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Tag: Radnor Hunt

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Landscape paintings that are signposts

Autumn Farm, Evening Blues, oil on canvasboard, $1449 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I don’t scrub out paintings I don’t like. Often, they are signposts for where I’m heading. This painting is slightly different, because I liked it when it was done, but it was different from much of my work at the time. However, it fits squarely into my oeuvre today.

“A real artist doesn’t need an eraser.”

I don’t know where this comment came from, but it’s destructive. Yes, I own an eraser and I use it all the time. That’s why I draw on Bristol instead of soft paper. ‘Real’ artists work and rework subject matter constantly.

What I think it is supposed to mean is, “don’t mind the imperfections and don’t overwork your paintings to get rid of all their perceived flaws.” I do agree with that. Just as we’ve blurred the line between real human bodies and the airbrushed bodies of influencers, we’ve all gotten used to online images with the weak spots airbrushed out. That can make our own efforts feel wonky to us.

Signposts

Fifteen years ago, I lived in Rochester, NY. It’s a city of indirect light. That tends to make for grey paintings. Today I live on the Maine coast, where things are much brighter. My palette has shifted to far brighter color.

When I first started moving in this direction, the heightened color felt garish. Today it feels natural. But to get to that point, I had to let go when things looked awkward. I’m talking here about color, but it’s true of every aspect of painting, from composition to drafting to mark-making. You won’t know if it’s a mistake until you spend time with it.

Is there such a thing as realism in landscape painting?

Gustave Courbet is considered the father of French realism, but it’s hard to not see the editorial in his work. The same is true of the English romantic John Constable and the American realist George Bellows. In fact, I can’t think of a single great landscape painter whose inner vision didn’t override what his eyes saw.

That’s a good thing, which is why we shouldn’t be too quick to snuff out what we see.

Horses

Some of my four-legged friends from Undermountain Farm in Lenox, MA

If you’ve spent any time with me, you know I love boats and the sea. I’m also rather partial to horses, which is why I set up to do this painting. In the distance, coming down the hill, is the Radnor Hunt, the oldest continuously-operated hunt club in the United States. Mostly, hounds and horses just milled around as they lost the scent, which is a far cry from what I thought the hunt was all about.

My 2024 workshops:

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The Radnor Hunt

Each week until the end of the year I’ll be giving you a behind-the-scenes look at one of my favorite paintings. These are paintings that are available for you to purchase unless otherwise noted.

Autumn Farm, Evening Blues, oil on canvasboard, $1449 framed, includes shipping in continental US.

I had horses as a kid, and I rode, but the kind of riding I did was generally country lanes or along the Erie Canal. My mare, Bess, had been trained to an English saddle and bit, so I rode her on an old hunt saddle. My gelding, Oscar, was trained to a Western saddle, so I rode him Western with a curb bit. Our third horse, Capricious, was too much for me, so I rode him as little as I could. I did do my first jump on him. It was inadvertent. I didn’t see the ditch, he did, and he flew over it beautifully.

I took enough riding lessons that my parents were pretty sure I wouldn’t fall off. After that they left me to get on with it. There was little style to my riding. I had no special clothes or boots. Our horses weren’t shod because we never rode on the road. In fact, much of their lives were spent turned out in our old orchard, where they’d get drunk every fall on rotting fruit.

I do love drawing and painting horses. This is Scout, my friend Roger’s horse. No sense fussing; he doesn’t know how to hold a pose.

As an avid reader of British literature, I always loved the idea of the hunt. However, the closest I ever got to it were the hunter-jumper classes at the Niagara County Fair. In field hunting, the riders are dressed with formal elegance, there’s a pack of baying hounds, and the horses are beautiful, muscular and brave. I always imagined them streaming along tree-lines and taking fences at a full gallop.

So when I had the chance to paint near the historic Radnor Hunt in Malvern, PA, I was thrilled. I would paint the landscape and when the horses appeared I would somehow limn them into my composition.

Few things have been more of a let-down. It was a weekday, so the riders were in ratcatcher, which is a nice enough combination of tweed and tan, but hardly the pinks (which are actually scarlet coats) or black-and-white of a formal hunt. I first spotted the riders as they picked their way slowly down a far hillside and crossed the road towards me. You can see them in my painting as little marks, if you look carefully.

The hounds didn’t seem particularly motivated to start with, and they promptly lost the scent (if they’d ever had it in the first place). Riders and horses trotted around aimlessly, a few taking soft jumps over a drainage ditch, while the huntsman tried his darndest to get the dogs organized. As the false starts dragged on, most riders pulled up in groups of two or three and chatted. Their horses cropped grass. Eventually it was apparent even to me that the subject of the hunt had outfoxed the dogs. They turned and headed back up the hill from whence they had come.

It’s easy to do a gesture drawing of a horse. You go at it just the same way you do with people.

It was hardly a scene from one of Anthony Trollope‘s novels, but I did get a cracking good painting out of it.

Yes, I romanticize horses.

Autumn Farm, Evening Blues is 12X16. $1449 includes shipping and handling in continental US. It’s a bargain compared to what a good hunter will cost you, and you won’t have feed, vet or farrier bills. Click here to purchase online.

My 2024 workshops: