Sleigh Ride!

This painting has been very popular for my collectors and also licensing clients. It is the perfect Christmas image, both nostalgic and exciting! The horses are galloping briskly along the roadway with a frisky dog leading the way. The period dress of the sleigh's occupants suggest Victorian times, when horse and sleigh were the main mode of winter transportation. You might also notice a buffalo skin rug in their laps, which was used to keep travellers warm. The old wooden pump in the lower right corner is now a thing of the past. These pumps were carved entirely out of wood by skilled craftsmen!

The limestone house in the background was once owned by my wife and I. The beautiful blue spruce tree stands just as I have painted it, beside the house in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. The historic stone church in the background actually exists in Barriefield, just across the Rideau River.

I chose to paint a colourful winter sky in keeping with the animated feeling of the overall painting. This gave me the opportunity to reflect all of these colours in the snow and gives the picture additional life. The painting measures 18 inches high by 24 inches wide. It is painted in alkyd paint on a canvas support. The original is not for sale, but prints are available at: http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/richard-de-wolfe.html Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Fallen Angel

I like to do art photography as well as painting. This is a shot I took of a cement cast angel that usually resides on a raised portion of a bird bath in our back yard. I also like to write, and I am currently working on my first novel. I am considering this photo as the basis for the cover design, should it ever make it into print. I also offer this photo as an art print on Fine Art America. You can find many more of my photos and art prints at: http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/richard-de-wolfe.html

An Old Fashioned Christmas

I thought it was time to post a real Christmas painting. I call this one "An Old Fashioned Christmas". Plenty of nostalgia depicted here, about a much slower and innocent time, when most people lived in the country or at least very small towns and villages across Canada and the United States. In those days the main mode of winter transportation was by horse drawn sleigh or 'cutter'. The scene is typical of many communities in Easter Canada and the North- eastern United States. It is dawn on Christmas morning, and people are gathering at the church for an Early Christmas service.

My composition is based on an "S" pattern. The eye enters from the lower left following the direction of the horse and sleigh, over the bridge to where the figures in front of the church are congregated, and finally the church itself. The stone mill beside the church and the mail boxes in the lower right corner lead the eye back to the horse and sleigh approaching the bridge and the whole process is repeated. The snow covered spruce tree acts as a visual stop and keeps the eye from wandering off to the left.

The painting measures 48 inches wide by 30 inches high. It is painted on stretched canvas, and as I usually do, I worked in alkyd paint. I found this cutter in a Sotheby's auction catalogue and I loved the ornate style. It is being pulled smartly by a high stepping Hackney Horse.

Puppy Love - Step Five

I have resolved the dilemma of what to do with the bedding and cushions by using a colour scheme that is primarily purple with golden yellow accents. The purple is a restful, nocturnal colour and the gold is on the opposite side of the colour wheel, making it the complimentary in this case. It ties in nicely with the colour of the girl's hair, the puppy and the teddy bear, too.

I have created some dramatic, low lighting on the cushion in the background and deepened the dark brown behind them. There is now a distinct background, middle ground and foreground in the picture. This creates a feeling of depth in the picture and helps build a strong, interesting composition.

Detail and depth of colour are added throughout the painting, and finally, highlights are added at the very last as the finishing touch.

Puppy Love - Step Four

I continue to add detail, slowly building up colour and form primarily with thin washes and glazes using mat medium. I darken the background with a mixture of burnt umber and black to really punch out the foreground. Everything other than the bedding and pillows seems to really be coming together at this point. I am still undecided about what to do with the cushions in the background.

Puppy Love - Step Three

At this stage I begin introducing local colour throughout the painting. I wash in flesh tones on the face and arms of the sleeping girl. I begin accenting details on all three characters in the picture. Simple washes of colour are blocked in on the blanket and cushions behind the figure. I block in the hair with a wash of colour, then add initial detail with burnt sienna. I do the same with the puppy and the teddy bear, then concentrate on adding the most detail to the central character, the puppy.

The teddy bear leans into the picture and the girl's arm leads the eye to the puppy and then to the girl's face. The flow of the hair leads the viewer's eye to the cushions in the background. These cushions act as a 'backstop', leading the eye back to the teddy bear and the cycle is repeated, keeping the viewer's eye within the picture, always returning to the puppy and the girl's face.

Puppy Love - Step Two

Once the drawing is well fixed, I tone the entire surface with a thin wash of blue-gray acrylic paint, thinned heavily with mat medium and water. I add some slightly darker washes of the same colour, particularly in the bedding. Next, I begin building form and detail to the teddy bear, puppy and sleeping girl. The last thing I do at this stage is to block in the background with a heavier wash of burnt umber.