Category Archives: ranching

Under Dusky Skies

Today’s painting isn’t a little one…this one is 8 X 16″ on watercolour board; the Q Ranch horses as they jog to the corrals the night before branding.
It’s such a treat to see horses in groups; they move together as if of one mind.  Add a wild sky and some waving prairie grass, and you have an dramatic story. 

Blue Duck

Here’s Blue Duck, one of the horses on my cousin’s ranch.  Don’t you just love the blue and purple! Those colours are no exaggeration; he really is this colour….. a real pastel painted pony.

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

We’re Up Next-beginning stages

This is a piece I’ve been working on all week.  It’s large…30″ X 20″ and it’s been a challenge to draw.  However, we’re off and running now!
This was from a photo I took at the Ranch Horse Competition this summer, and I loved the body language of both cowboy and horse.  Though they are still, you can feel the intensity of the horseman as they wait their turn.  The horse though, seems to be saying “We’ll be fine man; just chill!”
 Will post the finished product when it’s ready.

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Side Trip

Last week my parents came to stay, and since my dad grew up in the Cypress Hills, he loves to go for a drive out there.  So we did, and it was a golden fall day with the exquisite clear light we’re so blessed with in October (if it’s not snowing!!)
We took a side trip across from north of Elkwater, east to Eagle Butte  on our way home, and there was one stunning hillside after another.  This was one of them. Good thing we went when we did; it looks quite different this week!

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

On the Bit

Here’s a larger project that I’ve been working on for most of the week, amongst other diversions. After a summer of fooling around, it’s time for me to get to work!
 This beautiful horse won the ranch horse competition in the Hat this summer and I wanted to paint him at work,  all geared up in silver spade bit, handbraided bosal and romel rein, and handmade horsehair mecate. 
The honouring of those traditional art forms is one of the side benefits  of modern horsemanship, and I for one, am very appreciative of all of it.

16 x 14″ on300lb Fabriano

The Long View @ Longview

If you’ve never been down the Cowboy Trail, this won’t look familiar. This is the iconic Alberta scene that one sees over and over in our ads and promos of the province.  Prairie gives way to foothills, which rise up to towering Rockies. Nowhere is this transition more dramatic than at the aptly named “Longview”.  Just north of that little town there is this incredible depth-of-field which defies pen and paint, but I had to try anyway.  Those who haven’t been there, it’s time for a road trip!

f you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Chain Lakes

This weekend was a celebration with my classmates of our graduation from nursing school many years ago (not saying how many!) We met in Banff and had 3 days of catching up and enjoying the last days of September in one of the most beautiful towns anywhere in the world.  I always like to check out the back roads, so today I took “The Cowboy Trail” from Turner Valley to Chain Lakes and then cut across country to home, gathering fabulous visuals and visits with even more friends. It took all day, so no painting….  Instead, this photo, taken about 25 miles west of Nanton,  of Chain Lakes and the Porcupine Hills stretching up to the Rockies.

Matt & Shorty

This painting is of  Matt Robertson  at the Ranch Horse competition here in the Hat in July, while he and his catty little grey gelding were waiting for their turn to compete.
I like Matt’s face, the light as it emerges from the shade of that palm-leaf hat he’s wearing, and I like his relationship with his horse

 Not only is Matt a good horseman, who makes his living as a ranch cowboy, he’s a wonderful singer-songwriter. Check it out at his web-site www.mattrobertson.com. His newest album, “The Voice” is awesome. 

SOLD

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Corrals and Chief Mountain

I’m still down here in the SW corner of the province, lucky me, and this rugged old set of corrals with it’s breath-taking backdrop was one of the sights we passed on our way to Police outpost Lake yesterday. It’s been such a great year for rain, and the pastures and meadows are still knee deep in grass and wildflowers. 
 There are some tell-tale signs though that summer’s days are numbered, as time and the seasons roll on.

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

With the Wind

Betcha when I didn’t post this several days ago, you thought you’d seen the last of it…..that I’d thrown it in the garbage. Right!?   It was very polite of you not to ask. 
 It’s here, but I’m not delighted with it.  I may do it again, (hoping for different results) ….wait a minute, that’s the definition of insanity isn’t it? 

16 X 20″ on watercolour board