Cornered - New drawing by Sheona Hamilton-Grant

This year, the focus is on daring to spice things up, dramatically.

"Cornered", in my mind for over 4 years, as seen the light and I love it.

My scribble friends have delivered.

They have dared to push compositional boundaries, over-use negative space, confront the viewer with a new phenomenon, highlight a slice of the bigger picture.

Successfully cornering reality.

"Cornered"

Pencil on Paper, 17x21 cm

950 Euros

Sheona Hamilton-Grant. All rights reserved.

Find more of my work at SheonaHamiltonGant.com

follow me on FACEBOOK  https://www.facebook.com/SheonaHamiltonGrantArtist

Henry New commissioned drawing by Sheona Hamilton-Grant

Drawing Henry was easy. 
A warm friendly aura encircled him, reflected in his eyes, echoed in his sun-bleashed forelock, highlighted by his bold sprinkled blaze, completed by his soft snuggly nose.
 It was an honour to immortilise this noble soul.
It is so easy to see why he is sorely missed.

"Henry"

pencil on paper

SOLD

Sheona Hamilton-Grant. All rights reserved.

View more of my work at www.SheonaHamiltonGrant.com

Check out my blog Black on Grey on White sheonas.blogspot.com

or simply find my on Facebook sheonahamiltongrantartist.com

Ugly .... no such thing

Sandor

41 x 29 cm

pencil on paper.

SOLD

Sheona Hamilton-Grant. All rights reserved.

"My horse is ugly!"

These words were said to me a few years ago after the subject of a portrait came up and they bothered me ... no end.

There is no such thing as an ugly horse.

Every time my pencils get scribbling they prove it, show the world just how erroneous those words were.

Each stroke merging tones, combining strength, proving in black on white the fallacy of this perception.

A beautiful chiselled equine face has a “wow factor” but take one, like Sandor (pictured above) shaped out of honesty, wisdom and kindness the “wow factor” is just as big and lands just that little deeper.

Underneath the muscle and the power is a mind blowing personality and astuteness that is anything but … ugly!

Find more pencil work by Sheona at SheonaHamiltonGrant.com

"Dicke Tour" drawing by Sheona Hamilton-Grant

Dicke Tour

Pencil on Paper, 50x46 cm

Sheona Hamilton-Grant. All rights reserved.
Limited Edition Prints available. (Run of 99)

Find out more on how Dicke Tour was drawn by checking out  my blog Sheonas.blogpsot.com

Wind in your hair...

Tonight my husband and I did something we haven't done since we were kids.  Driving home in a desultory kind of way from the grocery store, we passed a school playground baking in the late afternoon sun.  Within 5 minutes we were both climbing onto the swings and heavenbound.  And with the lurching back and forth of the swing, the feeling of breaking the boundaries of the earth and soaring into the oak tree limbs, the stomach dropping moment of weightlessness at the apex of the arc, with each pass of the wind in our hair we felt better, younger, lighter.

This is my first blog post of 2012.  I realize that, and, if any of you were anxiously waiting out there for an update on the studio antics of one Joanna Zeller Quentin and Co, I humbly apologize.  It's not that I/ we haven't been busy - we have!  Four months into 2012, I've traveled to California and Louisiana to see my work hanging in big art exhibitions, seen my art published on the cover of a major six-week long international horse show program, had lunch and rubbed elbows with Olympians, seen some world class horses do incredible things, gave a giant hug to to my favorite author, taken over 2500 reference photos of various animals doing interesting things, had work accepted to a major wildlife art show, actually completed more work in time for the deadline for another major art show and become a member of the International Equine Artist's Association.  Whew!

Anyway, the point of all this is that being on the swings tonight reminded me of the simple, meditative joys of doing what you love, and how important that is to your emotional, physical and mental well being.  Watching twilight bleed through the oak trees in a sky Maxfield Parrish would have envied (and then painted, of course), listening to the soft squeak of the metal chains, feeling the air rush past my face, and just being oddly present and yet a million miles away... it was NIICE.  Better than nice, it was inspiring.

So I came home and spent some time working on a new watercolor.  I've got some vague plan of gouache and oil and gold leaf, so we'll see how that works out.  In the meantime, here are a few "new" images for 2012.  There's much more to come, so please stay tuned!  And, as always, thanks for reading.

PS - the new Jack White CD ROCKS.

