Race horse paintings

It's getting to the crazy time of the year here.

One of the events I would like to attend is the Western Cape Equine Trust fund raising. WCET is a non profit organisation's who restrains former race horses and find them homes after the racing career. Most of the horses are still young - 3, 4 years old as only a few make it in the demanding industry. These youngsters then need to find a new home--that's where WCET comes in. I used to volunteer at WCET  but since they have moved their location, we're unable to participate.

Here are my 2 last babies:

Two young race horses from April yearling sale

Double portraits and pricing

My latest commissions were 2 double portraits - beautiful twins (from the previous post) and a stunning couple.

People often ask why is the double portrait so much more expensive than a single, even though it is the same or similar size.  Double (and multiple) portraits more challenging than singles. Yes, I would not be using much more canvas and paint for double portrait compared to single, but...

- I still need to paint another portrait that would take me the same time as the single- so doubled time and attention.
- in the double the portrait is a bit smaller and its harder to get the details in it to achieve likeliness;
- the colors need to match. With that I mean that colors should not only be life like for one person, but also if looked between two people. For example in the couple portrait, it was easier to choose the colors as the skin tones are fairly distinct.
- if the portrait is combined from a different photos / positions, it involves extra planning to make the portrait look natural.

All in all, this was a fabulous commission. I am happy with the result, so are the clients :)

PS. Both portraits are oil on 14x18 inch stretched canvas.

Start of a double portrait Ritmart

Here is basically finished product of the twins :)

Twins
14x18 inch, oil on canvas

African card

Here is another small African card that I did

And a lion just for fun :) 

I am currently working on 2 commission paintings for a client and can hopefully post those on here too. With clients permission of course:)

Granny Rose,

Background. The painting was ordered by my ex-colleague Robyn for her boyfriend Wouter who is my colleague now. The boyfriend usually takes over the shift when I go home after mine.

One day Robyn approached me and asked if I would be able to paint a portrait for Wouter’s birthday and I agreed. Her boyfriend, of course, would not know and the painting would come as a surprise.  It turned out to be a photo of Wouter’s late grandma – what fantastic idea! This, however made things a bit more difficult as the scanned photos that Robyn sent me were of a poor quality- e.g., did not provide enough detail for a good portrait painting. In paintings the more detailed is the photo, the better is he resulting painting.

Eventually we agreed that Robyn will give me the photos when she drops Wouter at work and I go home. This worked out well. The photo had Wouter and his grandma on it. I was able to take better digital photos and get more detailed information, although it was not great either.

Of course, I never got to meet the grandma, but she looks like a very cool one, like the ones that have loads of love, but does not take any nonsense too I could not go too much in details and thus used a loose painting style and kept to the soft colors. We also added the roses to the top as granny loved gardening and her roses especially. 

Since there was no need for the actual photo anymore, I decided to take it to work and give it to Robyn when I have a chance. It was my night shift and I had the photos in the book I was reading. As one can imagine this was not a good idea, as I forgot the book on the table. Someone knocked the book and the photos fell out! Wouter of course recognized the photos and the question was raised- why does Ritma have photos of you? :D

We had to pretend that Robyn borrowed be the book and the photos were in it originally. This was a bit awkward, but everything came clear after the painting was presented. I am pleased to announce that Wouter loves the painting. 

Hand painted post cards

A few months ago I went to my favorite art shop (PNA in South Africa, they are specially good in Somerset West/ Strand area) and came across watercolor postcards- they are blank postcards that can be customized according to ones wishes.  I thought its such a cool idea. So here are some of mine:

They all are size A6. I find painting these fun as they are small and quick- well, compared to what I am used to. All are painted with acrylic, but i do think of giving an oil paint a try too. The only worry is if the oil is going to seep through the paper?

Now I need to figure out what to do with these postcards- cos at the rate I am going I will soon have a full house with these. I was thinking of maybe offering to do these for charity- in that case everyone benefits- charity with earning some bucks, me distributing my work. I think that's a great idea, what do you think?

"Sun kissed" portrait

Very often my biggest problem is choosing the subject to paint. especially if it is oil and on canvas - for some reason oil on canvas feels so much more serious. In fact acrylic is often a more durable medium.

So, one day I was browsing through Facebook, just like we all do, and I saw this photo of my friend. Oh, my- what an amazing photo! With her permission I am posting the portrait painting of her based on that photo. I know she is not a fan of yellow, but for some reason, yellow felt like the right color for it:)

Attempt at Trevor

We just got back from a 5 weeks holiday in Europe where I did not touch a brush. So yesterday I decided to check if I can still do it. The hardest thing is always to choose the subject. This time I chose Trevor Noah as he is now a very popular South African comedian in the States heading the Daily show.

The painting is on oil and in ala prima (wet on wet, finished in one srsion) technique, since I have to go to work the next morning and I am too impatient to leave the painting for longer.

The painting took me about 2 hours, but I am not happy with it. I know 2 hours is quite quick, but Trevor does not look like Trevor. There are some similarities, but I missed something.

I see many artists do daily paintings, I will have to do that too, to get my game up. There are only 2 problems- when to find time and what to do with those paintings afterwards?

African Rhino painting

For a while I had this idea of painting on shwe-shwe fabric instead of canvas. I have now tried it and am very happy with the result. The shwe-shwe is 100% cotton.

Oil on shwe-shwe SOLD

Horse painting - speed painting

I love painting portraits. It can be portraits of humans or animals- I simply enjoy it better than landscape, still life or abstract.

Horses are one of my most favourite subjects. In fact my whole venture in art started with horses - as far as I remember- I have been drawing horses :)

Here is my latest painting and time lapse. I hope you enjoy it.

Oil painting time lapse portrait

My laptop is not doing so well lately and I have been using my phone to check the reference photo when painting, which is not ideal- the screen is tiny and I need to keep unlocking the phone all the time.

But then I decided to attempt a time lapse / speed painting video:

Here is the finished painting. SOLD.

2018 paintings

The 2018 has started slow for me. Since I did the tourist guiding course in October and been guiding here in Cape Town, there was not much time for painting. Oh, we also did major renovations in the house and painting and dust don't co exist very well.

Brushes and paint tubes were finally dusted off (literally!) in March, 2018.

Here are the results since then:
All of them are 30x40cm oil paintings on canvas grain paper.

RAW by R.Grizane
SOLD

LITTLE APPLE

UNTITLED
SOLD

PINK DREAM by R.Grizane

BE SELF
SOLD

INNOCENCE

Have an awesome time painting!!!