This pastel, "Dynamic Duo" has received several awards, the most recent being the "Spirit of the West Award" at the 2010 Western & Wild Horse Art Show in Rock Springs, WY. It also won a purchase award, so now has a new home...which is great and a touch bittersweet, as this painting always held a lot of meaning for me. Throughout the process of painting the little barrel racer on her powerful steed, I often thought of how much sacrifice and hard work it takes to make a dream come true -  how many "barrels" we must tip over to reach a cherished goal in the often dusty arena of life! I know other artists can relate to this!

The juror of awards was one of my favorite western artists, Ann Hanson, who crafts beautifully realistic renditions of horses and their people.

I've been working on this painting for awhile now, tweaking it off and on and finally calling it good. I had never had an inkling as to what I was going to name it until tonight when I posted it. I started with the Grey Bronc...ok, pretty boring for a name, and I'm trying to portray action and excitement here. So I stopped to think back what captured my imagination in the first place on this one. I'm often amazed at the abilities of the bronc and the rider as they battle for the upper hand and how well matched they are. This was one of those battles... yes, they are both "tough enough" to win.
 
Ah! "Tough Enough" - good name. Then it occured to me that all week long I have been noticing the storefront windows of our town painted with the saying "Are you tough enough to wear pink?" (to the rodeo this weekend at our county fair), promoting breast cancer awareness. It then occured to me that the cowboy in my painting is wearing a shade of pink...cool. And since I am a breast cancer survivor of over a year now it all seemed to fall into place...serendipitous, subliminal or something!

I believe it was Alanis Morrisette that sang that line in one of her songs, that she highly recommended "biting off more than you can chew". I decided to do just that when I tackled this painting. Normally I include every little detail in my oil paintings, but lately I've been trying to loosen it up and be more "painterly". So I used bigger brushes (on the advice of Kevin Macpherson's wonderful book "Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light and Color") and more paint than I normally use. I also tried a different composition with the point of interest on the far left side of the painting. There is plenty going on here, but if I had included the details in a tight realistic fashion, then the main idea would probably have been be lost in the busy-ness.

It's never easy jumping out of your comfort zone, but it is by far the best teacher. I will take everything I learned from this painting on to the next, and so on and on the learning journey goes...

This painting challenged me to represents the things that I love about rodeo; the hot sunlight swirling through a constantly dry and dusty atmosphere, colors in bright sunlight, colors in shade, colors through dust and big bursts of energy and motion.

Although I have been bucked off of a horse or two, I have never had the inclination to try and ride a real-live bronc, so when I am painting one, I get to let my imagination fly as to what the cowboy's and horse's experience might be like. The horse straining with every muscle to unload this unwanted man from his back and the man straining as well to predict the horse's moves and ride him out, all the while as the dust flies and the sky whirls and melts into the earth and arena. In this painting, I focused on the experience, color and action of the event by using bigger brushstrokes than usual and letting go of all the details that did not add to the spirit and intent of the painting. 

We are told to "get out of our comfort zone" so I definitely did here, but only out of necessity! I normally use a sanded pastel paper when painting landscapes and rodeo because it forces me to focus on the big shapes and not get too nit-picky about details. I did not have any Wallis paper on hand (which is an even textured sanded paper), so decided to try a different brand that I had bought a while back. After sketching in the main shapes I started in on the painting and was immediately put off by the very rough texture. I thought "I am never going to finish this at this rate" because I couldn't get the pastels to cover at all.

I kept at it and alternately kept thinking that I needed to start over on a more familiar surface. I was getting more and more frustrated when I  happened to grab my kneaded eraser and decided to try scrubbing the pastel into the paper with the kneaded eraser. I liked the effect and continued on in that manner. Lay down some color and pretty much mixed it on the paper with a swipe of the eraser. It almost felt like painting oils with a brush and I really enjoyed the process. I'm sure I will try it again... when I remember what paper it was I was using! 

I made a deliberate decision to use charcoal on sanded paper for the Rodeo Series, because it doesn't lend itself well to fine detail. That way I have been able to focus on the gesture and action of each event. This is the final drawing for this particular series.

When I am at a rodeo, I not only watch the main events, but I love watching the pickup men and rodeo clowns work, too. By the amount of time they spend in the arena, facing wild livestock, they are probably just as much at risk as the main competitors. They are swift, agile athletes and they have to know the animals and their moves.

I have been working on a series of rodeo drawings in charcoal over the past few months. This is the 6th in the series. Like the others, I used the sanded paper for an interesting texture. The barrel racer has just rounded the third barrel and is launching into the race for the finish line. No barrels were knocked down, therefore the title, "Fast and Clean".