'Nam : the Cheltenham festival

[DM Dent]

Well it's that time of the year again.
the Cheltenham Festival is a mecca for horse lovers from all over the world and I hope the high winds don't disrupt the ferries from Ireland. About 70 000 a day will be there and a good proportion of those from Ireland.

My brotherand I are exhibiting there as usual as we have done for twenty years. Hard graft though; £8k rent for our gallery.
I attach two of my paintings to show you the kind of thing we will be showing there.
Oneis a painting of my own horse Green green Desert who won at cheltenam and was second twice at the festival. We have only had him since he was retired but he has a loving home. He was my fave rachorse (as he was and still is such a character) ever so to be given him was very special.

That is in ink and oil; called "Friend or Foe?Thoroughbred Gothic"

Then the other is a steeplechase as seen from a fallen jockeys view.
That's oil on canvas 5ft by 3ft. Calld "The High and TheMighty"

Both those are sold but we have giclees of them which I put original colour enhancement on.
I don't have any of the new work photographed yet but will post them as soon as I get them done this week.

Oh well got to be up early and will be back next week after 4 days of drinking and mayhem and passion and betting and the finest and bravest horses and riders in the world.

my tips:
Sublimity champion hurdle tomorrah
Monkerhostin (e/w) a handicap not sure which day
Junior e/w coral cup wed.
Deman gold cup fri
knowhere e/w gold cup frday

[PatrickHedges]

£8k rent for our galleryWOW!! That is some serious dosh!!

Great to see your work here :clap:

[winecountry]

is that from a photo ref? was someone under the jump? wow these are great, good luck!

[Ceci]

love them both, specially the one on the left. Great work
ceci

[Ceiliog]

2 good pics - but one is really lifted by teh daring and imaginative composition - nice to see people taking chances, and for these chances to come off so well

[stirling]

Two very nice paintings,look forward to seeing more,thanks for sharing.

Best from mike.

[ARTMUTT]

Great work I love the second one the view is really neat

[Winky'sMom]

Both look great to me too! The one on the left is my favorite.

[jody007]

I really love the first one!
Jody

[Tim Taylor]

Beautiful. exciting work!

Tim

[amandanator]

Beautiful paintings! I lreally ove the steeplechase painting!

Look forward to seeing more. Good luck at the show.

Mandy

[DM Dent]

Thanks for the compliments everyone.
today's racing was cancelled due to high winds; which is a shame as we had a really good day yesterday and looked like a good sales week hitting 60% of target on day one.
So now we have 9 races tomorrow and friday...which sounds great but its less "shopping" time as it were.

Didn't back any winners yesterday but had a 100/1 4th which had bad luck in running; and a 40/1 2nd. Oh well tomorrow may be better on the betting front.

The steeplechase picture had some photo reference but the composition is mine. Also the treatment is completely unlike the photo. Problem with working too much from photos is you end up only producing what a photo can anyway; so whil I use them for reference (I can't have jockeys saying my whip ain't that colour" or my horse has "two white socks not one" and stuff) I tend to avoid them when I can.

The one of my horse started as a quick pencil sketch from life. I caught something ....spirit...a camera couldn't. He was trotting toward me one ear forward on ear back ....and I thought "here we go am I going to get a bite or a cuddle" and then I thought he is probably thinking himself "am I going to get a treat or a bath" so it was "friend or foe" for both of us. I wanted to give the viewer two contrasting feelings: fear and awe; and love,respect and beauty. And anyone who knows horses know all those feelings are in fact one. I know him like the back of my hand and can draw him from memory anyway. Then I copied it as a line drawing in ink, and then added washes of turpsy oil thin for the dark areas used oil body colour for the highlights.



The thing to do is to paint things you are passionate about. So I paint horses and women ;) and my saying in life is "fast women and slow horses" lol!

Here is my horse Green Green Desert when he won at Cheltenham:
http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/1639961.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF19390335F8FA9CA92A6F295A06A0E16D5209930FDCFC4C15FBB


He is in the pink colours with the sheepskin noseband.
He loved steplechasing and was brilliant but was bored stiff by flat racing and used to dog it. That is the case with so many horses and it worries me when people who don't know about horses think steeplechasing is cruel. A horse won't do anything it doesn't want to. The first thing desi did when I first had him was run around like a loon then jump a 7foot hedge from on field to another. He misses it and always gets himself as fit as a flea for this time of year as he knows its cheltenham but as he is intelligent its easy to occupy him.
He finds everything interesting especially errr..."creative" dressage, my girlfriend's pockets (polos) my hats and birds. For some reason he loves birds. One pigeon used to sit on his withers, in the stable or in the field. A fox killed it and he was dreadfully upset so will always chase foxes now with his ears back. Unfortunately he sees dogs in the same light since too so I couldn't ever take him hunting as he would go for the hounds too lol!

Anyway I digress.
I really like the chasing pic as I think the digaonal is a strong compositional element and focussed the attention on the horses in front who are again focused on the cheltenham grandstands. So it leads you into the picture...but at speed. Then also they are also above you as viewer so it makes you think omg someone is on the floor under those flailing hooves and I hope that gets the message over that the guys and girls who do this risk their lives for their love of the capability of horses. One of my best friends was killed a few years ago. To me the horses and jockeys are true modern gladiators who excel in a world of timid medicority. By tuning into the horse: tapping into the natural comptitiveness of this magnificent animal, the race rider and the racehorse become one: to lead the herd is all and fear has no place. And it is only when one loses fear that you can shake your reins at life and make it truly worth living.

Oh well I will be fearless tomorrow when I enter the betting ring and have a wad on My Way de Solzen in the stayers hurdle.

Irish gothic poet Yeats had it so right in 1910 and anticipated modern life:

At Galway races by WB Yeats (1865-1939)

http://www.poetry-archive.com/t_pic.gifHERE where the course is,
Delight makes all of the one mind,
The riders upon the galloping horses,
The crowd that closes in behind:
We, too, had good attendance once,
Hearers and hearteners of the work;
Aye, horsemen for companions,
Before the merchant and the clerk
Breathed on the world with timid breath.
Sing on: somewhere at some new moon,
We'll learn that sleeping is not death,
Hearing the whole earth change its tune,
Its flesh being wild, and it again
Crying aloud as the racecourse is,
And we find hearteners among men
That ride upon horses.

[Frank van Boxtel]

WOW! Number 2 is absolutely fantastic. It's just brimming with energy and the colour choices are great!