbs, Keane, Vettriano and Deja. And whoever came up with the whole Art Nouveau phase, Minoan art period and Byzantine iconography thing, you rock. I love you guys.

I'm thankful for my best friends, for a litany of unsaids. I'm thankful for my parents for their support. I'm thankful for my family for their love.

And I'm thankful for my husband - artist/draftsman supreme, man of steel, head cheerleader, personal-demon slayer, and professional "pep talk" giver. I'm thankful he knew me for 10 years and then decided he still wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.

Finally, I'm thankful for you, whoever you might be, out there reading this blog. Thanks for providing an audience, a challenge, a goal, a competition, an eagerness to share and talk and touch and explain and listen, and thanks for allowing me a platform to share with the world. I was going to close with some crack about the pen being mightier than the sword but the paintbrush being mightier than all, and then I lost the thread. So, instead, I close with what I am most thankful for - the art. Happy Paintsgiving.

Bill, part II

2011-11-12T11:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I posted a quick nothing on "Bill" my new, as yet unnamed and unidentified bird painting. Since then, I've been both guilt-ridden over such a flippant blog post, and consumed with discovering the genus and identity of the aforementioned "Bill". I've checked bird books, searched google, even drafted a letter to the aviary where the picture was originally taken. All of which brings me to the question: why does it matter?

Because it DOES matter, at least to me. Part of being a representational artist is that whole "representational" part- in other words, you should be able to identify the subject of your painting. There are various arguments for and against this, ranging from freedom of artistic expression to the validity of photorealistic artwork to a postmodern deconstruction of the form. All of those points are valid, and each artist interprets them in different ways. In my humble opinion, you have to first prove that you understand a form before you can deconstruct it. When people think of Picasso, they think of his heavily abstracted forms, his multiple povs and stylized figures. What many don't know is that Picasso could draw like an angel by the time he was fourteen. His early artwork was full of such fully realized nuance, technical skill and beauty that he was able to build on an absolute rock solid understanding of form to systematically blow it apart in his later artistic exploration. Once you understand that about him, his artwork takes on added meaning.

We are taught as kids to color "inside the lines". Trees are green, sky is blue, the sun is yellow. (And there's a whole fascinating science to the progression of how children learn to draw, such as when everyone starts adding hundreds of fingers to hands or everyone is depicted on profile. Absolutely fascinating stuff that follows a very set timeline in child development.) As we get older, middle school art classes introduce the idea of photorealism, usually through he whole "copy half of a magazine picture" idea. Your skill as a middle school artist is determined by how precisely you are able to mirror the magazine page, and some people become extremely accomplished at this. (A big tip of the hat to my bff, whose graphite rendering of "Makeup Ad Girl in Sunglasses with Beestung Lips" on bristol board STILL hangs in a prominent place in my "memory" gallery.) Some people take this photorealism to astonishing levels. Carl Brenders comes to mind as someone whose artwork can literally make you weep with amazement and gratitude for his exacting "exactness" of hair and stone and grasses. Unbelievable.

One of my childhood dreams was to be an animator. Because of the demands of their work, an animator MUST have a rock solid understanding of anatomy to be able to move that character properly through space. The work of really good animators (ANY of Disney's 9 Old Men or the newer greats like Glen Keane, Mark Henn, Andreas Deja, to name just a few) has such a purity of form and function to their line. They can draw an anatomically correct arm in one line, with such fluidity and grace that it becomes the best one line rendering of an arm you've ever seen. Animators know anatomy.

As an (primarily) equine artist, I know horses. I also can look at someone else's art and tell immediately whether they know horses. Whether they've spend time with a horse, laid their hands on a horse's neck, sat on their back, looked into their eyes. That understanding of pure form transfers to the art. Yes, some technical skill is required to accuratley depict the shading of bone and muscle, but the basic anatomy should still be seen to be correct.

So why all this fuss for "Bill"? I've always loved animals, I've owned and studied and read about them most of my life. My art has dovetailed (tee hee) perfectly with my desire to know and learn more about the animal kingdom, and part of that learning and exploring has been learning a smattering about my subjects. Even if finding out what kind of food this bird eats (mostly fruit, is my guess) and where it lives (Central or South American temperate forest is my bet) doesn't have any bearing on the actual picture itself, I've learned something and added to the story behind the painting. And that to me, is just as important as the finished piece.

Bill

2011-11-11T14:59:00.000-08:00

I finally got back to the studio today. It's been a crazy few weeks, and unfortunately, when life interferes, personal work sometimes takes a backseat. No crazy deadline to rush, no looming publication date, just a few weeks at the end of the year to work on "fun" stuff. "Different" stuff. Maybe "Next Year's" stuff?

Anyway, here is "Bill" (working title only) after about 2 hours of purely pleasurable work. Small-ish (for me) board, manageable subject, just a chance to cut loose and have some Fauvre-fun. Sometime soon I have to:
1) identify this bird, because I don't think "Bill" will cut it, and
2) come up with a real title for this piece. I have an idea or two, but I'm holding off until I feel a little more settled in it.
Next blog article will have something of great substance and profound importance, I promise. Thanks for reading anyway.

Tools of the Trade

2011-10-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today I had intended to write about inspiration - those artists whose work inspires, educates and inflames me. But, as is so often the case, the best laid plans can go astray. As I wandered the aisles of the art store this morning intent on spending my gift certificate (spoils from placing third in this year's Irving National Wildlife Art Show) I took in all the tools of the trade, those amazing but silent raw materials that allow artists to do what they do - create something out of nothing.

Rows and rows of paint tubes in every color of the rainbow. Stacks upon stacks of paper in every possible texture, size and shade. Displays of brushes poke their heads up vying for attention, all begging to be touched. Pastels, charcoal, pens, ink, canvas. All of it sitting mute on the shelf, waiting for someone to dig into them and make something. I want to buy ALL of it.

So what is essential to me in my studio? Understand, my current studio is not ideal. My husband and I share a studio space, and both of us have a LOT of stuff, so it's a little cramped. It's kind of dusty (despite my best efforts), the light is nice but uneven, and ... did I mention it was cramped? But I have my half of the room and he has him, and we've each made the space ours and come here to do serious work.

The whole studio is dominated by a full wall of bookshelves. All the shelves are overfull, so there are also books stacked sideways on top and lined up on the sides, sometimes two and three rows deep. All our friends are here: Rembrandt, Sargent, Caravaggio, Audobon, Hogarth, Parrish, Wyeth, Rousseau, and Magritte. There are shelves devoted to the wizards of Disney traditional (and CG) animation, Byzantine iconography, art nouveau, art instruction, art theory, art history, figure drawing and animal anatomy. There are favorite books whose pages are smudged with paint or dusty with charcoal, and the books wear those marks like a badge of honor. Inspiration lives on those shelves, and I cannot count the number of times that being able to reach over and grab a book has saved the day... and the piece.

My drawing/ painting desk is an old architectural drafting table. The thing is massive, creaky and ancient. It tilts back and forth and slides up and down, and the surface is a much written upon self-healing matt. I've got all kinds of stuff scribbled on here, quotes from artists or authors, bits of songs or phrases that tickle my ear, admonitions and motivation. Since the matt is rubber, the words eventually fade away, and I can either rewrite them or add something new, providing a continuously changing inspiration board. At the moment, "The Wind of Heaven" is tacked to the board with snap clamps (another essential for me), along with a plastic glove from oil painting and a picture of my little sister.

Directly above my desk is more inspiration. The cork bulletin board is almost totally covered in tear sheets, photos, show dates, reminders, and a few odds and ends that I rather like. It's a huge mess, but whenever I try to clean it off all the empty space makes me uneasy, so back go the photos. Some of these are future paintings, some of them are cool photos, and some of them are photos that would make wonderful paintings (or etchings), if only I could figure out how to do them. They live above my desk as a kind of permanent "tickle board", and every once in awhile, I can pull a photo off and work a painting from it.

My oils live in a fishing tackle box, a holdover from college days. Watercolors and gouache have their own boxes, since they don't play together very well, and my desk drawers hold a plethora of pens, inks, framing supplies, office stuff, oil pastels (I now have an entire drawer dedicated to my Sennelier oil pastels, and I am psyched!), painting mediums, and rags. All of my brushes live on my desk, loosely sorted by size and medium. My watercolor brushes are kept together in one of my water jars- an antique mason jar that has only gotten prettier with age, paint and use. I have two good lights and a comfy chair. The big Epson and my filing cabinets full of carefully sorted reference photos live on the other side of the room.

The only other thing that is absolutely integral to my studio is the dread machine I am typing on. Not only for the computer-y goodness, but because it holds quite a bit of my music collection, and it has a neat "shuffle" button. I can't work in silence. (My husband, by contrast, works ONLY in silence, which explains why the two of us can't work at the same time.) I listen to a wide variety of music when I'm working (or any time, really), anything from classical to Dixieland Jazz to Eminem. Right now I'm rocking out to Clare Fader and Janis Joplin, and in awhile I'll pick up a brush and turn on Florence and the Machine and Muse. (Of course now it just shuffled to Mozart's Requiem. Of course.)

Today's art store haul included a bunch of yummy oil paints (and I even brought a list to prevent impulse buys!) and two wonderful new long handled brushes, both with excellent snap and a really nice feel in the hand. I can't wait to dig into my palette later and try them out. I've got a few paintings to finish (and they're so close to being done!) and it will be a great way to get to know these brushes and for them to get to know me. I think we're going to be friends.

Turpentine and Ochre

Best of Both Worlds, or fun/work/fun

2011-10-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

I spent today doing art of a different sort. My project still required an inspired use of color, judicious contrast and value control, a nod towards tactile pleasure, and a desire to produce the best art I was able to create. But instead of paper and paint (or even pixels) today's art consisted of fine art inkjet printing.

The subject of creating a print from your original artwork could fill a volume - several volumes, in fact - and there are plenty of good books out there on the very subject. There are also wonderful online communities full of dedicated users who spend countless hours discussing paper profile mismatches, black point compensation and the proper color gamut of alizarin crimson. There are those who rail against any kind of commercial art printing as a snub to traditional lithography, and there are plenty of people who throw around words like "archival", "giclee" and "limited edition", without any real grasp of what those words truly mean to the artist or their customer. There is a world of information out there, and it would take several lifetimes to learn all there is to know about this business of printing art.

This is what I do know. I can finish a painting, photograph it, convert it into a digital file, proof it, color correct it, proof it again (repeat as necessary), and create a beautiful piece of affordable art to pass it on to my collectors. They get a beautifully printed, high quality "copy" of an original they may not have been able to afford, and I make a little extra money. It's a beautiful thing.

I'm fortunate that I have the ability to control every phase of my artwork, from conceptual idea to finished product in the client's hands. Part of my college schooling was dedicated to computer illustration, typography and design. While I am by no means a computer artist (but my husband is! www.Gizmoart.net) I view Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Painter as tools in my arsenal. In fact, most of my "professsional" life has involved those programs. Over the past 10 years, much of my work has revolved around the world of fine art printing. There is still art and artistry in this. Creating a stunning fine art print is more than just running some great paper through a machine and pushing a button or two. (And trust me, there's some really, really great paper out there.) Granted, the technology has gotten much better since the first inkjet printers were introduced and today's machines produce great prints and are easier than ever to use, but an artist's eye is still required to create the perfect print.

Why would that be? Because an inkjet print is, at heart, a digital creation. While the new printers are very, very good, there is still a huge difference between an original oil on board and a series of digitally controlled pigment ink droplets sprayed onto canvas. The magic of what has happened on your board is digitized, crunched, converted to code and reassembled on a computer monitor with different light, different colors, even a different "white". It's like comparing apples to... computer generated apples. Once you've taken a good photo (another art form in its own right) and the image has been reassembled as a digital file, the real fun/work/fun begins. When the image on your monitor finally matches the original art (variable 1), you must then print the image onto the chosen media (variable 2) and compare. I usually do side by side comparisons with a red pen handy, and scribble cryptic notes to myself like "not jello-y enough" or "perfect shade for murder". Then I sit back down at my computer and make my color adjustments, going for a nice refined claret instead of a "homicidal" red, for instance. After I've corrected the image and saved my corrections as a new file, I print again and compare. That's the process I repeat as long as necessary. Simple? Yes. Easy? No. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters to me is the piece of canvas that comes out of the printer. That is what is going to my client, and I want it to be the best print I am capable of creating.

Tonight I'm heading to a gallery opening for a customer of mine. He knows me from my 9-5, where I work with artists and photographers who print their own stuff, answering questions and giving advice on papers, printers, varnishes, ICC profiles and color corrections. On Sunday I have a gallery opening of my own to attend, with two of my paintings (well, a painting and a scratchboard) up for juried awards. In some ways, it's the best of both worlds, and I am looking forward to both shows. But right now I will take my freshly created print and inspect it one more time, looking for any flaws. If it passes final inspection, I'll number it (1/60, for a brand new edition) and finally sign my name, signifying that this, to me, is art. I made it, I created it, and I am proud to send it out into the world.

"Only the Lonely"

Limited Edition giclee inkjet print from an original graphite by Joanna Zeller Quentin 2011.

Limited Edition of 60, signed and numbered by the artist on 100% cotton rag paper, 18 x 24

www.MoosePantsStudio.com

How compass success?

2011-08-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

The envelope was the first sign. I've been on the receiving end of enough rejection letters to know that those are always thin. After all, it doesn't take much paper to say "Dear Ms. Quentin, After careful consideration we regret to inform you..." blah, blah "You suck"... "Sincerely, X" Usually one single spaced sheet of paper will do it.

But this envelope was thick. Not Birds in Art thick, where the forms come in a mythically huge 9x12 envelope (or so I hear), but weighty. Several sheets of paper inside. And we all know art shows require an absurd amount of paperwork.
So I was feeling pretty good as I started to open the envelope. At least one of them got in. I bet it was...

... not at all the one I was expecting.

That's the second time that's happened to me now with this show. I send my 2 picks, Steve chooses a third, and voila! the third pick is the winner. Maybe I should just let him pick all of them from now on!

But I am now preparing a piece of art to ship to Kentucky, to the American Academy of Equine Art's Fall Open Juried Exhibition. The AAEA is one of my personal "Triple Crown" art shows. AAEA membership is limited to those who are juried into three of their yearly fall exhibitions, and the fall exhibitions are usually very heavy on the applicant side. To be juried in two years ago was amazing. To be chosen twice, after only the third time I've entered, is awesome. Assuming I ever get juried in again, I can then submit my body of work for review and possibly be inducted as a member. Heady stuff.

There are a few shows to my mind that establish you (me) as a serious artist - the AAEA, Birds in Art and Arts for the Parks. The Arts for the Parks show is sadly defunct, and that is a true shame, because the caliber of landscape and environmental art produced for that show every year was phenomenal. I am not and have never been a landscape painter, but it was always something I wanted to try. And Arts for the Parks was the pinnacle of landscape painting.

Birds in Art originated as a tiny exhibition at a small museum in Wisconsin, and over the years has grown into possibly the finest avian art show in the world. Competition is insane to be juried into each year's show, and they often have hundreds or thousands of entries from all over the world. I've only entered once (got the thin envelope) but every year I prepare to submit a piece. I never actually DO (it's a lot like my attendance record for the (former) Budweiser Grand Prix in Tampa, in fact) but I always WANT to. I will one of these days. Got the entry deadline (tax day, in fact) already on my calendar. I've got time until April, right?

And then there's the AAEA. When I was younger and decided I wanted to try this whole "painting horses for a living" thing, they were the group whose name came up constantly. With a strong emphasis on realism, traditional works, accuracy and excellence, the AAEA show every year is a special treat for an equine artist. The artists in the AAEA shows are some of the very best in the field, and the quality of work is always spectacular. To have a piece hanging at this show is a huge honor, and I am very grateful.

