Where's the Rest of Me?

I'm happy to report that my current painting project is coming along nicely. It's safe to say that the horse painting is moving at a fair clip. The days are getting longer so I now have sunlight to paint by in the evenings. Rather than show what the painting looks like still incomplete, I've included a detail of the horse's eye (and don't worry it's an extreme close-up or otherwise I'd be painting a monster horse). Whether I'm painting a person or an animal, the first place I zone in on, after I've roughed out the overall shape, is the eyes. As soon as the eyes are established, a painting looks more alive and I find it easier to do the remainder of the body. It's as if the subject is looking at me and saying, "come on! where's the rest of me?"

I'd like to share artwork on this blog more frequently, but aside from the larger pieces that I set out to do, I don't find the time to make sketches and drawings of other things that suit my fancy. In place of doing actual sketches of objects I come across, I'll sometimes imagine myself drawing. If I see something aesthetically interesting but don't have the time or opportunity to draw it, I like to conduct a kind of mental exercise in drawing. What line quality would I use? How much pressure would I apply with the pencil? What would the focal point be? And as I'm thinking, I visualize my hand carrying out these decisions. The really great bonus is that in my mind sketches invariably turn out just the way I want them to. In my real life sketchbook there's a lot more scribbling out.

The other day, I came across a posting that may just inspire me to have an image to post everyday for the month of June. My friend Johanna was writing on her blog about a photo challenge she discovered where the premise is to take a photograph of a given topic for each day of the month. I'm no photographer (unlike my friend!) but I do like photography as a creative outlet that doesn't take me as long as drawing or painting. Although, as I write this, I'm thinking there are probably a great number of photographers who could tell me just how time consuming doing great photography is. At any rate, the other advantage of doing this photography challenge is that it will force me to get better acquainted with my relatively new camera. That puppy has tonnes of features I haven't even taken a crack at yet. So included below is the challenge rundown: