Friday 17 July 2009

Dressage horse in oil and Green Woodpecker

As I am still busy painting all hours of the day, and into the evenings at present, I have posted a dressage horse painted in oil some years ago. Black animals are really fascinating to paint, whether in pastel or oil. I just love the shine on their coats and usually paint this in blue grey. I think you can just see the details in this old photo and the touches of purple brown around this horse's muzzle. This 16" x 12" oil was painted from the photo supplied and sadly I never got to see this horse as he lived some way away from us.


This week we have been visited again by a Green Woodpecker and as the bird was still long enough for me to run and get the camera (and change lenses) here is a photo of him. It is great to see this bird in our gardens but sadly he is here because all the local woodland is gradually being destroyed. As the 'powers that be' seem to be happy to chop all the trees down all we can do is plant as many as we can in our gardens. Hopefully we can give the local birds an alternative habitat.

I have taken some recent photos of the cabin/studio but still have them on a memory card somewhere. It really looks as though it has been there for ages now that the plants have grown up around it and I will post them ASAP. Meanwhile, back to painting :)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lesley, I don't think I remember this horse painting, but it shows your wonderful talent!! Love the green woodpecker too. We don't have one that looks like that over here. Can't wait to see your cabin too.

Tracy Hall said...

Me neither, but what a beauty! I've never seena green woodpecker, he's lovely (and well done for getting such good photos!).

Lesley Ann Hartman said...

Thanks both for your positive comments, the photo of this painting is an old one - before digital. Wish I could have shown some more detail :) The Woodpecker has been around for a few years now but usually we just hear his alarm call (which is loud) and get to see him fly over. So getting some photos of him was a real treat. Lesley

Colette Theriault said...

Ah Lesley, I love black horses too. He is wonderful...looks just like a photo!

Gary Keimig said...

That is a beautiful horse. You have done him justice.
It really is too bad that we have to change our world so much that we destroy so much habitat. Thanks for the woodpecker post. Looks like a beautiful bird.

Lesley Ann Hartman said...

Thanks so much Colette and Gary, this horse was beautiful but his owner had a hard time getting photos that did him justice. I agree about the disappearing habitat - perhaps we cannot do much in the big scale of things but we can work to improve our own little bit. :)