So... what does all this mean? I've already learned that I don't consider myself an artist just because I do art. I have to be doing good art, apparently, and in order for it to be good, it has to be appreciated by someone else. It'd be phenomenal if it was appreciated with large bills of currency, but, failing that... does this count? People put art in shows for lots of different reasons. Exposure, sales, collector value, CV and resume pumping... all those things. I do it for all those things. But I also do it because I believe in artistic excellence and personal vision. No one else has your voice, not in writing, or in speech, or in art. And the ability to show your voice on a gallery wall with others whose "voices" are judged to be excellent, well... that puts you in pretty good company, doesn't it? And maybe, for some of us, that provides validation.
Now, on to the SAA, the Draft Horse Classic and the new bird painting!

Branching Out

2011-07-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

I draw and paint horses. My business cards say "equine artist". I consider myself an equine artist. (Actually, I consider myself a representational/ American impressionist painter heavily inspired by the Fauvre movement, who focuses primarily on the equine form... but who's counting?) The point is, much of my work over the past 10 years has been about horses and the world of English discipline riding. And much of my childhood scribblings were horses as well.
Well, horses and birds. In fact, my parents still have my kindergarden fingerpaintings, in which I did a whole series of ducks in a pond. (They're actually a lot of fun!) I remember an owl phase too. But the point is, chances are, if I wasn't drawing a horse, I was drawing a bird.
I did birds for my senior thesis in college. Scratchboard Indian hornbills, in fact - birds I love to look at. My first published artwork was an egret. My first professional sale was a macaw. Birds seemed a very natural Florida thing, with their bright tropical colors, lush environments, dappled shade, and giant tree branches wrapped in moss. Plus, I could walk outside most days and be inspired by the flora and fauna of Florida's Gulf Coast and her effortless beauty. When I moved to Texas, bright tropicals didn't really seem to fit the landscape so much, so I put the birds away and focused on other things.
Last week, for the first time in a long time, I did (read: finished) a bird piece. It was for a charity event here in Dallas, an exceedingly worthy cause, and I was honored to be asked to participate. The canvas was small - 10" square, and I wanted to do something different - a throwback to some of my earlier bird work. Plus, I've been on a gold leaf kick lately, and I knew I wanted to incorporate gold leaf into the piece. After reviewing my reference photos, I pulled a handful of bird pics and started to visualize a painting with each of them. One picture of Gouldian finches that I took at an aviary years ago jumped out at me, and the title of the piece practically fell in my lap.
Here is the result:

"As Gouldian as it Gets"

Oil and gold leaf on canvas

The floodgates have now opened. I've got birds on the brain. Toucans and cranes and parrots and pelicans, oh my. I'm wrapping up a few big pieces in my studio today and then hoping to start on one of the new bird pieces this weekend. They are fun and fancy free, and it feels really good to (pardon the pun) stretch my wings and move back into a genre I haven't worked with for awhile.
PS- "As Gouldian as it Gets" was quickly purchased by a lovely woman who planned to hang it next to a large painting of macaws she had at home. It's always such a pleasure to be able to meet collectors, those wonderful people who allow me to keep doing what I love to do. I hope that she enjoys the painting as much as I enjoyed making it.

Pulling out the orphans, plus.... dressage!

2011-04-10T02:53:00.000-07:00

One of the advantages to being able to pursue both commissioned and self generated work is that I get to start on a lot of really cool paintings that I might never get the chance to work on if I were relying on a client commission. Many clients want a carefully controlled painting, starring themselves, their horses, their dogs or cats, their subject, etc, etc, etc. Since this is exactly what a "commissioned" painting is, I'm perfectly okay with that! If you as a client have the idea and the concept (and the money), I will paint whatever you want in any way you may desire. And hopefully at the end of the (painting) day, we both go away happy.

On the other side, there's self generated work. This is work that is done either as a self promotion piece or a learning curve or to fit a possible show theme or simply because you have an idea that you want to try and capture in an "artistic" way. Since there's no client looking over your shoulder, there's no pressure to get it done a certain way, and lots of happy accidents can occur. On the other hand, unless you are shooting for a predetermined deadline (upcoming show, advertising, etc) there's no real incentive for you to finish the thing quickly.

Sometimes these paintings sort themselves out wonderfully. They practically paint themselves, and at the end of the day, you have a nice new piece of art to hang, sell, use, enter, etc. And sometimes...

... there are the orphans.

Every artist knows what I am talking about. THOSE paintings. The ones that are just too cool to throw away, or the ones you've invested too much time/work/paint/frustration in to walk away from (or slink away in defeat), or the ones that are really kinda sorta NICE... if you can just figure out 1) what the problem is and 2) how to resolve it. Sometimes I'm rapturously in love with a single square inch of board, and that square inch is the sole reason for the painting's continued existence.

This is one reason why art studios are usually pretty cluttered, by the way. It's very hard to give up on a painting or drawing, and so they get stored away, tucked into portfolios and behind cabinets, and then they multiply like evil little failure rabbits. But every once in awhile, it's nice to unearth them from the clutter, dust them off and see if you as the artist (and master of your own destiny) can make some magic happen.

I've got a bunch of show deadlines in the next few weeks. A ridiculous amount, actually, the kind of number that drives me from my bed at 4:00 in the morning to come into the studio. (Hello everybody!) And this is where the orphans come in handy.

As I write, there are 9 paintings/ drawings hanging out in the studio with me, propped up against walls or scattered on the floor. After carefully reevaluating them with fresh eyes (some of them have been in an unfinished state for several... years (sigh) now), I think there's enough promise here in a few of them to pull out the old paintbrushes and make a concerted effort at finishing a few of the damn things, thus putting me at least a few hours ahead from the dreaded "blank canvas" stage I'd be in otherwise with deadlines looming and panic attacks and all that. Huzzah! So now instead of having to start and finish a few paintings by... oh, let's say April 15th... now I only have to FINISH three of them. And that is much more workable. (And then start on May's deadlines!)

Really.

Here are a few of my (favorite things) orphans that came under review this morning. If all goes well, hopefully you will see these guys in their completed incarnation this year in various and sundry venues.

All images © Joanna Zeller Quentin 2011. All Rights Reserved. www.MoosePantsStudio.com

And then, just for fun, here are a few of the almost 800 (yes, 800) pictures that I took at a dressage show today. The weather was nice, the horses were gorgeous, the drive was peaceful... not a bad way to spend a Saturday. These are the moments that make life as an equine artist worth living. Enjoy!

All images © Joanna Zeller Quentin 2011. All Rights Reserved. www.MoosePantsStudio.com

Live blogging... painting in process! Peel back the mystery...

2010-12-03T20:39:00.000-08:00

(... I think the real mystery is that any of this gets done at all, because in looking back at this, I still can't explain anything...)

Ok, I'm going to try something out. This painting is due in approximately 5 hours. What better time to show the process of how I put a painting together? (Of course, this could also just be some fantastic procrastination on my part.) I apologize in advance for the photos. Trying to photograph while painting and attempting not to get oil paint on your camera is tricky.
Here's what it looks like right now. I drew it out last night and inked it with my fountain pen and sepia ink.

I have no idea what to do with it, or what I want it to look like even, besides a few half formed ideas. Let's see... something with a washy background, maybe some turpentine lifting out. I'm feeling very Bart Forbes/ Tom Allen inspired today...

Because I never do it at the beginning of the painting process and then always curse myself out, here's a burnt sienna wash scrubbed in with an old sock. Background color. Voila!

Starting to add shape to the horse - just a little extra weight and definition on the shadow areas. (I really like it right here. One of these days, I'll just stop at this phase.) Decided to give our bay horse a sock and a blaze for added definition and to draw the eye up.

