Dec 24 - Holiday Wishes and the Carousel Horse

 I thought as a distraction from all the holiday preparations you might find yourself in, you'd like to see the progression of one of my Fabricritters (tm).  This carousel horse was in an earlier post finished, and I've never shown the procedure for doing one of these totally unique art pieces.  Now is the time!

This started as a standard 36 x 24 inch stretched canvas, and knowing I was going to cover most of it with cut fabric swatches, I didn't tone it like I usually do for a regular painting.  I used about three images of carousel horses, composited for the design--head from one, mane and tack from another, leg from a third.  Artisans who carve these horses have their own signature styles and are well known to historians.  I didn't want any one style to predominate, as an artist, that's one starting point for originality.

As you can see, I'm already thinking purple/blue/orange for the complimentary color scheme.  No fabric at this stage--purely drawing and thin layers to make my mental "connection" with the idea in my head to the white canvas.

On another note, I'm in New Jersey (like last year!) and brought Sparky along.  He reunited with Onslow, and Hiroo, and of course we had to go "walkies".  Here's an image of the trio in a tangled mess trying to figure out what's what!  No white Christmas here yet, the skies are blue and bright with the grays of the bare trees showing incredible variations of middle value grayed reds (aka rose), light grayed purple (aka lavender) and blues... I brought my traveling acrylics, so will be doing several landscapes again--just like last year!

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