Horse Paintings by Carrie L. Lewis

I love a good book. Like many people, I can pick up a good book and be immediately transported to another place and, maybe, another time.I can pick up a really good book at 8:30 p.m. on a Thursday evening and put it down at 2:15 a.m. on Friday morning, having read the entire thing.

That’s what happened last evening.

I picked up Joel C. Rosenberg’s Dead Heat from the library and proceeded to make what seems like ’short work’ out of it. All 374 pages.

Dead Heat is the fifth in a series that began with The Last Jihad about four years ago. After reading The Last Jihad, I have awaited each new book with bated breath.

And I have pretty much read every one in the same breakneck fashion. There really isn’t any other way to read one of these books.

Books like this are part of the reason I love to write, though it will truly be a miracle of God if any of my little stories ever measure up to Mr. Rosenberg’s.

If you like suspense, fast past, current events and a really good read, check out any — or all! — of these books. I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Landscape Study #14 2008 was completed on July 1, 2008. It is another ACEO that shows the way I have handled water in the past and will be a marker for further work on October Skies.

Landscape Study #14 2008 is painted on archival mat board cut to size and gessoed multiple times, then toned with a flat mixture of Burnt Umber and Titanium White. The preparation was completed some time ago.

Landscape Study #14 2008
3-1/2 x 2-1/2
Original Oil on Gessoed Archival Mat Board
$25 unframed plus shipping

One final thought for the day….

I gessoed a 24×30 masonite panel this evening. That panel has been in storage since it was cut some weeks ago. It is now gessoed and ready for a final sanding and something to be put on it.

I haven’t painted anything this large in quite some time. I’m wondering what the subject will be….

Because both the current portrait (October Skies) and the current week’s small landscape (Mackerel Skies Over the Flint Hills) were still too wet to work on, I spent last evening’s studio time doing something different. I worked on ACEO landscapes.

But I also got in some work on October Skies without actually working on the painting.

The water along the foreground has been resistant to change though I have changed the water line twice and have made two efforts to paint the water itself, both unsatisfactory.

Last evening, I spent some time on web site updates and worked on the first two pages for last year’s ACEO Landscape Painting a Day challenge. Among those paintings was an ACEO that had perfect water for this painting of October Skies. That particular ACEO has been long sold, so I decided the best thing to do was make another one, just to see if I could. If I could paint one that size, then I could paint the water in a 20×24.

When I got to the studio, I decided to do an ACEO sized study of the landscape features for October Skies instead. Same basic background. Same basic middle ground. Same basic foreground. Just no horse.

The ACEO landscape shown above is that study. It came together in about 15 minutes with a very loose blocking in of colors and shapes, but it was very informative.

I finished it as much as possible and will have to wait for paint to dry before it goes any further, bu it did show me what I need to do with the portrait to get it finished.

It also showed me I am not that far away from completing October Skies and that, perhaps, is the best news of the evening!

In total, I worked on nine ACEO landscapes and one 5×7 last evening. Two ACEOs, this one and a companion piece, were nearly completed. The others had sky colors applied in a thin, flat layer that should allow them to dry sufficiently for completion next week.

I did the same for the 5×7, so I have six paintings that should be ready for next week, including next week’s small landscape painting.

Time for more shameless promotion!

I’m going to take a brief break from talking about my work to talk about one of the events at the Carriage Factory Gallery’s Celebration of Sound & Color on July 12.

One of the purposes of the Celebration is to bring the visual arts together with the musical arts. We have been very pleased each year to welcome the Senseney Music Wichita Community Band to the gallery to cap off the day.

This year, I am also thrilled to feature not only the landscape paintings of Cally Krallman, but her songwriting, as well, and the 2007 CD she has co-produced with Diane Gillenwater under the name, Prairie Glimpses: Kansas Song Project.

Cally began writing song lyrics in 2002, during a period of major life changes. Being a native Kansan, it was natural enough that she was drawn to writing about the land she loved and the life she’d grown up with and continues to live.

Cally was especially interested in the years between 1850 and the 1890s and Prairie Glimpses - The Kansas Song Project features seven clearly historical songs which focus on subjects such as the state’s anti-slavery stance in the Civil War, the Santa Fe Trail and Amelia Earhart, the famous Kansas aviator who grew up in Atchison, Kansas.

But it also includes some fun and whimsical tunes. My current favorite is Sunflower Song, which has already grown on me to such an extent that I am able to sing the chorus from memory. The melody of that delightful song runs through my mind quite often the last few days and even just writing the title here gets that merry riff started again.

Cally worked with Diane Gillenwater of the Kansas bluegrass band, Pastense, to write and co-produce Prairie Glimpses - The Kansas Song Project.

