Hoke Process

So Far Monday

I am a little behind posting to the blog because I'm getting ready for the Downtown Edmond Arts Festival. Here's a tiny piece for the fest.

Thought it was finished here, ^ 

But after taking a picture, and looking at it for a minute, I thought it needed a tiny bit more work:

Not Saturday Yet

This one is 2'x3'. I forgot how much I love painting on a larger canvas. 

So Far Saturday

What a difference whiskers make. I almost liked it better before I added them...

Harley Portrait Process

So Far Saturday

So Far Saturday--Finished Trail Horse

A few Saturdays ago I posted the beginning of this painting. Well I've finished it:

 I would like to point out that  most of it was painted with one or two cats in my lap. (When they were cold) And some was painted with a cat on my shoulders (when they were hungry) And a little bit of it was painted with a cat actually standing on my right arm, kneading my forearm while I tried to keep a steady hand. (He was just being a pest!) I think my cats have figured out that I don't stop painting for anything. 

OK, I did stop briefly to and get a picture of the cat standing on my arm while I try and paint.

So Far Saturday

New thing, I'm going to try and post a progress-on-a-painting-so-far picture on Saturdays. I might not make it every Saturday since I don't post progress pictures of portraits until they're finished (or till they go to the person they're for when they're a gift.) But I try and always have other paintings in the works that aren't commissioned portraits...and maybe this will be motivation to make sure I keep that up. Or maybe I'll forget about it by next week. We'll see.

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers

I've posted pictures before of some of the square paintings I did in college, but I didn't have any good pictures of this one. This one lives at my sister's house in Ohio, and I took a couple pictures of it hanging in their living room while I was there over Christmas. (I hope she doesn't mind pictures of her living room being posted on the internet.) The canvas is 4 foot by 6 foot, which works well with their high-ceilinged living room. I wish I could do more paintings this large, but currently I don't have a good place to paint something this big.

Portrait of Honey

Red Panda 8x10

Still in Progress

Some Things in Progress

This horse one isn't quite finished yet. 

Update on Various Things

I haven't posted anything new in a while because I've been rather busy. So here's a brief summery of what I've been up to. So brief I won't even include how I was sick with the worst cold ever for a while, and went bowling for the first time in forever the Tuesday before last (and enjoyed it even though I'm horrible at bowling) Or worked on cleaning up my flowerbed this weekend, or any of that.

Painting: 

I've got a custom portrait or two in the works. They're gifts for people so I can't show pictures for a while. So there will be more on that in several months.

I finally finished this painting for another pillow pet and have started working on a few more:

I've been painting some wine and grape themed paintings as well as trying to add to my other animal paintings. (Basically I'm trying to just paint every free second I get):

 

I sold all of my horse paintings, the proceeds of which paid for Stormy's 60 days of training. Very appropriate I thought.

Pets:

Roman is getting bigger:

Stormy is getting smaller:

I've been riding Stormy a lot. This particular photo was taken at the end of the longest ride I have ever been on. About 4 and a half hours if you count time just standing around visiting. Which I do since I was still in the saddle during that time. My knees and ankles count it...

I've decided I want to get Stormy freeze branded. When there have been wildfires, I know some people have been forced to just open gates/cut fences and let their horses loose for lack of time and/or a trailer. Horses also just get loose occasionally. People steal horses. And since Stormy's physical description would be "bay" (she has no white on her at all) I'd like to add something more identifiable. She does have some scars on her face but that isn't good enough. I want something I can register.
Here's the sketches I've been working on:

Giveaway!

Pin this image for a chance to win. I will give away FREE signed prints to the first 7 people who Pin this image AND post the link in a comment. 


To receive your print, send me your address in an email to morianart@gmail.com. If your email name isn't the same as your name in your comment, make sure and let me know which comment is yours :)



To "Pin" the image you have to have a Pinterest account. Then you can either use your "Pin it" button if you have on installed, or you can go to your Pinterest page and:
click "Add +"
click "Add a Pin"
copy and paste the URL to this post into the empty box-
click "Find images"
and after you write a description, just click "Pin it"

Otis

Stray Livestock. And Squares.

Last weekend I was on my way home from Luther, and saw a calf in the road. He looked colorful...I think he was a longhorn calf. Anyway, I tried to kind of heard him down a gravel road--so he at least wouldn't be on the main road, but a truck zoomed past me and scarred him into running past the gravel road. The truck finally saw my reason for driving slow, and proceeded to swerve several times in an attempt to cut the calf off (he was getting sort of close to rt. 66 by this point.) Another truck came along and the two truck guys ended up chasing it on foot when it ran down into the "river" (basically a dried up creek with a small trickle of inch-deep water...like most Oklahoma rivers.)

This Saturday the neighbor to my friend-who's-house-I-keep-my-horse-at found three stray horses in his yard and thought they were my friend's. So he herded them into his pasture. Where they met our horses (who happen to be three mares and a gelding). They were together for about an hour before my friend came home and got them separated. 

Here's one of them: 

He happens to be a stallion.

Then on Sunday (on my way home again) I saw three more loose horses grazing in the Pecan grove on the corner of Luther Rd. and Rt. 66. 

I hope Stormy doesn't get any ideas seeing all these stray cows and horses running loose. Luckily there's really not a good reason for her to try and escape her 40 acre pasture with all it's nice, new, green grass.

I feel like maybe I write about my animals too much and not enough about my art, here's some pictures of some old paintings I did in college: