"Sour Milk Gill" Oil Painting by James Swanson

"Sour Milk Gill" Oil Painting by James Swanson
"Sour Milk Gill" From the award winning painting series.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

The Land that Time Forgot!

 "Mackinac Horses"
By James Swanson
20" x 16" Oil on Linen Panel
Traveler for this painting Mary M.

News flash! A tiny island off the state of Michigan has stopped time!
No motor cars, trucks or buses move there and people have to get around like they did a hundred years ago by foot, bike or horse.
Downtown Mackinac Island
Welcome to Mackinac Island, and the home of the Grand hotel.
The Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island
This is where we meet our next Traveler Mary M. 
One of Traveler Mary M photos
Mary is an old family friend who visited there a few years back and was kind enough to share her photo album from there.
Mackinac State park
Traveler Painting "Mackinac Horses"This next painting came into being because of an art contest at Mackinac. The contest had to do with Mackinac life. Since our friend Mary had recently been there she offered her photos for me to pick from. I wanted to paint horses do I cropped in tight on one to work from.
Painting steps to Mackinac Horses:
Oil sketch on canvas. 
Here are the colors I mixed for the beginning of the painting.
The darkest dark colors are painted in first.

Next I moved to the mid tone colors.

Then the higher key colors were added. At this point I decided that I was going to just paint the horses and their rigging and let the background go.

Here the defining of the horses took place. To keep the painting from getting flat I gave the horses their own space. I did that by painting them slightly differently. The front horse received most of the little details while the other horse was done in big simple strokes.


Done. This painting was fun. It was one of those paintings where when ever you put down a stroke you liked it and went on.
Details from the painting




 
"Mackinac Horses"
By James Swanson
20" x 16" Oil on Linen Panel
Traveler for this painting Mary M.
A big thanks goes out to Mary M. for the use of her photos. See more of her photos here.
Also a little note on this painting, it didn't win a prize in the art show. But it was bought and will be staying at the Grand Hotel. Not a bad new stable.
Well, I'm off to find a new venue to paint. Until we meet again hold on to your horses.
The artist and traveler project is always looking for new places and faces. Contact me here or at www.theartistandthetraveler.org to take part.

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Have a good travel story and some fun and interesting pictures and we can get started on a painting journey.E mail me here with
name, place, and a few pics of the spot,and I'll get back to you.