SEA submission time and Dunlop Fayre

It is looking to be an extremely busy week ahead for me.

It is the week of the Society of Equestrian Artists submission deadline for the annual show later this Summer. This is my first year as a Friend of the SEA and I am putting the finishing touches to two paintings to submit for the show. I am excited at the opportunity but also nervous as to whether the work will be accepted but at least I will know in a few weeks as to whether it makes the first cut on the basis of the digital images I submit ....fingers crossed.

Closer to home, I have had the opportunity to show at Dunlop Town Fair on Saturday 4th June. I am completely new to the 'fair' market so am now likely to be in a flap for much of the week looking for easels, table covers, printing leaflets, framing work, and chasing down some examples that I left at Easterton and Craigengellan Stables earlier in the month. I am not sure whether to take some thing to work on while at the fair, if people like to see you 'at work'. If there are any local followers - that would be friends and family  - do come and see me!

On the riding front things are quieter. My Monday with Merlyn (spelt with a Y for luck, I now learn having spelt with an I for weeks) was off due to 100 mph gusts and heavy rain. I know my fairwether luck was due to run out.  Ah, the Scottish Summer....what's not to love?

Sam stands: Painting of a Thoroughbred started today

This is a new one I have just started....based on Sam, a beautiful sweet natured horse I loaned about 13 years ago.


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He was such a handsome fella, a 16 hand Chestnut Thoroughbred, a retired racehorse who was a little out of condition when I began riding him, but soon much too fit for the relative novice that I was. 

I adored Sam, until such time as I broke my arm jumping off him at a gallop. Then I still adored him but was in no fit state to ride even a bicycle for more than a year after. He passed a few years after our short dalliance.

I have no photos of him....not one. I guess I was too busy riding him to think of a camera, after all, no phone cameras back in the days! Although I don't have a picture, I do in my head, and having leafed through my books I found his horsey doppelganger and set to work adding some background in keeping with the Mugdock surroundings that I associate with the lovely Sam...

To Sam, you handsome big horse. I hope I can do you some justice with this one when I finish.....and I forgive you your love of the grass under your toes.x

Hacking in Scotland in January...

I haven't yet got back into the way of realising that I currently only ride once a week, which is not enough.

I was thinking that perhaps it is time for a hack, and wondering whether to head across the city to my old riding ground of Easterton Stables in Mugdock Country Park, or should it be down the coast to Ayrshire Equitation Centre.

Then I checked the weekend forecast for Glasgow .....25mph winds and rain. Fair weather rider that I am, that idea is going on ice for a couple of weeks!