Michelle Wrighton Fine Art and Photography

Today was a rather auspicious day – its been a long time coming, but I am very excited to finally be setting up my studio gallery:)  I had planned to just move the boxes in, but got a little carried away and started unpacking everything.  I felt like a kid at Christmas unpacking all of my art supplies, books and art magazines – many of which I havn’t seen for well over 18 months!  My mind is racing with all the things that I want to paint and draw, I really don’t know where to start first – oils, acrylics, colour pencils or something in graphite.  I’d really like to have a go at some plein air oil paintings – all I have to do is step outside my studio for inspiration in every direction, from the beautiful landscape to the baby lambs and calves that are being born on all the farms around here – including ours, but thats a subject for another post, as I really need to catch up on posts that I meant to add last week but ran out of time to!

Following on from my last post with photos of the Clydesdales from the Dardanup Heritage Park Heavy Horse Show, I thought I would share some of the photos of the Team Australia Liberty Horse display performed by brother and sister team, Sam and Sasha Watson from Horses and Horsemen.

The performance shows the willingness, agility, intelligence and responsiveness of these magnificent animals and the incredible relationship that can be created between man and horse.  The display involved a number of different and often very difficult maneuvers, with the liberty horses following instruction and direction from voice and subtle body language cues.  What I found most amazing and awe inspiring was the willingness and enjoyment all the horses displayed, they were clearly enjoying the performance as much as the audience was, even the six month old weanlings were eager and willing to perform even with the noise and distraction of the large crowd and bright orange safety fences!

I was specifically taking photos for reference material for future paintings (and have already flagged a number of shots that are going to make a wonderful new series of paintings) but here are a few shots of the performance which I can *highly* recommend as a must see for anyone who loves horses!

Team Australia Liberty Horse display © 2010 South West Photography

Team Australia Liberty Horse Display © 2010 South West Photography

Team Australia Nine Horse Liberty Display © 2010 South West Photography

Team Australia Two by Two Liberty Horse Display © 2010 South West Photography

Liberty Horse Display © 2010 South West Photography

Roman Riding Liberty Horse display © 2010 South West Photography

Next post will include some photos from the tent pegging display by 10th Light Horse Bunbury Troop.

All images from the Liberty Horse display can be viewed on the Events section of my South West Photography website.

x Michelle

Michelle Wrighton: Animal, Wildlife & Landscape Fine Art & Photography

FACEBOOK: Michelle Wrighton Artist

TWITTER: artistMichelleW

BUY CUSTOMIZED ART POSTERS, ART PRINTS, T-SHIRTS & GIFTS: Zazzle

BUY CARDS, PHOTO PRINTS, CANVAS ART AND FRAMED ART PRINTS: Redbubble

‘Horse of Colour’ is a new digital oil horse painting in which I have again gone for a contemporary look, focused on the colours rather than detail, using soft pastel hues of violet, lemon, mint and baby blue highlighted brush strokes floated over the blended colours to express the soft romanticism of a much loved kind and gentle show pony.

Horse of Colour - modern horse painting by Michelle Wrighton

Close up cropped image to show detail

‘Summer Heat’ is an original painting based on a photo I took of my Standardbred gelding Tommy in our back paddock last summer.  I avoided putting too much detail in the painting and chose warm yellow and orange hues to really capture the feeling of a hot summers day in rural Australia.

Summer Heat - modern contemporary equine art by Michelle Wrighton

Summer Heat - Close up

‘Summer Heat’ is available as art prints and gifts items in my Redbubble and Zazzle shops, and will also be available as Limited Edition hand embellished prints on ready to hang gallery wrapped canvas.  Please contact me for pricing and purchase details.

I’ve always loved working with dark coloured and black backgrounds to create dramatic lighting in a painting.  Colour Pencils and pastels are two traditional mediums that this technique works extremely well with, and I am pleased to say that it is the same for paintings created with digital pastels.  It takes an awful lot of self control for me to stop adding more and more detail to a painting (traditional or digital), but I am loving exploring painting more freely and expressively while still capturing the essence of my subject, so I can see a few more of this style of painting in the future.

The Dark Horse - Michelle Wrighton © 2010

Prints of my original art painting ‘Dark Horse’ will be available to purchase shortly. If you would like to commission a painting of your own ‘Dark Horse’ or other pet, please visit the Pet Portrait page for additional information.

Thanks for visiting my blog  and sharing my art and photography with your family and friends!

x Michelle

Michelle Wrighton: Animal, Wildlife & Landscape Fine Art & Photography

FACEBOOK: Michelle Wrighton Artist

TWITTER: artistMichelleW

BUY CUSTOMIZED ART POSTERS, ART PRINTS, T-SHIRTS & GIFTS: Zazzle

BUY CARDS, PHOTO PRINTS, CANVAS ART AND FRAMED ART PRINTS: Redbubble

Many people have never thought of having a portrait of their pet dog, cat, horse or other favourite animal painted, or plan to but never get around to it and there are also who love the idea but may not be able to afford to commission a portrait.

I’ve come up with an idea that I think will be a lot of fun for me and will give everyone a chance to have there own pet portrait painted for free! That’s right, I will paint pet portraits for free!

All you have to do is submit your favourite photo’s to my Facebook page – Michelle Wrighton Artist - and inspire me to paint your pet’s portrait! Dog, cat, horse, cow, lizard, bird – if you have an animal that is a big part of your life, let me know what makes him or her so special to you and tell me a little bit about their unique character and personality. If your photo inspires me to paint, I will send you a digital image of the finished portrait for you to have printed or share online with your friends.

The catch, the Cost and the Conditions? Ha! You were waiting for it wern’t you?

The catch?

I would like you to share my website url / facebook page with your friends and family – but only the ones that would be interested in paintings or prints, I hate spam as much as the next person! I’m not sure how many free portraits I will paint, or how long I will continue with this project for, so if you are interested, don’t delay in joining in!

The cost?

If your photo inspires me to paint, I really won’t charge you anything for the image I send you by email. But I would like you to pay it forward and make a small donation to one of the animal rescue organisations listed on my Facebook page. In your name and you can usually get a tax deduction for donations over $2.00. Consider it your random act of kindness for the day (btw I’m not interested in checking up to see if you donated or not).

The conditions:

Entry is free and is open to members of my Facebook Page – Michelle Wrighton Artist only. Photos need to be added to photo album on my Facebook page only. Submitting a photo signifies that you have copyright ownership and permission to use it – this usually means you took the photo! Submitting a photo signifies your permission for me to use the photo as reference for artwork that may be publicly displayed and offered for sale (original or prints).

Submitting a photo does not guarantee your pet portrait will be painted or that it will be painted within a set time frame. I have three children, a husband with a serious illness, five horses, five dogs, 2 cats, fifteen sheep and a dozen chickens to look after which means as much as I’d like to, I can’t paint 24/7:) Besides, I want this project to remain fun, not work!

So join the page, submit your photos, tell your friends and INSPIRE ME TO PAINT!

Oh, and if you are involved in an animal rescue organisation (dogs, cats, rabbits horses, wildlife) and would like to join this project, please let me know!

Thanks for visiting my blog  and sharing my art and photography with your family and friends!

x Michelle

Michelle Wrighton: Animal, Wildlife & Landscape Fine Art & Photography

FACEBOOK: Michelle Wrighton Artist

TWITTER: artistMichelleW

SHOP CUSTOMIZED ART PRINTS, T-SHIRTS & GIFTS: Zazzle

SHOP CARDS, MATTED, LAMINATED AND FRAMED ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY PRINTS: Redbubble

I’m sure that artists reading this will understand, LOL and non-artists will just think I am weird, but sometimes a painting takes on a life of its own with such determination that it almost seems paint itself – almost as if the subject has such strength of personality and character that its spirit insists on being immortalised in art.

