Thursday, January 31, 2013

Day 27 - 30 Paintings in 30 Days!

"A Real Cowboy"
     Growing up on a ranch in Montana, I've seen many cowboys, my brother being one of them.  He rode bucking broncos in rodeos and still to this day, talks like a cowboy.  He has a great sense of humor, and that was one thing that I wanted to portray in this painting. 
     I used my past painting from Day 23 as my model for the cowboy, just added the holster, hat and spurs.  You would think that would have made this an easy painting, but because I didn't have a value study to work from or a color scheme in mind, I really struggled with this one.  Thank goodness for a toothbrush to scrub out mistakes.  I began with a blue/green color scheme in mind, but half way through, I decided that I wanted the sky to be a dark value, so glazing produced the purple/red color.  I like the color scheme now, but it took me 2 full hours longer than it had to, just because I wasn't prepared ahead of time.  Lesson learned!  My favorite part of this painting is the way I hid the word "cowboys" on the left side, and how it repeats the feeling of the fence. 
     This painting is 10" x 10" image, and is available for $125.

4 comments:

  1. Love your style and this one is just lovely!

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  2. Love it! You know my husband used to ride rodeo....humm you've got me thinking!

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  3. Karen .... I reeaallyy like this one. It was refreshing to first be atttracted to that blue green shape against the deep red one....fighting it out...energy and life in this work ellen

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