(and just a reminder, please respect my copyright.  All work ©Joanna Zeller Quentin 2012.  All Rights Reserved.  www.MoosePantsStudio.com)

"Naples"  oil on canvas

"Flying Purple Plantain Eater" mixed media on board

"A Plea for Wilderness" india ink and scratchboard

"To the Jumper Ring"  pen and ink on bristol

"Chestnut Sketch #1, Alla Prima"  Oil on board

"Power Steering"  Oil and ink on board

"Picture Perfect" Watercolor and gouache on board

"Rhapsody in White" watercolor on paper

ALL WORK ©Joanna Zeller Quentin 2012.  All Rights Reserved.  

www.MoosePantsStudio.com 

"... a rose by any other name..."

"Only the Lonely" done- 12 minutes before the"official" deadline.  It has gone off into the wide netherworld of cyberspace in little electronic swirls and whispers, and will hopefully coalesce in the designated email inbox as a fully realized, fully articulated sweeping ode to a magnificent equine in shades of burnished grey, evocative of isolation, fragmented beauty, windswept barren plains, the essential duality of light and dark, day and night, good and evil.  Or maybe it will just look like a picture of a horse.


My bestest best friend in the whole wide world complemented me on my names today. "You always have the most clever, intelligent names..." which is high praise, coming from her.  And it is true, I spend a great deal of time thinking about what I'm going to call a picture.  If I can't come up with the perfect name for it - before a single line has been drawn - it doesn't happen.  There have been a few exceptions to this rule, and almost all of them are half finished train wrecks of ink and paint.  They lack that last little bit, the "je ne sais quoi" if you will, and I have to think it's because of the name.


A name gives purpose, direction, attitude.  My degree is in fine art, but my field of study for 4 years was Illustration, or "the visual representation of a thought, emotion, idea" etc.  The naming of a piece, therefore, captures the mindset I want to be in while working on it, dreaming about it, scribbling it out.  Hopefully, sometimes some of that makes its way into the actual art as well, but that might just be wishful thinking.  And it's fun, too.  "Office Romance" presents not only the real life love affair of husband and wife cattle ranchers, but also presents what for many of us would be an ideal working environment -  on the back of a horse with your sweetheart, breathing in fresh air and sunshine, roaming across the open country.  "Red" is not only done almost entirely in a red color palette, but also reflects the common barn name of many chestnut racehorses, including Man o' War and Secretariat.  "Lope" shows a cantering, or "loping" horse, but was done as a fundraiser for LOPE (Lone Star Outreach to Place Ex Racehorses @ www.lopetx.org).  And I must mention here that "Only the Lonely" was actually suggested as a name for another piece by my mother, but I immediately grafted it onto the then unformed drawing which was simply hanging out there waiting for the perfect name.  So, thanks Mom!


And finally, here is the newest entry in the stable.  Graphite, conte crayon (and eventually india ink) on clayboard.  My reference photo is of two sweet, gentle Belgian mares nonchalantly lounging about in their field, but a slight breeze just barely lifted tendrils of mane up at the right moment when I took the shot, and I took the idea and ran with it.  Here is the beginning of "Tempest".  (And I apologize for possibly the worst photo of artwork ever taken!)

"Tempest" WIP  

©Joanna Zeller Quentin 2010.  All Rights Reserved.  www.MoosePantsStudio.com

"Only the Lonely"

© Joanna Zeller Quentin 2010.  All Rights Reserved.  www.MoosePantsStudio.com

"Above the Bit", graphite drawing by Sheona Hamilton-Grant

Here is "Above the Bit.", my latest soluble graphite study.

A study of the drama that goes on before the fence

The title is somewhat obvious forming a nice contrast, I feel, with the crop I chose to illustrate.

"Above the Bit"

23x22 cm. Graphite on paper

300 Euros ( 390$)

If you are interested and would like to see how this drawing came to life, you are very welcome to pop over my studio blog Black on Grey on White where the six main steps are illustrated and explained.

One foal, three wild moves....

Here is Zig Zag a little 3 day old filly.
On the day of the shoot she spent the better part of 15 minutes at full speed and literally on her toes: bubbling with life and overflowing with energy.
Ciao, Fancy Free and Footloose have been my way of studying and illustrating and understanding her baby "steps".
The very interesting thing about drawing foals is the way in which you have to render their little muscles: they are so defined and tense yet underdeveloped. The other thing is the over-dimensional width and length of their legs...a little surreal. However, I really just can't help smiling when drawing them.

Open edition prints are available. For more information do not hesitate to contact me at www.sheonahamiltongrant.com