Friesian Spirit is one of those paintings.

Friesian Spirit - Equine portrait painting by Michelle Wrighton

I havn’t decided at this time if ‘Friesian Spirit’ will be made available in my RedBubble and Zazzle art print and gift shops, as I am leaning towards offering this one as Limited Edition prints only. If you would like to be notified when ‘Friesian Spirit’ is available for purchase, simply subscribe to the rss feed for this blog, or join the new page I have created at Facebook for my artwork – Michelle Wrighton Artist

Thanks for visiting my blog  and sharing my art and photography with your family and friends!

x Michelle

Michelle Wrighton: Animal, Wildlife & Landscape Fine Art & Photography

FACEBOOK: Michelle Wrighton Artist

TWITTER: artistMichelleW

SHOP CUSTOMIZED ART PRINTS, T-SHIRTS & GIFTS: Zazzle

SHOP CARDS, MATTED, LAMINATED AND FRAMED ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY PRINTS: Redbubble

First of all I have to have a whinge about Telstra’s internet services for country clients.  I admit our wireless connection is reasonably good, but  is absolutely pointless when you can’t access the internet anyway because the 10GIG combined maximum Up/download limit per month before getting capped back to 1992 dial-up speed is absolutely, positively pathetic!  C’mon Telstra its 2010! Country people are not stuck in the dark ages without computers, how about doing your country customers a favour, get with the times and give us a few of the options your city customers enjoy!

LOL ok,  rant over for the moment anyway!  It is a genuine complaint, probably aggravated today due to grumpiness from getting very little sleep last night due to my daughters little standarbred mare Sandy having colic.   She is feeling a lot better today thank goodness.  I think it was a combination of new grass after the rains and a change in feed – although she was introduced to it slowly she is a bit of a piggy and stole some of Crickets in the morning.  She’s back on just hay rations for a few days and hopefully won’t have any more problems.

And as for Fostering Dogs 101…or How to fail Fostering 101 in four easy steps:

1) Vow and declare to never have any other breed than Border Collies.

2) Agree to look after my sisters one year old Koolie while she finds him a good home.

3) Before we get half way home decide we will keep him if he fits in with our four Border Collies.

Well the four Border Collies seem to be accepting him into the pack quite well, so it looks like our canine family now consists of 4 collies and a Koolie.  Not quite a Border Collie, but at least he’s a sheepdog:)

The Border Collie Brigade: L to R  Bolt, Zeke, Trinity and Taj at the front

Border Collie Dogs

And Flash the Koolie:

Flash - Australian Koolie dog

Five Feral Farm dogs

Koolies (also known as Coolies/German Coolies) are an Australian developed working dog  predominantly bred to work sheep and have many similarities in personality and nature to Border Collies.  As they have been bred for working ability rather than for conformation show ring/beauty pageant looks, there is a range of variations in size, build and coat colour within the breed according to the terrain and type of work they were required to do.

Impressionist digital oil painting created from my original photograph.

"Stars and Stripes" original painting by Michelle Wrighton

Greeting cards, laminated, matted, canvas and framed prints of “Stars and Stripes” can be purchased from my Redbubble shop:

Impressionist style original oil painting created with wacom tablet and stylus.

These Boots were made for Workin' - Cowboy Art by Michelle Wrighton

Greeting cards, laminated, matted, canvas and framed prints of “Skipping Stones” can be purchased from my Redbubble shop:

There is nothing quite like the power and majesty of a Thoroughbred Race Horse, and this digital painting is the first in a series of Racing Paintings that I have planned (for both Standardbreds and Thoroughbred race horses).  Thanks to photographer Cathy Sheeter for the wonderful reference photo.

Ready to Run Race Horse painting by Michelle Wrighton

100% crop of Ready to Run detail

Greeting Cards, laminated, matted, canvas and framed prints of “Ready to Run” can be purchased from Redbubble