Riding the Circuit

'Riding the Circuit'

Well call me crazy! I saw some work by a collage artist, Derek Gores, and loved what he did (Look him up online) so I wanted to try it! It is somewhat addictive. I spent many days trying to get this like I wanted it. I probably could have painted two or three paintings in the time it took!
I don't know how many layers there are! I do know that under his red shirt is a white and black shirt!

It is done on an 8"x16" canvas, mainly because it was handy, so I cropped the back side off and just put the cowboy and the horse, and I think the message is there.

There is a Texas map behind him, and the rest is torn pages from magazines, using gloss medium. There is a little acrylic paint on it, i painted the paper for the scarf because I couldn't find any bright turquoise like I wanted. The horse color came from pictures from a cowboy magazine. Horse pictures just torn up and stuck on. There are be some boots here and there. There is a pair of boots on his nose. And of course if you are from Texas you know about the big belt buckles that they win at the rodeos. I already have another one in mind.

One of the draw backs to this kind of art is the mess you make finding the paper, cutting and tearing it up. I have it all in one small box! If and when I can get to another one, I need to gather some paper first, instead of hunting as I work. I will have to fix myself a 'paper palette'

Daily Supplies

'Daily Supplies'

I painted this for the show in Clovis NM last November. I love western art. That is what I wanted to do when I started painting, but it is so detailed and hard to do, it didn't take me long to venture onto something a little easier! I am hoping to go back to doing more. Maybe because my Granddad was a cowboy and always had a story for us. He remembered all the names of his horses he had his whole life so maybe the sentimental part of me loves western art. He taught our son to rope, and probably gave him tips on riding, and caring for his horse. This painting is similar to another one that I did. I left the rope white on this one. It probably should be called 'New Rope'. The sky is turquoise watercolor mixed with white gouache.