Old Grey Mare Studio

Animal portraits, wildlife and country landscapes and still lifes in pastel, colored pencil and graphite. Original artwork and some prints available. Commissions accepted.


Originals from $65.00.

Sharon Michael
(606) 379-5149
kaleidoscopefarm@gmail.com




Portrait of one of my personal Rottweilers.



Graphite on smooth bristol 11 x 14















Portrait of English Bulldog, a beloved family pet.



Pastel on velour paper
16 x 20

Working Cow Horse

For a number of years when I lived in Montana, I was involved in breeding Quarter Horses and did quite a lot of riding and training. During the summers, several ranchers routinely held weekend training sessions at the small local arena which gave me the opportunity to get a lot of photographs of actual working cow horses in action.

This pencil study, which was done from photographs I took back in the 1970s, when we were raising Quarter Horses and competing ourselves, has always been one of my favorites.

Latest commission ... first portrait of a car!

They say you are never too old to learn something new and this is very definitely something new to me. I have never, ever, in 30-plus years of being an artist and doing commissions, drawn or painted a car.

I offered to donate one of my pictures to the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post to be raffled at the car show they were sponsoring. No problem, I've donated work a number of times before over the years, usually to various animal rescue groups.

Oops ... car show ... this means a car picture. Scramble for pictures of cars and books on how to draw cars! Frantic posts to Wet Canvas asking things like "how do you make it look like shiny paint?" I can do horse hair ... I haven't a clue how to make something look like shiny paint!

Three weeks later, this is the result. And I DID learn the techniques for making graphite look like shiny paint ... a whole new process, involving lots of sandpaper to powder the pencil lead and a big supply of Q-tips and sponge-tipped eye shadow applicators!

Ironically, this has led to my first actual paid portrait commission since I've moved from Montana to Kentucky .... yes ... another car! A good friend, who has known me many years, suggested I may be on my way to becoming the "Grandma Moses" of the car show crowd!

Carousel horse

Something new does come along often enough to keep me humble. The last thing was a suggestion that a carousel horse would be really nice for a grand-daughter's room, since she loves horses. I've always been a carousel "aficionado" and in fact had a small collection of porcelain carousel horses and have always thought a real, full sized carousel horse would be wonderful in my living room along with the wall art.

This piece was the result, 16 x 20 (framed) on bristol, with the horse done in graphite and the trappings done in CP. There are things I would change of course but the grand-daughter was thrilled ... love to do things for youngsters!

I rather think two small companion pieces, maybe head studies, might work as the next gift.

Old harness ... old barn

One of the graphite studies I did some time ago was from memory, the memories of the old harness "bits and pieces" that hung in the hayloft of the old stone barn on the ranch where I grew up. I worked from several photos of collars and hames, simplifying the image from the collection of harness that hung there. This hangs on my wall, for me an "idealized" image and a visual reminder of many hours spent playing in that barn and hayloft as a child.








My artist's eye, however, kept insisting that this image was not ideal and during the "long, hot summer" this year I decided to see what would happen if I approached it from a more artistic point of view.

This work-in-progress image shows it an an early stage, with the focal point blocked in, starting to work in the tonal values and giving me an idea of where I need to go with lights and darks.








This is the final version of the revised piece with the background both simplified and significantly darkened and it is probably, to most eyes, the more pleasing and artistic. The plainer, dark background puts the emphasis on the details of the horse collars and hames without the distraction of the stonework in the original study. The first image however is the one that is on my wall as the stonework is an integral part of my memories of the big stone barn that was my playground during my childhood.

WIP ... Farm Memories ... Milk can

This one is going to be a work in progress and I will see how it goes. I'm doing this as a 60th anniversary gift for parents of a friend, now retired but lifelong dairy people.




This is the photo I am working from primarily, though I have several others for detail and do have the actual milk can sitting in the shed as well.









Having problems with the camera "reading" the cream bristol as "not white" and of course line drawings do not reproduce well.

Drawing started here with some of the basic shading blocked in and brambles started. Mushrooms at the base have been blocked in and some of the background shading laid in behind them.







Still having trouble with the camera "reading" the white areas as "colored". But now further along with this and I've now decided it needs a tree on the right and have started there but need a lot more ground cover/foliage worked across the lower part of the tree trunk.

And looking at it again, tree trunk is too big for the small branch ... bigger branch or smaller tree. Shoot.





So the solution was to put in two small trees. I think this is going to work.

It looks in better balance. More definition needed on the trees and of course a lot more foliage and ground cover around and behind the trees in the lower right corner.






Finished. Think I may have about 20 hours of work in this one, not sure. Probably averaged about 2 hours a day for 10 days. If it wasn't for a gift I would probably do some additional work. Needs more detail in the foliage in front of and below the trees and I'm ot entirely happy with the shading on the milk can. I did learn quite a lot working with negative shading and I'm particularly pleased with how the mushrooms turned out.