Well, it finally happened. I have been entering my local equine art show on and off for about 30 years, starting with my equine stained glass panels way back when and had great success with them and in fact have quite a few still hanging at the new race track where the show is held. Those panels were originally done for the old track and purchased as part of their permanent art collection which was very extensive. I never won an award though even though I eventually built eight plus panels for the track. The show is sponsored by the Washington Thoroughbred Foundation in conjunction with Washington Thoroughbred Breeders Assoc and Emerald Downs.
OK, long story short....I didn't show for quite a few years as I had quit doing stained glass and have only entered again the past three years or so with watercolor.
I have never won an award there, it is a very prestigious show and last night was the awards party. I am so happy to say that I received the Vivian McMurry Memorial award for Watercolor, Honorable Mention. The entire show was about 250 paintings with watercolor being probably 1/4 of the total.
Anyway, just wanted to tell everyone about it as it is pretty exciting to me. There are many professional artists that show in this venue and one of the judges came all the way from Great Britain!

I have been working on this wolf for about a week on and off and had some problems with the foot. As a result of that, I ended up putting some grass and weeds in front of it and think it is a better painting this way. The foot was kind of distracting.
This was painted on Fabriano Artistico 140#. The size is 11 X 14.

Finished up on this guy a couple of days ago. This is a resin sculpted by Sommer Prosser. I purchased him unpainted and have painted him in a yummy dappled light bay. This is a gorgeous resin and measures 10 3/4 inches from the tips of his ears to the table. He is for sale.

I did this little guy a few days ago. This is a kangaroo rat. Isn't he cute?
I decided to try something a little different for this one and used ink over the drawing first. Then I applied the watecolor. The background is just something that popped out of my mind. This painting will be on Ebay starting Friday July 6th.

Rottie watercolor

I decided since I had to get this painting done and posted to Ebay right away that I would attempt to paint it outside while I had the kennel doggies out to play in the yard.
It was a nice sunny morning that later turned into pouring rain, typical of Pacific NW weather in June so I was glad I got out early.
I am really working on changing my painting style a bit and am concentrating on painting shapes more than detail.
I think this one shows that and for once I am happy with how it turned out.
Maybe it was painting outside on a gorgeous morning that did it. I will have to do that again!

New Cooper resincast

This one is a resincast by Resins by Randy sculpted by Sue Sifton. I painted him my usual way of painting a pinto which is to airbrush the coat color on first then add the white pinto markings. It takes forever to get the markings on because you have to do them with very watery color or the white paint doesn't go on smooth. There are probably at least four hours into this one just on the white markings.
He was painted for Deb Buckler, Resins by Randy.

New Buster resincast

I have been working on sculptures this week although this one was completed about a month ago. This is the Buster resincast from Resins by Randy sculpted by Yvonne Davey. I painted this one with a new technique with my airbrush. Normally I do all the pinto markings by hand but with this one I did a lot of the roaning with the airbrush and only a small amount by hand. He was fun and is now sold.