Plein Air rough

Piedras Marcadas (WIP)
Oil, alkyd on gessoed panel
6"x8"

A few months ago I joined the Plein Air Painters of New Mexico. Due to schedule conflicts I hadn't been out to paint with the group yet....until today. Since I hadn't done plein air since living in Florida, I was really looking forward to this session, since it was clear, cool, and quite pleasant this morning.

I spent part of yesterday setting up my plein air paint box and priming a few 6x8 panels to paint on. So this morning when I left the house at 8am, I thought I was all set to paint. The location was on the westside of Albuquerque, an undeveloped open space, called Piedras Marcadas, meaning "marked rocks", because of the petroglyphs in the area.

I hiked around, lugging all my painting gear, and found a shaded spot with a nice view. While setting up my palette, I discovered that I had forgotten my white paint, a huge deficit when working with a limited palette of 5 or six colors. Darn! Not wanting to completely give up on this opportunity, I worked up a tonal rendering of the scene, concentrating on the composition and lights and darks.

Fortunately I did remember my camera. So this rough start will be completed in the studio.

Enjoy the short work week! See you Thursday.
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Text and image ©2009 Carol Adamec. All rights reserved.

Happy Trails & Painted Ponies

Running with the Ancestors
by Carol Adamec
A Trail of Painted Ponies Figurine
Signed 1st and 2nd Editions Available.
Contact Artist to purchase.

I am surely one of the luckiest people in the world! Among my many blessings, I am fortunate to be an "Official Trail of Painted Ponies Artist."

(For information about how the Trail of Painted Ponies began, you can go to the "Trail" website: http://www.trailofpaintedponies.com/au-tale-trail.htm. It's a fascinating success story that began with an idea that brought together art and business to benefit many good causes.)

My involvement with "The Trail" began back in 2001, when I went up to Santa Fe to see a public showing of The Trail of Painted Ponies. I was awed and inspired by the incredible display of ingenuity and talent rendered on full size horses made of resin. Within a few months I had submitted a pony design for consideration.

In 2002 I was contacted by Jardin de los Niños, a nonprofit daycare center for homeless children, located in Las Cruces, NM. They commissioned me to create the original Running with the Ancestors Masterwork for "A Herd of Help" fundraiser sponsored by their organization, Sunland Park Race Track, and The Trail of Painted Ponies, Inc.

In creating Running with the Ancestors, I turned to the imagery found in the caves of Lascaux, France, and Altamira, Spain, where grand drawings of horses on rock walls were both magical and beautiful. Still today the horse remains a powerful icon of freedom and spirit, present in the action pose of the Painted Pony form itself.

After several weeks of painting, my original pony was ready to go to Las Cruces. Running with the Ancestors was auctioned on March 29, 2003, at a gala fundraising event and sold for $2,700 to a private collector.

In June 2005 the Trail of Painted Ponies released my design as a 6" figurine. It was fun to have friends and family call me with "pony sightings" when they would see Running with the Ancestors figurines on display in gift shops, department stores, and other retail locations.

Through eBay and other venues, I am pleased to offer my own limited edition of signed and numbered Running with the Ancestors figurines.

I also offer art prints of The Ancestors, an original artwork I based my Painted Pony design on.

The Ancestors is available as a signed and numbered limited edition giclée on 12"x16" stretched canvas and as an open edition signed art print on paper.

If you have an art enthusiast or horse lover in your life, perhaps a Painted Pony would be a great gift for a special occasion or the upcoming holidays.

As an artist, it is an honor to be a Painted Pony artist and to have my design issued as a figurine. And I am very grateful for the enthusiastic response from so many collectors, friends, and fans who have purchased them. Thanks to All of You!

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Image and text © 2008 Carol Adamec. All rights reserved.

Exhibit Glimpse 2

Ellen Van Fleet
"...drives the flower"#8
Watercolor • 44" x 32"

Today's post features the work of Ellen Van Fleet, another California artists who participated in our Albuquerque exhibit, "Be Leaf It or Not." Ellen is interested in "mark making" and abstraction, and has traveled in the US and abroad studying petroglyphs and cave paintings.

For our exhibit, Ellen contributed work which also reflects her love of Henry Matisse, through her use of intense color and flowing, rhythmic line.

As Ellen notes in her Artist Statement: "I tend to use painting motions I can repeat. It is soothing and fascinating to see how marks or stripes...pile up and become visually interesting...Take the black stripes in the current work. I love dragging a brush full of pigment across a sheet of paper in a whole body motion, over and over, sheet after sheet. Then I take what I have amassed and tweak it until something mysterious and right happens."

Her title comes from a Dylan Thomas poem where he describes the force of Nature that "...drives the flower..."

If you would like to make a comment about Ellen's work, please use the "COMMENT" link below; or send me an email, and I'll forward it to Ellen.

Have a great Monday. See you Wednesday!

Image ©Ellen Van Fleet. Text©Carol Adamec. All rights reserved.