Diane is the fiddle player for Pastense, but she comes from an artistic and creative background. Her father, Fred Meek, was an artist and her mother Susan had been a music major at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. Grandparents were also musicians and performers, so her creative roots are quite deep.

Cally and Diane will present a talk on their work with Prairie Glimpses - The Kansas Song Project and will perform a few of the songs during our 2008 Celebration of Sound & Color. Cally and Diane will be featured from 4 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, July 12.

Cally will also be staying for the artists’ reception from 5 to 7 p.m.

The CD is available through the Prairie Glimpses - The Kansas Song Project web site or through their web site at http://www.kansassongproject.com/ or at the Carriage Factory Gallery.

If you are in the Newton area on Saturday, July 12, I invite you to stop in at the Carriage Factory Gallery and join us for all or part of the day’s festivities.

If not, check out the Summer 2008 Exhibit: The Land We Love,which went live yesterday. It’s a great exhibit and well worth the look.

Two new ACEO landscapes to introduce today.

Two more Flint Hills landscapes, too, although I also now have some great Michigan scenes in the que as soon as I get to them…

Landscape Study #12 2008: High Flyers and Landscape Study #13 2008: Hidden Meadow are both painted on brown toned surfaces.

Landscape Study #12 2008: High Flyers is on multiple gessoed archival mat board while Landscape Study #13 2008: Hidden Meadow is on a piece of unstretched Artfix Belgian linen canvas.

Both cards were prepared and toned some time ago when I was planning a rather major ACEO undertaking that never quite got off the ground. I am working my way through those cards now, experimenting with similar palettes and subjects on different colored grounds just to see what happens.

With two ACEOs with red tones and two ACEOs with brown tones drying side-by-side, I can see a little bit of influence through the local color.

The brown under paintings, for example, lend a more ‘gray’ feel to the paintings while the red under tone created more subdued greens and shadows.

I did manage to also get some work done on the portrait of October Skies in the evening. Work was limited due to wet paint from previous sessions, but I corrected the water line, and began painting the tall grass along the shore.

I attempted to photograph October Skies this morning, but although I have been working on the painting steadily, the progress is such that it doesn’t easily show up in a full scale photograph. My goal, then, is to work on it throughout the week or until it is finished, then photograph it and post the progress.

Landscape Study #12 2008: High Flyers
3-1/2 x 2-1/2
Original Oil on gessoed archival mat board
$25 unframed plus shipping

Landscape Study #13 2008: Hidden Meadow
3-1/2 x 2-1/2
Original Oil on Artfix Belgian Linen Canvas
$25 unframed plus shipping

See all of this year’s ACEO landscape paintings on my web site.

An artist friend and I have been talking about maintaining motivation and momentum in the studio. Both of us have reported periods of great energy, as well as periods of great lethargy when it comes to painting.

I commented a week or so ago that I was thinking of reimposing the “one new ACEO landscape painting a day” challenge on myself again because I painted almost every day last year, even if all I did was the required ACEO. Yeah, it was just like going to work, but I ended up with 315 of the little paintings and a good number of larger ones, too.

So she and I talked it over and decided we would work on this together with a new challenge. One that will hopefully fit into our busy schedules better AND keep us motivated.

The challenge is to produce one new non-ACEO landscape painting every week for the rest of the year. Paintings will focus on landscapes, since we are both wanting to improve in that area. Paintings can be any size, in any medium and on any support, but must be completed in one week.

The challenge officially began today and my offering is shown above.

The working title is Mackerel Skies Over the Flint Hills. It is six inches wide by four inches tall on Artfix Belgian Linen. For working purposes, it has been mounted to archival mat board.

Mackerel Skies Over the Flint Hills is shown here with two or three days worth of work on it. The initial work was done several weeks ago, but the painting was never finished, so I thought it was a good way to launch a new challenge.

The initial work included a blocking in of the sky and land with very little detail in either. Today, I added highlights to the hills using a combination of Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow, French Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna. The hills are not finished. I am thinking about adding a tree or two to the top of the foremost hill, but will need to wait for paint to dry first.

The clouds were painted using a small sable round that is so well worn the hairs go in multiple directions. Most artists would have probably thrown this brush away because it really isn’t any good for anything…except painting random patterns of clouds.

The way I use it is to load it lightly with paint, then sort of ‘twirl’ it over the canvas in a looping, left and right stroke. The combination of hairs going every which way and the brush touching the canvas at random angles and in different directions produces cloud patterns than are completely natural in appearance. So far, I have used it for high, fleecy clouds and mostly on ACEOs, but I do like the way it looks and it worked very well on this slightly larger painting.

