My Daughter in her new Tee

Ordered and received some tees from T-shirtmonster. Excellent service! One was for a client, three were for myself and my daughter. My client/friend Patricia is delighted with her tee - I have to corner her to get a photo of her wearing it. My daughter Rebekkah kindly agreed to pose for me. And I...well...I'm still a bit camera-shy. Its far nicer to be behind the camera for me! :) We'll see!

A Zazzle Paint Horse Tote Bag

Fine Paint Horse Tote Bag by ReneeFukumoto
Create a Photo bag at Zazzle.com">

Zazzle has so many cool products. A variety of tote bags have been added recently, in various colours, styles and sizes (and price points!). And until the end of June, Free Shipping! Just enter the code FREESHIPON25 when checking out.

A Sunny Afternoon

And where better to spend it than with horses? Just had to go hang out and take pictures, of course! I think I may have some good action shots from which to develop a painting too.

Pony Club Fundraiser Donation

Just thought I'd mention that I'd been asked if I'd like to donate something for the silent auction at the 50th Anniversary of the Caledon & Credit Valley Pony Clubs (for members and Alumni at the Caledon Riding Club on Saturday, June 27th at 2 pm). The above pic is my offering. I'm hoping it will be a good introduction to the local horse people and raise some funds for this worthy cause.

Such A Fine Paint Horse!

Just finished a new t-shirt design for friends Vic & Patricia of their horse Rio. Rio passed away just a couple of days before Christmas. He had HYPP and apparently over time the strain on the heart has consequences. Rio was the loveliest horse. A great heart, so giving and patient: a four year old began to learn to ride on him (on a longe line, of course), yet he could do dressage and win ribbons competing against some big showy Hanoverians. He is deeply missed and touched many lives. This link & image above belong to my T-shirtmonster shop. I'll be setting up a variation of it at my Zazzle & Printfection shops too!

Fun with New Lenses!

A new camera lens really stokes the imagination and forces a new learning curve! Recently got two new lenses for my D80: an 18-200 and a 70-300 both VR which ought to really help compensate for my arthritic hands! Here's a backyard Iris I shot on my first outing. I think I'm loving these new tools! I'm using this Iris image in my Zazzle store - /RavenwoodStudio - for mousepads, tote bags, magnets and more, as soon as I get it uploaded and rolling I'll let you know. Of course, for my blog the image is pretty small and reduced in quality. The original will be printable at pretty large sizes...

Puppy Shots!

There's nothing quite like a young puppy, a new addition to the family, to tweak your perspective on life once again. This is my cousin's new pup, Rudy. Just had time for a few candid shots but hope to get together and get more - perhaps follow them on a hike on the Bruce Trail or playing at the park. In this shot, Rudy explores the nature of a full-blown Dandelion, to find the fluff ephemeral and perhaps not as tasty as hoped! See what I mean? We've all stopped considering the magic of those fluffy (and to adult lawn-keepers, pesky) Dandelions, but Rudy explored it, so we see it all over again. I think it is so important as an artist to keep ones 'child's eyes' fresh.

Love Me Love My Horse!

Here it is finally. I've really reduced the image quality and size. You can check it out on T-shirtmonster at my store, Ravenwood Studio!)

I have a friend who is so "horse proud" she makes it fun and easy to come up with artwork and designs that suit her attitude. I've painted and drawn her horse a few times now. One of the paintings is presently living on my kids' orthodontist's office wall in Georgetown. A couple of the designs are on products and t-shirts on my various online shops. I'm trying to post one of the most recent ones - we'll see if the link works, as I'm new to computer-ese and blogging! I'll describe it though. One Sunday afternoon we took her boy to the arena to let him blow off steam and I snapped a ton of pictures while he galloped around. I chose one to create a digital painting, which was rather a lot of fun to do! Now I've put it on t-shirts, mugs, aprons etc. If you are Canadian, then check out http://www.Tshirtmonster.ca/designer/RavenwoodStudio to see it there on tees.

ACEO's

I've begun my foray into Art Cards, Editions & Originals. I'm offering reproductions at Zazzle and hope to open an Etsy shop soon to offer originals, there and through my own website. Several artists I've conversed with have convinced me to give it a go and now I'm pretty excited about it. Of course, according to my husband, he's been telling me to do this sort of thing for years and I just wouldn't listen... he's usually right! Anyway, the lioness above is one of my first forays into this art form. The original is somewhat larger than the 3.5 x 2.5 format, done in pastel pencil on Strathmore Pastel paper. She's called "Vigilant", and I used my own photograph as reference material. Really makes me look forward to more visits to the Zoo!

ACEO's are a phenomena that has been around for quite a while. The term refers to Art Card, Editions & Originals. These are tiny, collectible pieces of art: by regulation they are 3.5" x 2.5" and can be originals or reproductions. Artist Trading Cards or ATC's were begun by artists who wished to trade and collect art from artists they admired, sort of a parallel to sport trading cards. The ACEO's came along as a way to include the general public. There are terrific articles on Squidoo, or you can Google and learn more.

Fun with Portraits

I think some of the best or most interesting photos often happen impromptu, as with this portrait of a friend with her horse after a workout earlier this year. I look forward to doing more portraits that capture something of the unique essence of relationship between rider/owner and horse or the unique dynamics of other relationships, human or otherwise.

Over the past couple of years I've begun using my camera for more than reference photos for my artwork. Recently I had the great opportunity to photograph a client's several horses. Lots of fun and interesting personalities to capture. Next time I'm definitely bringing an assistant. Somehow the client never has an extra pair of hands on site. No matter, my youngest son is eager to make a few bucks!

There is something very appealing about the immediacy of a photographic capture...and the tweaking one can do later with programs such as Photoshop Elements 5, which I'm presently using. See how the dream shifts and enlarges? Now the Dream encompasses a faster, stronger computer and camera....and printer.... LOL