Today's Equine Art - Morgan

Xena, a seven year old Morgan mare, died this year from colic. Her owner commissioned this portrait as a memorial to her. This is oil pencil/conte, about 11 x 15".

Movie Trick Horses!

Last week I hung out with Rex Peterson while he worked with the horses on the Secretariat film. Here he is with T, the horse who starred in "Dreamer" with Dakota Fanning. T currently has an abcess on his withers and may not be used in the film, but Rex still keeps him exercising.

Here's a YouTube video of Rex working with T.

Today's Equine Art - Buckskin

I'd been hanging out with Rex Peterson near Nashville, while he trains a whole string of Secretariats for the upcoming Disney movie. The head wrangler, Rusty Hendrickson is a big gruff mountain man from Montana, and a veteran of many films including Seabiscuit. He showed up with this cute buckskin named Top, to play Secretariat's lead pony. Top was learning how to bow.

Rusty now has this painting, which is 11 x 15", oil pencil and conte.

Today's Equine Art - Olympus Way To Go

Murphy is a sport Morgan stallion owned by Kathleen Reiman. This portrait in oil pencil is 12 x 15". I hope it does some justice to his memory.

Cliffy's a Star!

Kris Tabor, aka @belladaze on Twitter, has mentioned Cliffy in her blog ! Clifford's painting made it to the front page of Wordpress. Pretty darn neat!

Hair

A regular social event for Mom and Dad and Amanda is a trip to the hair salon. The salon owner’s dog, Abbey, has known Dad since a puppy and now the minute he walks in the door she starts hitting on him. She wants him to play ball with her. Abbey is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever with a voracious play drive. Dad takes the ball and takes her outside and throws it for her. He also takes Peggy Sue, the Jack Russell, out for a potty break and sweeps up the floor!

Trudy the Imp!

Last night we rode out to Reva’s Lake. It was Airatude’s turn to run loose and as she trotted along with us, I remembered a trick she had pulled on Dad just a couple of days prior.

The horses love Dad. He lets them out of the corral to roam at will together, and they are good about staying around. That morning, however, Trudy took off down the road. Dad yelled and hollered. “Trudy! You get back here!” He walked down the road after her and picked up a branch, shaking it. Trudy came back and did three full circles around the camp in a mad gallop.

“You settle down now!” he scolded.

She ran down the road again and disappeared.

Dad began to mutter under his breath as he set off after her. From my vantage point out the camper window, I could see Trudy, standing among the cedars right in front of his pickup truck. Because she is so dark, she was nearly invisible. She didn’t move. She was watching him with her ears up and it was perfectly clear that she was hiding on him. His eyes are still keen though, and with a hard look that way he spotted her. He started laughing. “Why you little devil!”

She was busted. She came out, head down, resigned, and walked up to him.

I often wonder how animals seem to understand camouflage so well.

Back on Drummond

I walked Ripple down to my shore lot yesterday. It was the first time I’ve been down there since the fourth of July. I walk and walk two miles to get there and then there is always a certain white rock that I sit on, which is right by the water. It has a smooth top and even a little shelf where I can rest my camera. I can put my feet in the water if I want to. The rock, of course, has been there since the beginning of time. It’s about the size of a large footstool.

Anyway, yesterday, I came down, and….. NO ROCK!!!!

I thought I might be losing my mind at first. I looked around just in case I had come to the wrong spot. But after 16 years of walking down here and sitting on this thing, well. …. I know where it was.

I think Vickie and I sat on it. I will have to check my Facebook page.

Anyway it had to be quite an effort to get it out of there. Of course, I am livid! Whoever took it came onto private property, and this is theft.

Drummond is loaded with rocks. But there is nothing close to this one that would really serve as a replacement.

Rode Trudy to the beach yesterday too. I will try to post photos to my blog later. That was another disturbing thing – I haven’t been there in four years, since before Scorch died. They have dredged it out or something, and all that wonderful hard, clean sand has been replaced by muck and swamp grass.

People are idiots!!!! I could scream.

The horses, however, had fun anyway.

Heart Dog Art

With dogs on the brain, I compiled a video of some of my favorite dog paintings. Some of these dogs are old friends of mine; others are from commissions. Some of the dogs in the video are still alive and happy.

I'm running a special on dog portraits; 50% off through August. Feel free to email me for a price quote.

Thanks to all for taking time to look at my work.