I also painted two new ACEO landscape paintings, another companion pair that share similar qualities. One is painted on gessoed mat board and the other on Artfix Belgian linen, but they were toned with the same dull brown color. That toning color seems to work well with ground and grass, and makes  for interesting cloud shadows if the cloud colors are applied very thinly.

Oh, and I did work on October Skies. I wiped off most of the water and looked up some photo references. Today was definitely a ‘one step backward’ day on this painting!

Oh well! That happens quite frequently!

As many of you know, I am the current director of the Carriage Factory Gallery in Newton, Kansas. The Carriage Factory Gallery is the show place for works by the members of the Newton Fine Arts Association as well as guest artists from within the membership as well as outside it.

The Carriage Factory is a privately owned and operated gallery supported by sales, dues and donations and many benefactors with an interest in local arts.

One of the major annual events we host at the gallery is the annual Celebration of Sound & Color. This event began four years ago as a Fourth of July celebration and a grand re-opening after the gallery was closed for a couple of weeks for repainting and new carpet.

This year’s Celebration is scheduled for Saturday, July 12 from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

As always, the artist’s reception for the Summer 2008 Exhibit: The Land We Love will be part of the festivities. Our featured artists are Kansas artists Cally Krallman, Don Lind and Carolyn Wedel.

The members of the Newton Fine Arts Association have provided an excellent collection works featuring a wide variety of subjects, media and styles for The Land We Love.

Schedule of Events:

• Historic Flag Exhibit: All Day
• American Snapshots Book Signing by Steven Johnson: 2 to 4 p.m.
• Watercolor Painting with Connie Rhodes: 3 to 4 p.m.
• Prairie Glimpses: The Kansas Song Project - Special presentation by Cally Krallman and Diane Gillenwater of Pastense
• Artists Reception: 5 to 7 p.m.
• Schwan’s Ice Cream: 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
• Band Concert: 7 p.m.

To get a feel for what happens here during Celebration, you can see photographs of last year’s Celebration of Sound & Color at the Carriage Factory Gallery.

If you happen to be in the Newton area on July 12, stop by and say hi.

If you would like more information on this event, you are welcome to contact me directly or at the gallery.

The reason I am not a weather forecaster is that I can look at radar and still not guess right! I said yesterday that the radar out of Wichita looked like we would have rain most of the day. I was going to take my camera to work and get shots of rainy light. Remember that?

Well, by the time I went to work, the skies had cleared and they remained clear until well after dark.

And that’s why I’m not a weather forecaster by trade!

It did rain again during the night and the rain came in quite unexpectedly. Neal and I walked a mile to our movie watching place and it was clear with some clouds in the west and northwest. No big deal.

We were almost done with Madagascar when there was a loud boom outside and we looked out to see rain! It continued to rain with a really cool lightning show as well throughout the rest of the movie and we ended up walking home in the rain. Maybe the movie, “An American in Paris” which features the song, “Singing in the Rain” would have been more appropriate move watching fare for last night!

Fortunately, the rain was leisurely and very warm and I enjoyed myself immensely. It has been ages since I had the opportunity to do something like that. Way back in Michigan, as a matter of fact, when I used to walk in much heavier down pours!

Ah, the good ol’ days….

Between poor photography conditions and recalcitrant scanning equipment, it took a day or two, but I was finally able to get a good scan of Approaching Storm, which appears at the top of this post.

I looked at it most of the day at the gallery and came very close to taking it back home and tweaking it a little more. Then I came to my senses and decided it would be better to consider it finished and start something new if I really wanted to tweak.

So Approaching Storm is officially complete, signed and everything. It even has the appropriate notations on the back (title, date, signature, background information, etc.)

Instead of tweaking Approaching Storm, I painted two new ACEO landscape paintings last evening. Both are Flint Hills landscapes and both are from informed memories. That means I didn’t use an actual photograph for reference, but referred to a currently unfinished painting that is using a photograph for the first ACEO, then painted the second one as a companion piece.

For these two little paintings, I explored painting light more than details. My palette was very basic. Titanium White, Cerulean Blue, Cadmium Yellow Light and Burnt Sienna, all M. Graham Oils.

Both cards are archival mat board prepared with three coats of gesso all around (including the edges), then toned with Alizarin Crimson.

So I kept some of the areas fairly thin to allow that cool red color to influence the local colors. In essence, the tone served as a fifth color on the palette and was a very nice color to work on.

Landscape Study #10 2008: Sunshine and Shadow and Landscape Study #11 2008: Storms Brewing are both 3-1/2 inches wide by 2-1/2 inches tall and will available for sale as soon as they are completely dry.

