Nancy Rynes Fine Art

About this oil: The challenge with this piece also ended up being a great joy: how to paint a white horse on a light background without the whole thing looking boring and flat. Lucky for me this horse wasn't pure white. He already had undertones of ochres, blues, and pinks on him -- I just needed to play those up a bit (and conversely, simplify the background). I decided on an approach that would use energetic and loose brushwork, coupled with intensifying the actual colors of the horse. My first moves were with a dark blue/gray to establish the outline, followed by light, washy layers of grays, ochres, pinks, and turquoise. I let the background go for a few sessions because I wasn't quite sure where I wanted to take it. Once a few layers of paint were on the horse, I decided on an approach for the background: minimalistic, but also carrying through it would be blushes of color that would mirror that of the horse. The very last touches were the darks and lights of the mane. Price includes a gallery-quality frame. Frame options are available.

Exhibited: Phippen Museum; Private collection; About this work: This inspiration for this piece was the interaction and relationship that this young cowgirl had with her horse. The two communicated without words, even in what seemed like insignificant moments such as adjusting a bridle. This is one of those pieces that seemed to paint itself...once I had the inspiration, the most challenging part of painting it was to keep from working it too much. I wanted it to remain loose and light, while highlighting the communication between horse and rider.

About this oil: This piece is a bit of a bookend that began with another painting titled "Start of the Day," and depicts a cowboy leading his horse back to the barn after many long hours of working with cattle. What I loved about this scene was the potential to keep most of the painting in muted colors, which then allowed the cowboy and his slicker to stand out. I've begun to embrace a more tonal color palette, as well as to play with combining tonalism with colorism.

A Native American woman rises early to greet the dawn on the first day of winter. Wrapped in a treasured buffalo robe, she wears a single eagle feather in her hair.

A Navajo ( Dineh ) woman contemplates the events of her life. This piece was actually inspired by a poem that came to me out of the blue one morning. The poem was interesting and heartbreaking at the same time...I knew I needed to paint it. I used gemstone-based paints in this one to give it a little extra punch of color (turquoise, rhodonite, and tigerseye).

About this oil The inspiration for this piece came from watching a cowboy moving cattle for over an hour. He and his horse communicated so effectively, yet so quietly, that they seemed to act as one entity. At one point, the cowboy and his horse executed a series of tight turns in order to move the cattle in a new direction. It is those turns that served as the inspiration for this piece. The color and movement of that orange slicker attracted me the most so that is what became the focus of this small painting. I intentionally muted and simplified the colors of the background in order to bring more attention to all of that orange. The color of that slicker was so intense that it almost seemed to color the air around it. Keeping the brushwork loose allowed me to create a sense of dynamic movement.

I'm always fascinated, and sometimes even amazed, by the beautiful, silent communication between horse and rider. This cowboy and his buckskin horse, working together in the northern Rocky Mountains, was no exception.

Each beginning holds promise, and each day is a new beginning. What is this cowboy thinking about at the start of his day? I wonder if he's planning all of the work that needs to be done on the ranch? Or perhaps he feels lucky that he's going to be outside under the wide open skies and not chained to a desk all day. To create the right atmosphere in my studio while painting, my background music was all of The Highwaymen recordings.

About this oil: While I enjoy creating historical painting of people, this modern scene totally captured my attention because of that amazing, red dance shawl. The model (Susan Smith) is a good friend of mine and wrapped herself in a shawl she picked out for part of our photo session. While she is of Apache and Pueblo descent, this dance shawl is anything but traditional. The red complemented her complexion and black hair so I played off that as much as possible. The feather she wears is a Harris' Hawk wing feather, a nod to her ancestry here in the American Southwest. To offset all of that red, I decided to leave the background a neutral taupe but livened it up with a lighter taupe outline.