Added ultramarine blue and cad red/ sienna. Working primarily in glazes and washes. At this point I have exceeded my "I think it should look like this" point and am now fumbling in the dark. So, I just started adding more definition, working to the ends of the value scale and then back again.

I added cad orange to the chest. That was obviously a stupid idea and not right at all. Removed post haste.

Orange changed to pink. And now I've lost the perspective in that foreshortened foreleg - a tricky area to get right under the best of circumstances. I also need more definition in the chest area, as all my values are migrating towards the middle. Need to fix that by going back and pumping up the darks again and then hitting the highlights again.

Here's where I decided to turn on the light in the studio. And, because I was losing my direction on where to go next, I started adding white to the breeches and the blaze. (Studio light is on the cool side, so the color is a little different in the next series of photos.)

Continued adding definition to the horse's face, mostly because I don't know what to do next. I have now lost all of the luminosity and jewel like tones I had in mind in the first place. At this point, I'm ready to give up, decide I can't paint and take up a career as a dental hygienist.

Started going back in with some turpentine and lifting areas of "too heavy" color. Then (here's the panic stage) I actually put the thing on the ground, poured some turp over everything and started blotting with another old sock.

Reworked the blues and added color to the rider's coat. Not sure what color it will ultimately end up being. My original plan was scarlet and then I changed my mind to black with scarlet undertones and now I have decided to make it blue. And suddenly, somehow, something starts to happen again.

Glazed over my freshly turpentined areas with cad red, which pumped the color up dramatically. I am pleased.

This is where I've stopped for the night. Total working time : 2.5 hours (some of which I spent jotting down notes here and taking pictures.) It's good enough for my purposes to photograph it properly and send it off tonight as a preliminary painting. Maybe another 2 hours and I might actually have a lovely new piece - assuming I can figure out what to do with it. And it needs a name. Any suggestions?

Photos, photos everywhere, and not a Belgian to be found...

2010-11-29T23:42:00.000-08:00

It's 1:00 in the morning, and I have been roused from my bed by a haunting vision of two Belgian mares standing in a meadow. Seriously. These two mares were the subject of a photo shoot back in the spring of 2010, and one of the bargains struck with the owner (before he allowed me to go slogging in knee high mud through his fields) was that I would send him a print of one of the paintings I would create featuring his two lovely horses. "Tempest" was actually inspired by this photo shoot - although it looks nothing like a calm, placid 15 year old Belgian mare contentedly nibbling at her hay. I hesitate to send him a print of one of his mares looking like a wild beastie from a Walter Farley novel.

(Here is the finished "Tempest", btw. Turn it on it's side and squint your eyes, and you can just see a quiet, elderly mare with a slight breeze ruffling her mane. Such is the magic of art.)

"Tempest" © Joanna Zeller Quentin 2010. All Right Reserved. www.MoosePantsStudio.com

But, alas, the end of the year is fast approaching, and my plan of delivering a small painting to this gentlemen is in peril... because I can't find the darn photographs. Here in my studio I have thousands of photos. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of shots - mostly horses (followed by birds and then big cats and then everything else), all sorted and catalogued by subject. Want a rodeo scene? Check. Want a picture of kids with their ponies? Got it. Want a Saddlebred just stepping into the sunlight with a glittering ribbon pinned to her bridle? Here you go! Jumpers and dressage and reining and lungeing, I've got them all. All reference shots, and all mine. But 23 pictures of two mares, a field, an old man who would have fit perfectly in the last century puttering around his farmyard, sweet shots of plowed earth, broken cornstalks and rich, heavy, black Illinois topsoil? I have no idea where they went. And now it will drive me crazy.

It does, however, give me an excuse to pull open my heavy filing cabinet drawers, grab a handful of pictures, and dream. Here's a painting, and here's a painting, and here's an etching, a drawing, a watercolor. In my hands I hold the promise of so much great art! Magical moments where the light and shadow have come together with the action and the sentiment and the pure equine form - and somewhere buried in all of that is exactly what I'm trying to say with my paintings and drawings. Look at this creature, this thing, this miracle, this wild, four legged spirit partnered with man to do amazing and athletic things. Look at him jump and race and run. Look at him cut cattle or execute a canter pirouette. Look at him safely cart children around the field or step into the show ring before thousands of spectators in a world class competitive setting. And look at the relationship forged between man and beast. We can guide a half ton animal around with a piece of leather. We can ask him to jump over 5' fences. We can watch him separate cattle from the herd or chase a ball around while his rider swings a large stick in the air. We can put him in a starting gate, throw the doors open, and expect him to fly down a dirt track, striving to vanquish every other horse on the field.

Painting after painting after painting. Photograph after photograph after photograph. Idea after idea after idea, until finally the idea becomes inspiration, and the inspiration translates to the art.

Inspiration, meet brick wall. Problem.

2010-08-22T17:26:00.000-07:00

Every artist goes through this. Heck, EVERYONE, artist or not, hits this point once in awhile - where nothing seems to work and the creativity batteries are exhausted. One of the benefits of a professional education in the visual arts is that, as a student, you learn to push through those blocks. Don't feel like drawing? Too bad. Your job is to show up, sit down and produce credible work. It may not be a masterpiece (or it might) but it will at least be passable. Plus, (insert artist here, as everyone seems to have "heard" this from a different source! I thought it was Picasso, but, alas, no verification) once famously said that every artist has 10,000 bad drawings in them. So, even if what you are creating is fit only for the bottom of the bird cage, at least you are slogging your way towards drawing #10,001.
I know this. I realize it. I embrace it and expect it and know that if I just grit my teeth and push through, I will eventually be rewarded by a return to some sort of spark of inspiration. But in the meantime, and it IS a MEAN time, I have half finished artworks watching me from all corners of my studio and precious little desire or desire to work on them.
The only consolation (small one, to be sure) is that I have spoken to a few friends (and fellow artists) recently who have all confided to having the same "lack of momentum" problem. One of them is a bestselling novelist who stated simply that the book in her head wasn't "ready to be disgorged on the page yet." She finished with one word, which I think sums it up nicely: "Problem."

Fellow artists, how do you keep your motivation on days (or weeks) when things just aren't happening?

Here is where Tempest stands at the moment. Notice the ink wash(es) and then the scratching out... ad infinitum.

and here is a new little portrait, just playing with color.

"Want to come up and see my etchings?"

2010-08-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

I've been taking a break from color lately and revisiting one of my favorite mediums. Scratchboard is the "red haired stepchild" to the venerable etching, one of the most popular reproduction mediums in the artistic world. Instead of requiring a metal plate, block of wood or (more recently) plexiglass and ready access to lots of dangerous chemicals, today's scratchboard consists of a clay ground affixed to board or heavy paper and coated with india ink. You scrape away at the india ink to expose the underlying clay, and - voila! - scratchboard's incredible detail. You can use anything to scrape away at the india ink- Xacto blades, specialized tools, steel wool, a dremel, an awl, a nail (I actually know a fellow student in college who did an entire board with a thumbtack), etc, etc - anything that will remove the ink without digging too deeply into the clay. I have been fascinated by this medium since high school, when my first attempt at a scratchboard of a girl and a row of 18th century buildings (it was very "Interview With the Vampire") won a major prize in a regional art competition. As the years have passed, it's a medium I have returned to often, usually with a sigh of relief and great enjoyment. My college thesis project was a full portfolio in scratchboard, and I will never forget the many comments made by gallery patrons (beware what you say in an art gallery - the artist may be standing right next to you!) as they all stepped forward to stare at the thousands of little hatchmarks that make up each image. I heard lots of things like "I would go crazy!" and "Who has the patience for that?" and "Who is insane enough to attempt 24 x 36 scratchboards?" I must confess I wondered the same thing as I worked on some of those damn pieces... scratch, scratch, scratching away frantically through the night.

To me, scratchboard is an exercise in zen. I can think of no other medium that is so meditative and soothing as you work, sitting with a shining black board picking away at details. Hair patterns, thread counts, textures, leaves, grass, fur, feathers - these things lend themselves superbly to scratchboard. I have found that by starting with a white clayboard and inking it myself, I have better control over how the ink will react to the blade, and I can get some effects that are harder to achieve on a commercially prepared board.

There are some truly legendary scratchboard artists out there who have pushed the medium beyond the traditional black and white by adding color or incorporating the technique into paintings, drawings and the like. Their innovation has inspired me to try new techniques, such as the one I am testing out for "Tempest". Instead of using blades to remove the surface ink, I am using small bits of sandpaper, steel wool and fiberglass to "draw" through to the clay surface. I've only spent about an hour or two on it, but so far I am very pleased with the effect.

"Tempest" WIP

And, from the box of "Works in Progress" in the studio, I unearthed a little scratchboard I started back in early 2000 as a demonstration piece. It seems that every equine artist has at least one "horse eye" painting or drawing in their portfolio, so here is my contribution. I'm keeping this one on the dining room table downstairs so I can work on it at night while watching tv. There's no big pressure to get this one done, and it's pure pleasure to curl up next to my dh and scratch, scratch, scratch away.

"Twhorled" WIP

"... a rose by any other name..."

2010-07-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

"Only the Lonely" done- 12 minutes before the"official" deadline. It has gone off into the wide netherworld of cyberspace in little electronic swirls and whispers, and will hopefully coalesce in the designated email inbox as a fully realized, fully articulated sweeping ode to a magnificent equine in shades of burnished grey, evocative of isolation, fragmented beauty, windswept barren plains, the essential duality of light and dark, day and night, good and evil. Or maybe it will just look like a picture of a horse.

My bestest best friend in the whole wide world complemented me on my names today. "You always have the most clever, intelligent names..." which is high praise, coming from her. And it is true, I spend a great deal of time thinking about what I'm going to call a picture. If I can't come up with the perfect name for it - before a single line has been drawn - it doesn't happen. There have been a few exceptions to this rule, and almost all of them are half finished train wrecks of ink and paint. They lack that last little bit, the "je ne sais quoi" if you will, and I have to think it's because of the name.

A name gives purpose, direction, attitude. My degree is in fine art, but my field of study for 4 years was Illustration, or "the visual representation of a thought, emotion, idea" etc. The naming of a piece, therefore, captures the mindset I want to be in while working on it, dreaming about it, scribbling it out. Hopefully, sometimes some of that makes its way into the actual art as well, but that might just be wishful thinking. And it's fun, too. "Office Romance" presents not only the real life love affair of husband and wife cattle ranchers, but also presents what for many of us would be an ideal working environment - on the back of a horse with your sweetheart, breathing in fresh air and sunshine, roaming across the open country. "Red" is not only done almost entirely in a red color palette, but also reflects the common barn name of many chestnut racehorses, including Man o' War and Secretariat. "Lope" shows a cantering, or "loping" horse, but was done as a fundraiser for LOPE (Lone Star Outreach to Place Ex Racehorses @ www.lopetx.org). And I must mention here that "Only the Lonely" was actually suggested as a name for another piece by my mother, but I immediately grafted it onto the then unformed drawing which was simply hanging out there waiting for the perfect name. So, thanks Mom!

And finally, here is the newest entry in the stable. Graphite, conte crayon (and eventually india ink) on clayboard. My reference photo is of two sweet, gentle Belgian mares nonchalantly lounging about in their field, but a slight breeze just barely lifted tendrils of mane up at the right moment when I took the shot, and I took the idea and ran with it. Here is the beginning of "Tempest". (And I apologize for possibly the worst photo of artwork ever taken!)

"Tempest" WIP

"Only the Lonely"

Kid in a candy store

2010-07-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

DH and I went to the art store yesterday. Well, technically, we went to Michaels (I "kneaded" a "knew" eraser) but we were still able to wander the approximately 3 aisles full of goodies with our eyes alight and arms full of totally unnecessary stuff. We have art supplies. Between the two of us, we could probably open a decently stocked little art shop ourselves. Airbrushes, inks, oils, acrylics, gouache, boards, canvas, pencils, pastels (a huge set of Rembrandt pastels, which was possibly the saddest thing in my art arsenal because they are so pretty - and were so expensive- and I can't do a decent pastel to save my life), brushes, tape, clamps... you get the idea. When you spend four years at a fine arts college and then move onto your new studio, you just don't throw stuff out. (This is probably why there just isn't enough room in our studio. EVER.)

So we didn't really need anything. I got my eraser, DH picked up a new set of pencils and some watercolor paper (I'm still awaiting my super expensive and hopefully totally awesome Hahnemuhle block to arrive from Germany any day now), we resisted the urge to buy the dog a beanie hat- if you knew our dog, you'd agree he could totally pull it off- and at the last minute, I ran back down the aisle and grabbed the coolest little set of calligraphy nibs. They were so shiny - and reasonably priced- and I just couldn't resist.

I love pen and ink. I love etchings. I LOVE scratchboard. It is entirely possible that in a previous life I was an engraver or a woodblock printer or did illuminated manuscripts or something like that. Possibly religious iconography... but that's another story. But pen and ink and scratchboard are for me labors of love. The repetitive scratch, scratch, scratch of tiny lines, over and over again, is soothing to me, zen-like and restful. The rasp of an ink pen being dragged across paper, the careful dipping into a bottle of ink, the rapid scribble and unpredictability of just how the ink will come out of the nib is challenging to me - and dare I say? - fun. There's not a huge market for scratchboards or pen and ink drawings, so I don't do these things as much as I would like to, or probably as much as I should. They are good things to do for art's sake- nothing more.

Anyway, so I managed to squeeze in an hour of trying out my new nibs tonight- something I've been looking forward to since Friday. Here's the result....

Nothing major, just playing around with sizes and pressure. Some of them worked better than others, and one of them didn't work at all, but I'm pretty sure it was user error. There were also some random ink splatters, but I'm going to chalk that up to a happy accident and not just an accident. (It's also been forever since I rattled out anything but some form of equine, so it was nice to "spread my wings" and dash off a heron. Made me think of FL and the Gulf Coast, and then made me sad.) But it made me remember how nice it is just to do something for myself. Not every piece of artwork has to be a masterpiece, and that's a trap I've fallen into lately.

Speaking of masterpiece (j/k... couldn't resist) "Only the Lonely" is sooooo close to being finished. After scrubbing out and redoing the nose and part of the face, I think I've finally got it where and how I want it now. So now it's just a matter of... what? "Finishing it"... whatever the heck that means. Tweaking it and teasing little bits of detail out, pumping up darks and drawing out highlights. Refining and refining and refining some more. I'm looking forward to seeing what it looks like when it is done, with almost inordinate delight. Here it is as it stands now...

I'll post the finished product. For now, washing out pen nibs and headed down with some graphite. Overall, a very satisfying Sunday evening.

Summer SALE! $50 - $100 OFF any commissioned portrait

2010-06-14T16:08:00.001-07:00

School's out for the summer. People are going on vacation. It's blisteringly hot out (at least here in Texas!). Holiday shopping is the LAST thing on your mind, right? WRONG!

Moose Pants Studio Summer SPECIAL! Until the end of June- $50.00 to $100.00 OFF(*) any commissioned portrait by Jo. Contract and 25% deposit must be received before midnight on June 30th. Start holiday shopping early! Great wedding or anniversary gift, graduation present or memorial. Equine, pets, people- all on sale(*)! www.MoosePantsStudio.com

Artists have down time too, believe it or not, and so I have decided to offer a first (annual?!) summer sale on any commissioned portrait ordered by the 30th of June 2010. Been wanting a portrait of a beloved childhood pet? Remember your child's first summer? Celebrate an anniversary, or a wedding, or a graduation? Capture a sporting event or show off a new family member?

Now is the time. Until midnight on June 30th, all commissioned portraits will be $50 - $100 off their normal price! This isn't a shortcut on quality, materials or anything else... it's just that now is the perfect time to do some art before the busy holiday season rolls around!

Interested? Please check out our website at www.MoosePantsStudio.com or drop me an email at MoosePantsStudio(at)gmail(dot)com. Contract and non refundable 25% deposit must be received on or before June 30, 2010.

The unglamorous side of art

2010-05-24T21:48:00.000-07:00

Besides all the painting and the drawing and the showing, there's the far more "unglamorous" side to the art business. There's the shipping. There's the ordering. There's the updating of the website. And there's the ever present, ever dreaded mailing list.
I did actually paint today. You know, for about an hour or so. Long enough to throw another layer of paint on the board, scrub it off, add another layer, scrub it off... you get the idea. At the end of that time, the painting had simultaneously advanced and started to pull apart, which I guess is how I paint. I stopped working on it with the idea/ excuse to let it "set up overnight", which pretty much just allowed me to walk away from it this afternoon. Tomorrow is a new day, right?
Last night I organized photos. Tonight we updated the website. Tomorrow, well, there's a mailing list to add to (shudder), more photos to organize (I'm trying out a new system as the whole "throw them in the filing cabinet" isn't working anymore, as we have no more room!), paintings (and a drawing) to finish, and I still have to figure out what to do about this big stack of canvases by my desk. The house needs to be swept, the bathrooms cleaned, the laundry done... I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
How do other artists, heck, even other people who don't create art, do it? I'd love to know.

Name Change! part deux, or "just add purple"

2010-05-20T09:53:00.000-07:00

I didn't exactly explain the name change yesterday. It's freshly engraved on my drawing desk, pinned to my bulletin board, and now the new name of my blogspot. We've all heard of exhibitions called "The Horse in Art". I have at least three books - lovely, full color coffee table books - celebrating our good friend the horse in art. It's a fairly self explanatory title, an exploration of how different artists have depicted the horse in art since those Lascaux pastelists got the jump on all the rest of us. But "the ART in HORSE"?

I am at a crossroads in my art. This is nothing new - it's been building for years. I know what I love. I know what moves me. Bold, exciting color, painterly lines, furioso brushwork, eloquent drawings and elegant etchings. Sargent, Rembrandt, Rousseau, Albers. All used their virtuosity to push the boundaries of their art. (And we won't even talk about Picasso.) I don't think I'm tired of the subject matter. Horses are my love, they are my passion. I know them, their musculature and lines and motion, and I enjoy showing the world what can be done with a "horse painting", especially in a way that hasn't been done before.

But lots of it HAS been done before. Lots of tightly rendered pencil drawings. Lots of finely detailed oil paintings. Lots of photorealism, and lots of stylization. Every brushstroke exact, every hair in place, every blade of grass gently waving - sporting art at it's finest.

Yes, there is a place for that type of art. Yes, it has a long and distinguished history in the art world. (Stubbs, I'm looking at you. No really, I am. Bought a book the other day.) Yes, some people are amazingly good at it. Yes, it is art. But it's not me.

(Confession: I WANTED it to be me. I drooled over Carl Brenders art when I was a kid. I tried and tried for years to render tightly detailed, extremely realistic paintings and drawings. I finally had to accept that it just isn't me, and no matter how hard I tried, I only ended up with a disorganized mess or a pounding headache. One day I just accepted that this is the way I paint, and I apparently I can't do anything about it. Life, and art, got much easier. And my art teachers went nuts.)

So.... art of the horse. I propose a change of direction. A shift in perspective. One where the painting ISN'T about the horse. It's about color and brushstrokes and line... and it just happens to have a horse in it. What I want to do is embark on a systematic exploration of color... on horseback. Primaries, secondaries, tertiaries. Complements and triads. Josef Albers on horseback. From now on, it's NOT just about the horse. It's about the art.

Josef Albers work: http://www.albersfoundation.org/Albers.php?inc=Galleries&i=J_5

NEW art! Day 2- I mixed up and added this juicy blue.

Coffee, conte crayon and charcoal. Just playing around with something loose and practicing mark making again. Needs to be finished... just a little bit!

NEW scratchboard. (And 24" x 36" because I am crazy.)

"Maestoso"

I totally forgot about this little gem until I pulled it out of a portfolio the other night. Now I can't stop looking at it... I think I have plans for this one.

"Horsepower" has been stuck like this for over a month. It was at that really awful part, you know? The part where I think I should have been a dental hygienist instead of an artist because I obviously can't paint.

After about an hour of reworking today. Feeling back on track... I think... and yes, I added purple!

Name Change!

2010-05-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have noticed that the name of this blog has changed. Hopefully, many more of you will come TO this blog as a result of the name change. But truly, there is a reason behind the new name, and I'm going to try and explain it.

Tonight I want to talk about horses. I talk a lot about art and music and such, but almost never do I really sit down and talk about the animal itself. Which, considering that Equus Caballas makes up such a big part of my life, is pretty strange.

I've been riding them for years. Drawing and writing about them for longer, reading and dreaming about them for longer still. To this day, I have no idea why. There are no horsey people in my family. My aunt loved horses as a little girl, but to my knowledge she never interacted with them outside of books and drawing pads. In fact, I don't know if either of my parents have ever even sat on a horse! And yet...

Books- Golden Sovereign, the book whose title I can't remember about the British Horse Society students (if anyone happens to know, I'd love to get a copy of it! Character's name was Diana (?), she was American and her horse's name was Cornish Pastry), The Black Stallion, Black Beauty- and movies - The Black Stallion Returns (one of my favorites to this day), The Last Unicorn (another favorite). Breyer horses, My Little Ponies - all of it from an early age. And then I started out writing my own stories and illustrating my own covers. "Fair Lady - A Show Jumper" is one I remember. Always English, always with polo wraps on - even though I never even sat in an English saddle until 3rd or 4th grade for one half hour lesson.

I do have one early memory of my parents taking me to a horse show. It must have been some hunter/ jumper thing, and I must have been sitting near the in gate to the ring, because I clearly remember being fascinated and awed by these huge hooves that kept flying past me. To my young mind, their feet were enormous, and the idea that those huge animals could fly with such grace was entrancing.

Today, much of my life revolves around horses. I am passionate about the sport and the animal, and thankfully happen to be fairly good at drawing and painting it. I've been riding on and off for the past 20 years, and individual horses act as pillars and monuments on my walk down memory lane. Beau, Dudley, Kissy, Sandman, Target, Sonny, Brother E, Love, Magic, Hal, Fouret, Zee, Maggie, Danny. And now, Hottie and Frankie. All are special. All have taught me things about riding and about life in general. Some have brought sorrow (Empire, Go For Wand), some have taught me kindness (Beau, Dudley, Hottie). Some have taught me beauty and grace (Zee, Frankie). I've always known what I've loved- big, massive horses with feet like dinner plates and legs like telephone poles. Huge springy gaits and a trot that vaults you out of the saddle. Quickness and a fiery temperament. And the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

And always, always there have been thoroughbreds. Sure, I can drool over a Hanovarian or a warmblood with the best of them, but in my amateur and professional career I've photographed thousands of horses (and observed thousands more) and for me, the Thoroughbred is it. Add the rescue bit into the equation, along with their innate grace, beauty and athleticism, and I'm an OTTB (off the track Thoroughbred) fan for life.

My two guys right now are a study in opposites. One is a loveable, kind and moderately athletic Appaloosa (an Appy, for God's sake- the people back at the barn where I learned to ride would shoot me on the spot) and the other is a giant, leggy freakazoid of a Thoroughbred. They have different temperaments, different rides under saddle, different preferences and issues and dislikes, just like people. But they both greet me the same way, with that deep rumble "heh heh heh" that means I'm their special person. And the realization strikes me anew, that only a strip of leather is between me and this enormously powerful, sensitive, emotional and emotive animal, and that they accept that, respect it and me, and are willing to go along with me, based not on fear or overpowering (yeah right) but by respect and (dare I say it?) even love.

And that is why I paint and draw what I do. And that's why I hang out at the warmup rings and the barns at shows. Because what gets me, what fascinates me and humbles me and enthralls me and gladdens me and sustains me and drives me is that partnership. The great unspoken connection that impels a horse to willingly turn in 10 meter circles, trot in place, run like the wind, gallop headlong into water, and jump a 5' fence.

That's the beauty of horses.

Me- second grade (?) My father's friend owned a couple of Tennessee Walkers. I was allowed to wander around on "Yankee Doodle Dandy" for almost an hour- the very first time I had ever been on a horse outside of a petting zoo.

The first horse. Beau was an ancient Cleveland Bay and a wonderful school horse. Through the barn's JI (Junior Instructor) program, I was able to treat Beau as "my" horse and learned how to do everything from wrap polos to treat colic. I cried for weeks when I left. When I came home several years later on a visit from college, I stopped by what used to be my old barn. It was under new management, but Beau was still in his stall, as unflappable and solid as ever. The new owners promised that they would care for him for the rest of his life.

Sandman- a Saddlebred who could jump the moon.

My friend's horse Sonny.

6th grade at Outdoor Ed. I have no idea who the horse was, or who he belonged to, but I was the only one who would go up and touch him. Sweet Belgian.

Break's over, baby

2010-05-07T00:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay. I admit it. I've been enjoying my two weeks off. Amid economic uncertainty and under much personal angst, I took my leave from my employer of four years. The time was right, ripe... perhaps overripe, with a distinct air of moldy about it. Meh. Had a couple of interviews, put out a resume or two, and kind of lazed around the house for the past two weeks.

Good news on a few fronts. I have kept my record of being offered every job I've applied for (two at the moment) AND it's given me a chance to get back into the studio and actually do some art. Big shows are coming up- AAEA in particular- and that is hot on the heels of Muse I being accepted to the HITS Art on the Hudson extravaganza up in New York. It's a big deal. The painting will be gallery hopping for a few months and then will be sold (hopefully) the same weekend as the new million dollar Grand Prix. Lots of exposure, lots of horse people, and hopefully lots of fun... if I get to go, and I hope to.

Back to the art. People who know me know that my studio is full of half finished pieces, and my head is full of even more that haven't made it on to paper or canvas yet. I work on something, put it away, bring it back out, work on it some more, and then decide if it's worth continuing or if it literally and figuratively belongs on the scrap pile. Some paintings don't work out. They just don't. And some of them come together brilliantly after a few months or even years. And don't ask me how or why- I have no idea. One day I dig the thing out, look at it and think, "Ah! It wants.... purple! right there." And, voila! done painting.

One of the nice things about commissions is that they usually have a set deadline- they HAVE to get done by X day or I don't get paid and lose a customer. Same thing with shows. I tend to work to a show deadline, sometimes with several pieces at once, all vying for a spot on the entry form. Rarely these days do I do a piece just for fun. But that's what I've been doing lately. No real pressure, no master plans, just ideas I've been kicking around in my head and want to get on paper. I'm trying to simplify- my art, my life, my everything. AE London (an artist who I admire greatly) talks about, "... the magic of deliberate mark making... the line itself can speak volumes." And she's right. Line, shape, form. The hardest thing in the world is to do a piece of art simply. The urge to overwork is overpowering. I have been accused of being "seduced by media" in the past, and so I've been very careful what I've been putting on the paper lately. Yesterday it was conte crayon. The day before, conte, charcoal and coffee. The day before that? Colored pencil. These may not be show pieces, and they may never be shown publicly or put in a portfolio or turned into prints. But they have been fun, and I've enjoyed the process of creating art, maybe more than I have in years.

Conte crayon on paper "Unbridled"

©Joanna Zeller Quentin 2010

www.MoosePantsStudio.com

and some new HoofPRINTS notecards to join the stable. (These are up on etsy.com)

"A Light Touch" pen and ink

"Headstrong" pen and ink

"Lucky Numbers" pen and ink

"Precision" pen and ink

"Scope" pen and ink

Back from Ocala with photos and inspiration...

2010-02-25T00:09:00.000-08:00

Okay, okay, so it's almost the end of February, and this may be my first blog of the new year. Lots of stuff has been happening though, so I attribute it to being super crazy busy with art- and in a good way!
This year I was honored to be asked back to the HITS Ocala Equine Art Gala. This is the show's third year, and the third year I've been able to attend. (Technically, year one was a no-show for me- what with being sick and all- but the art made it, even if I couldn't!) The talent- both from the artists and the riders and owners attending- is A+ top of the line, so I am always delighted to be invited.

One of the (many) great things about this show is the concentration of fantabulous horse/art/animal loving people all gathered together in one very fancy room. (And the food isn't too bad either...!) Usually when selling art to horse show people I'm in jeans and they are in breeches and boots. On Thursday night, we were all in formalwear. My crazy marketing BFF and I staked out what has become "our" spot, strategically located between the bathrooms and the bar, and set up a few easels, print racks, portfolio and cards. As the night went on, I kept a careful tally of how many people stopped by to look, talk, flip through prints, etc. You can always learn so much by studying people as they study art. And, without a doubt, two paintings were absolute winners.

The next morning I dragged my friend out to the showgrounds and spent most of the day photographing jumpers and hunters. The rest of the weekend was spent photographing old houses, spanish moss draped grandfather oaks, wildlife and Ocala's prime export- Thoroughbreds. One thing I've always been missing in my portfolio has been landscapes- horses just out being horses, grazing, sleeping in the sun, etc. With the deplorable lack of turnout here in Dallas and my increasing feelings of pity for my guys trapped in the barn, I was extra sensitive to Ocala's acres and acres of lush pasture, picturesque four board fencing and stately show barns. Here are a few of the pics I took for inspiration...

© Joanna Zeller Quentin 2010. All Rights Reserved. www.MoosePantsStudio.com

So, with visions of sun drenched paints and silhouettes of oak trees dancing in my head, I headed back to Dallas for a day of reckoning with the art in my studio. There's old work to be finished, even older work to be redone, and new work yet to be started. But I have recharged my batteries with inspiration, and that seems to be the greatest gift from my "artcation". (That, and the food...)

And because I can't resist sharing, here's a few of the pics from the jumper ring. New paintings to follow shortly!

Work in progress- "Horsepower" or "Power" or something else altogether

2009-09-12T20:02:00.000-07:00

Recently I met with a prospective portraiture client who wanted me to capture her two beloved horses. In talking with her, it became apparent that she had looked at my portfolio pretty closely and was concerned about my use of exhuberant color against her neutral walls. One of the nice and refreshing things about doing commission work is the chance to tailor the style of the painting to the client's liking. Some people like crazy abstract bright color and others prefer softer more naturalistic tones. Feeling pretty confident I could give her what she wanted, we started discussing poses, and I moved on to studying her horses.

But the idea- and her concern- stayed with me. What is the fine line between "too much color" and "looking like a photograph"? Where is the balance between muddy brown and vibrant sienna?

Now, I know full well I will never be able to do a portrait with just a palette of browns- nor do I recommend anyone try to do so. Oil paintings glow- and one of the reasons for that is the buildup of color. Some artists (and even myself, occasionally) build up paintings over several weeks or months, layering each color carefully on top of the other (scumbling is the art term) and can speak of color mixtures as science... or alchemy. Other artists (and I confess to being one of these too) can complete a painting in 2 hours using nothing but globs of paint straight from the tube with no glazing or drying time- just carving the image out of paint. (art term: impasto). And some artists (usually these are the ones hanging in museums) can do both- layers of color painstakingly built up ... and then straight from the tube acents on top of everything else (ie Rembrandt- the most amazing painter in the whole wide world- imo...)