Approaching Storm
9×7
Original Oil on gessoed masonite
$160 unframed plus shipping

Landscape Study #10 2008: Sunshine and Shadow
3-1/2 x 2-1/2
Original Oil on gessoed archival mat board
$25 unframed plus shipping

Landscape Study #11 2008: Storms Brewing
3-1/2 x 2-1/2
Original Oil on gessoed archival mat board
$25 unframed plus shipping

So much for wheat harvest.

At about 2 a.m. thunderstorms began rolling through Newton from the north, not the unusual direction for the approach of weather in this part of the country. Periodically heavy rain followed the first line of storms and the temperature dropped down into the 60s (it’s 63F as I write this).

Radar indicates an afternoon of rain, possibly heavy, so I’ll have to make sure to take my camera to work. I love the light that comes with rain or weather of any type for that matter, and the variety of greens in the gallery park will be gorgeous.

It also means I may not be able to get a photograph of the new work on October Skies before the day is out. It was another excellent painting evening last night. I corrected some of the problems with head and legs, painted the tail in again and did quite a bit of work on the background and foreground. Had it not been for the wet paint over so much of the working area, I could have nearly finsihed the painting, but whenever I start resting my hand in previously painted areas, it’s time to stop.

Approaching Storm (appropriate for this morning, don’t you think?), was finished the day before yesterday and is dry to the touch already. If the rain lets up a bit, I may take it to the gallery and get a good scan of it.

I am also considering instituting a new challenge. Last year, I painted one new ACEO landscape every painting day for the entire year and ended up with 315 of them.

Since I’ve dropped that challenge, I’ve noticed a returning tendency to put painting off if I don’t have anything major to work on. A bad habit to get into.

So another challenge seems in order. I just haven’t decided, yet, what it will be.

Writing is rolling right along, too. I recently set a goal of attempting to reach 400,000 words per year. Considering I set that goal in mid-June, I thought it would be a struggle, even if I included everything since late-April, when I began keeping track.

Much to my surprise, the total from the first day I began monitoring word count in April until June was over 127,000! As of the end of the day yesterday, that total was up to 152,553. That doesn’t include the writing I do for this blog or the personal journal I keep. It also doesn’t include research; only fiction.

Before you start thinking I’m working on one whale of a big book, let me add there are several things going on. It’s one of those very productive times when characters seem to come to me and say “Write about me, write about me!”.

For example, on June 12, an idea came to me and, as is habit, I began writing down everything that came to mind. A little over 1,700 words that day (much of it long hand), followed by four more days of exclusive work on that idea and word counts ranging from 2,200 to 5,000 each day. Since then, I’ve worked on that set of characters as ideas occur and now have over 26,000 words on it, all character description, plot development or scenes.

Then, on June 23 (this past Monday), another idea sprang up so I took some time off the last previous idea to work on the new one. In two days of work (Monday and last evening), I’ve accumulated 6,804 words on that idea and had to tear myself away from it to go to bed last night (which was a mistake, I should have kept going until the current idea was written out).

So far this year, six new characters have introduced themselves to me and one of them has already developed into six potential plots (can you say ’series’?).

There are currently twelve different ideas on the worksheet, though only half a dozen have gotten any significant attention over the last year. Two of them are ‘finished’ but in line for revision, one major.

In other words, I write the same way I paint. Lots of things going with one major project and several I can work on when the major one is either unworkable (wet paint for example) or stalled. My idea of multitasking. It’s great!

It’s even greater when both halves of the creative picture are rolling on down the line at a good clip. Such certainly seems to be the case these days.

Now, if I can just learn to record paintings in the same, breakneck fashion!

Ah, another goal!

It was a great studio evening.

Approaching Storm was finished and signed, so it’s now in the completion column.

I also made excellent progress on October Skies. Something happened and I was finally able to find my stride with the horse in this painting, praise the LORD!

One thing that was done differently was beginning with one area and actually painting it for completion then moving on. In this case, the ears.

That led naturally enough to working on the horse’s head, then down into the neck, shoulders, chest and, well, you get the idea. Finally giving Buddy eyes and nostrils has really improved the overall look of the painting. I should have done that a long time ago.

The colors I used were Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Yellow, French Ultramarine Blue and Titanium White.

I used those same colors to mix up a range of greens so I could work on the landscape around Buddy. That is something I’ve been putting off and I see now, after the end of the session, that that was a mistake.

I was able to more completely and satisfactorily paint Buddy by also being able to work on both sides of the edges that define him, pushing them back and forth until they were correct.

For the first time, I’m happy with the look of the horse and the direction in which he is headed. That is almost as satisfying as just getting in a good amount of painting time for a change.

There are some corrections to be made yet (there always seem to be adjustments) and I need to finish the legs and the tail, the Buddy will be finished.

After that, the foreground and, after that, the drying room. It hardly seems possible, but the light at the end of this tunnel is getting brighter and brighter.