Michelle Wrighton Fine Art and Photography

This is the latest horse portrait on my easel of a beautiful Australian Stock Horse.  Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas.

Australian Stock Horse painting in progress 1

Australian Stock Horse painting in progress 2

Australian Stock Horse portrait painting in progress 3

Australian Stock Horse acrylic painting in progress 4

Australian Stock Horse portrait acrylic painting in progress 5

Australian Stock Horse portrait acrylic painting in progress 6

Hopefully I will get some time in the studio to finish this one in the next few days.

This is my latest horse painting hot off the easel, an acrylic on canvas of the beautiful grey Arabian Stallion, Rokewood Riyadh. Photo Reference Sam Pearce.

Portrait painting of the stunning Arabian Stallion, Rokewood Riyadh

Tessa’s portrait is nearly finished, just a few more shadows and minor adjustments needed before she is ready to be signed and framed.  I havn’t used acrylics on watercolour paper before, but I have thoroughly enjoyed working on this Blue Lake paper (just as well because its expensive!) and will definitely be using it more in the future!

Tessa’s portrait almost finished!

Its been quite a while since I have painted a horse in acrylics, but I have recently been inspired to paint my beautiful arab mare, Tessa. Actually, she is such an inspiring muse and I have had such fun painting this one that I have several more planned. This painting is 8″x13″ approx on Blue Lake Watercolour paper.

I’ve deliberately tried to work a bit looser with this, trying to find the happy medium between adding in enough detail without making it photorealistic.  That is a much harder task than it might seem!  Its nearly finished, just needing some more highlights, shadows and then a signature.

The basic sketch

Blocking in the shadows

Starting the background and shadows in her blaze

More blocking in colour

Starting to add some detail

Refining the details

A bit more detail

This weekend was the annual campdraft at Mayanup.  Campdraft is a unique Australian sport that involves a horse and rider ‘cutting’ a cow (refered to as ‘beasts’)  from a group of cows in the ‘camp’ (a yard or corral).  The horse and rider are requried to cut the steer or heifer fromteh mob, then block and turn it a couple of times to prove to the judge that they have control over it.  the rider then calls for the gates to be opened and must proceed to draft the beast aroudn a specified figure of eight course and then through the ‘gate (two posts or markers), all within a specified time frame. the rider is awarded a score out of 100 for both horsemanship and control of the beast.

Anyone who has ever worked with cows will have some appreciation on just how difficult these tasks are, and the difference that a well trained (and well bred) horse can make!

Mayanup Campdraft © 2013 Michelle Wrighton

Mayanup Campdraft © 2013 Michelle Wrighton

Mayanup Campdraft © 2013 Michelle Wrighton

Mayanup Campdraft © 2013 Michelle Wrighton

Mayanup Campdraft © 2013 Michelle Wrighton

Mayanup Campdraft © 2013 Michelle Wrighton

Mayanup Campdraft © 2013 Michelle Wrighton

Mayanup Campdraft © 2013 Michelle Wrighton

Mayanup Campdraft © 2013 Michelle Wrighton

Yesterday we witnessed the edge  of a very impressive summer storm pass just south of our property.  Unfortunately we only received a few milimetres of rain which evaporated before it even reached our tanks.   The photos almost made up for it though:)

Mammatus Cloud © 2013 Michelle Wrighton Photography

Summer Storm © 2013 Michelle Wrighton Photography

Storm Cell © 2013 Michelle Wrighton Photography

Storm cell Panorama © 2013 Michelle Wrighton Photography

Miniature contemporary landscape painting, acrylic on canvas.

Miniature abstract landscape painting on canvas

A small seascape painting based on a photo  that I took near Bunbury, Western Australia.

Bunbury Seascape painting, acrylic on canvas board, 8″x10″

More experimenting with abstract landscapes, acrylic on board.

Abstract landscape painting, acrylic on board

I hope everyone is enjoying the silly season and getting ready to start bring in the New Year in an enjoyable (and safe!) way.

I thought before 2012 ends that I should post a few more of the fun little paintings I have created over the last couple of months, up until Christmas I have been painting pretty much every day and hope to get back to it in the next few days.  Well that is assuming I can figure out what is wrong with the air conditioner in my studio as we have been melting in 42 degree celcius days!

All of these have been painted with the Atelier Interactive acrylics, and in a couple I have been experimenting with the micaceous gold acrylic for some rather pleasing results.  There is the very definite risk of going overboard with this particular type of paint, so some restraint is needed to make rather than break the painting.  The shimmer of the micaeous paint does not show very well in the photographs so I have included some angled shots to show how the light reflects off the mica particles.

I am currently working on a more traditional acrylic painting and have a few ideas for some new graphite and colour pencil artworks as well.  However, I’m really looking forward to using these small studies as the basis for larger works and delving further into abstract and contemporary landscape paintings, specifically exploring the ideas of horizon lines and open spaces in 2013.  I’ve had so much fun with these and certainly plan to continue with some smaller paintings, so I’d love to know what you think about these ones!

Blue Gold Contemporary Landscape Painting, 5″x7″ Acrylic on mdf

Angled shot showing the reflective quality of the gold micaeous paint in this Landscape Painting

Blue Green and Gold Abstract Landscape, 5″x7″ acrylic painting on mdf

Blue green gold abstract modern contemporary Australian acrylic landscape painting

Green purple and gold modern contemporary abstract landscape painting, 5″x7″ acrylic on mdf

Modern abstract landscape in purple, green, gold, miniature painting in acrylics

Purple Spirit, abstract acrylic painting on canvas paper

A very poor photo from my mobile phone of most of the small daily paintings that I have done in 2012.