As I mentioned in my other blog entries, I started working on a piece for a promotional postcard on Friday night. Tonight I hit the first of what is usually 3 or 4 roadblocks- the paint is finally on the canvas, it's got this great buttery consistance, I'm jamming along, and suddenly... WHAM. I just messed the whole thing up. Disaster, calamity. Should never have been an artist, should have been a dental hygenist, this is awful, what am I going to do???? Overcoming my first desire to pour turpentine over the whole thing and begin again- or at least get back to Friday night's beginning layers, I gritted my teeth and soldiered on. And, a mere two hours later (my husband gave up and went to bed some time ago) I've managed to pull it back from the brink. It's not right, it's not perfect... but it's a place that the painting and I can live with- at least for tonight.

And here, as promised, are the stages of the painting thus far. I'm trying to keep the color restrained yet vibrant... and I have no idea what to do with the background yet. Any suggestions?

(some glare on this one... darn retouch varnish!)

postcard options...all out, I think. Maybe. Maybe?

2009-09-07T01:38:00.000-07:00

Choosing a marketing image is really tough- I want something that will appeal to all equestrians and horse lovers- not just dressage people or jumper people or western pleasure people- AND it has to look good, AND the printer has to get the color right, AND I have to want to look at 1000 of them at a time. If I can't get the new painting done (see tonight's earlier blog entry- I'm on a roll!) I may choose one of these four options. (I know there are only 2 on here, but I can't get the other two to load properly- the colors are all crazy when I move the jpegs to the blog. Anyone know why that is???)

Any and all opinions are greatly appreciated! Would you like to look at either of these on your wall?

Blue- gouache on paper

I really like this little gouache. If I can't get my new painting done this week, this may become my new postcard.

LOPE- graphite on paper

This is the piece that was selected for the AAEA Fall Open Exhibition in September. It also sold more giclees in the past three months than the other prints. Not my first choice for a postcard... but people seem to like it?!?!?!

Also in the running- but not able to get up in the blog for some reason-

Hindsight (altho the colors are tricky to reproduce- I do all of our giclee printing in house and I'm not even happy with it, so I cringe to think of what could come back from MP)

Technicolor (I like this painting, but it doesn't fit on a postcard without some weird cropping, which could look really edgy and cool- or just incredibly stupid.)

If you want to see what these paintings look like, they can be viewed on the website- www.MoosePantsStudio.com

(See what I mean about the colors getting all funky? This is NOT what it looks like...)

I'm painting! I'm painting!

2009-09-07T00:39:00.001-07:00

Well, my self imposed three month hiatus has officially come to an end... with the flourish of a paintbrush. Despite (or perhaps IN spite of) staying out of the studio for the past few months, I've managed to land three new portraiture clients, sell some giclees, get accepted to a few shows (including the AAEA Fall Open Exhibition- first acceptance- YEAH!!!) and distribute the remainder of my latest set of postcards- a fact I discovered when I finished compiling my latest mailing list, hit the print button and then happily trotted off to the box where the postcards live... only to discover there were only a handul left. So... in desperation I went through my portfolio looking for a new postcard piece, but nothing really jumped out at me... can you guess where this is going????

A few months ago (three, to be exact) I drew out a really cool charcoal of a horse- head on- with the most amazing lighting. It was from a photo I'd taken at the HITS show in Ocala of this amazing, drool-worthy jumper who was doing (get this) half passes and canter pirouettes in the warmup ring before his round. (I know, jumps 5' easy AND does upper level dressage????? Good for his owner!) Anyway, I was going for more of an edgy look, heavy lines, deep shadows on rough textured gessoed Masonite, and I had some sort of vague notion that I wanted the charcoal to show through the oil. Maybe. But I drew it out and was so pleased with it that I sprayed the thing down with fixative... and then became completely scared to touch it. It was so cool, so nice, so... ALIVE... that I was immediately screwed.

(Side note- Marshall Arisman came to RSAD to do a few master classes while I was a student. We sat with him in a figure class and watched as he deftly carved out an amazing figure drawing with just a few strokes of charcoal in about 15 seconds. He stopped and stared at the drawing for a moment, and with one sweeping movement ripped it off the newsprint pad and cast it aside. The moan that went up from the surrounding class was audible -I know I groaned, as did everyone else around me- at the sight of this gorgeous drawing being thrown down on the floor. He turned around to all of us goggling students and said, "That was a really nice drawing, huh? I really liked the nose." He paused and added, "Do you know why I threw it away?" We all shook our heads, aware that we would give anything to be able to draw so confidently and vibrantly as that. He went on, "Once I realized I really liked the nose, it was completely ruined for anything else. I'd be so afraid of ruining it, destroying that perfect nose, that nothing else I did would even come close.. and I WOULD ruin it." That happened maybe 8 years ago, and I have not forgotten the lesson. For the record, he then went on to produce another three or four fantastic gesture drawings. Sigh.)

So, with Arisman's dire warning ringing in my ears (I really like this, I really like this- CRAP, I'm going to screw it up!!!) I set it up next to my easel and stared at it for a few days. Days stretched into weeks, and finally I tucked it aside so I wouldn't feel guilty every time I stepped in the studio. And there it sat... until Friday evening, when I pulled it out, threw a bunch of paint on it and got to work.

And... here it is on Sunday night. Paint is on, background roughed in, even a few patches of "Hey, that's really kind of nice" are peeking through. If- and this is a big IF- because I haven't hit the dreaded 90% done/throw everything away and become a dental hygenist phase- I can get it done this week it will be my new postcard. After all, I'm going to Kentucky at the end of this month (show opening, third wedding anniversary AND my first trip to the Bluegrass State- I'm so excited!) and I don't think my 20 or so postcards will last for the whole trip. At least, I hope not!

I can't get my digital camera (HP and ancient) to talk to my new Mac (shiny and pretty) so I can't post a picture yet. But I will figure it out, and since I've been taking pictures of this thing step by step as it progresses (just for fun... also so that if I do totally screw it up I still have a really nice charcoal drawing there) I'll post them when I can. (And when I figure out how to post pictures to this blog site!

Thanks for reading!

Blogging- part one

2009-06-10T12:23:00.001-07:00

So, I haven't written much on here, I know. Part of that is quite simple- this is a blog devoted to artwork (mostly my artwork) and the day to day struggles of being a painter and creating art- and I've been on a self imposed hiatus for the past few weeks. The main reason most of us get into art in the first place is because it is something we enjoy, and I just wasn't enjoying myself. Between mailing out prints to customers (thank you!), organizing upcoming show deadlines and entries, and creating an excel spreadsheet with all inventory, prints, originals, sales, prices, etc- I was just wiped out. I finished a painting, worked my a$$ off to get it done, and then decided, out of respect for my already precarious sanity, that I needed to take a break.

Well, I've been thinking about art. Haven't actually DONE any- yet- but I've been thinking about it. My husband is also a professional artist (animator) and he stays very busy, so there's always art making going on in our house anyway- it's impossible to get away from. But over the past week I've been getting little flashes of inspiration, moments where I think of a work in progress or one that I've wanted to start and go "aha!". Then I remind myself that I am on a BREAK... and it goes away, kind of. A lot of it has been sitting in my head- the way I would depict a photo I took the other day- how it would look in graphite- how I would do it, etc.

So, all in all, I take that as a good thing. Art making is hard- no doubt about it. Making a living with it is even harder. And there is always the debate over commercialism vs art for art's sake- something a potential customer may want vs what you are trying to say from the deepest pit of your heart and soul. Problem is, not a whole lot of people want your pain and anguish hanging above their couch. I paint what I love- what interests me, what I know, what strikes me as important to convey- and I've been pretty lucky in that I have an audience. Niche market, maybe, but a good one.

But I'm not quite ready to pick up the brush just yet. The fact that my mindset is changing though- from last month's exhaustion borne"I never want to create a piece of art again" to "hmmm- that might be a really cool painting" gives me hope. Heck, maybe in another two weeks I'll even pick up a pencil again. Maybe.

Progress for the sake of progress?

2009-05-27T01:17:00.001-07:00

Well, this is it. My very first blog entry. I have officially joined the Blogosphere. Take a deep breath and...

...

We'll talk later, ok?