Just a small drawing for the cover for the Easter weekend. I will not attend, I will be in Dallas!
Just back from the lovely Sidesaddle weekend, I have enrolled for the ”Ascention-Weekend”. Not that we plan to ascend to heaven, although that is always a possibillity when dashing through the forests at ”Ludicrous-Speed” with the Tarq…
No, Ascention day means an extra long weekend in the Netherlands, with extra holidays so this is the very best ponycamp of the year, as it starts on wednesday!
So I made this cartoon for the booklet.
It says ”Ascention Weekend” ”Yes! We are going!” And the Tarq says: ”But I am still not going into the trailer”…
Oil on canvas
9” x 9”
Pom
So I haven’t been home a lot lately… I have been two weekends in Amsterdam staying with a friend, and visiting another friend, M.
M has a totally cute and mega-intelligent and talented daughter. She is 6 years old and makes beautiful photographs. She let me upload some on my computer and I willl be using some of them for paintings. So this is the cat Pom. She is really very cute, but there was this funny photo…. Which just begged to be converted in a funny portrait 
I went all bold and graphic, instead of my usual attention to detail. I am really enjoying myself experimenting with these small paintings!
Oil on Canvas
9” x6”
Happy flower
I’m just very happy, so I painted a happy flower. Last weekend I had such a great time with my horse and my friends. And That was possible because I worked the weekend before and all week demolishing, and rebuilding my trailer! (Hence no diary paintings: for one I was working day and night, secondly I was at a friend’s without no painting stuff, and my hands really hurt as well)
So, very happy!!!! 
9” x9”
Oil on canvas
Waiting at Dawn
This painting is dedicated to my dear friend Carol, who is battling cancer and has to deal with the loss of her husband. I am so worried about her.
9” x 9”
Oil on canvas
February 6 2010
Intlxpatr wondered what our shadows looked like?
According to the Q mine looks like this
9”x 9”
oil on canvas
Leonard
Leonard is the darling of M. He’s a New forest pony, and she used to ride him when she was a kid. After a few years he was sold. And somehow she always longed for him. A few months they found out he was with a girl who was putting him up for sale and her parents brought him back. He is now happily stabled at the farm where the Tarq lives.
This is painted a s a little present for M.
Because she is so nuts about Leonard!
Februari 2
9” x 9”
Oil on canvas
The Qatteri Cat as the Demon Cat from the ninth circle of hell.
This painting was inspired by this witty post about the Qatteri Cat.
I immediately got a vision in my head when I read the post and saw the picture of the Qatteri Cat she put up. The Qatteri Cat is cool and very sweet. Just to make that clear.
It’s so nice to have visions and be able to paint them right away.
Januari 30
9” x 18”
Oil on canvas
The Niqabi Scream
This little equine portrait is a cute little filly which is being trained by my friend S. She came as a very scared little thing, grown up in the wild. She is the offspring of a mare from a free-roaming group of Exmoor ponies, and a naughty spanish stallion who escaped his comfortable lodgings to have a night of hanky-panky with the wild ladies. Who consequently gave birth to a pack of cruzados, all unwanted because the aim was to keep the Exmoors as a pure herd.
So little Kyra arrived as a shivering bundle of nerves, and my friend S has been working with, and caring for the little lady for about six months now. By now Kyra has about doubled in size, her somewhat crooked legs have become straight, and she has become a very sweet friendly little horse, enjoying working with S. and looking forward to every session, and looking at the world with open curiosity.
I was completely taken with her.
My friend S also likes photography and she had one photo which struck me in it’s monumental simplicity. She send it to me. I usually don’t work from photo’s other than using them for details, information. The danger with really working from a photo is that you get a very static painting. You can usually see at first glance when an artist has copied a photo. There is something languid and boring and static about such paintings.
Yet when one has to make a portrait of a horse on another continent, or one which has died, one has no choice. If I have to use photo’s and can’t meet the horse in person, I prefer to get a lot of photos. That way I can have a more complete image in my mind of the horse and it’s personality.
I think the major problem is that if you have such a clear, static, two-dimensional image in front of you, you tend to concentrate far too much on that easy image.
I have noticed paintings which follow a photo so slavishly that silly things are copied too, like a hoof dangling at a weird angle. Now the human mind works thus: if it is a Photo, your brain doesn’t really register a detail which is artistically a bad detail. But as soon as that image is transferred to a drawing or painting it becomes immediately apparent. So you should weed out those things which will look wrong in a piece of art. You should also avoid looking too much at the photo, but instead concentrate more on your painting.
So as I looked at that photo I kept seeing more details, more interesting combinations between blacks, greys and browns. I thought it would be an interesting study, use the one photo, try not to get bogged down with details, and explore those subtle colours.
Now of course I also know Kyra very well, but I really wanted this to be an excercise in using only one photo, and keep it fresh.
So what do you think?
This is also Diary painting 9/10 December. And to show you a bit of my painting process I show you the portrait half-finished too.
The photo of Kyra
Kyra half finished
Kyra
9/10 december 2010
9” × 9” oil on canvas
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