Fasig-Tipton Texas Summer Yearling Sale

This past Monday and Tuesday Fasig-Tipton and the Texas Thoroughbred Association held their annual Summer Yearling Sale at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas. While the first day was a little weak, the pace picked up on the second day with a number of sales over $70,000 and up to a record $330,000 for a Pleasant Tap/Tensie's Pro Yearling Colt (bottom photo).
I picked a few of my favorite images from the 2 days of sales and have posted them on the left. The first was taken of a owner or agent with his charge waiting to hand him over to the handler for the next up in sale. The second image is of two ring men watching their portion of the sales arena for bidders. As bids start coming in you will see them inticing the bidders to increase their offers as the price rises.
The third image shows a portion of hip number 397, with an added sticker advertising the respected yearlings parental record. Each yearling in the sale has a lot (hip) number sticker on their hips and a few have added an additional sticker. Additional Sale horses may be seen in my Sale Horse Gallery.



This Pleasant Tap/Tensies Pro Colt is a Lousiana Bred Yearling which sold for a Fasig-Tipton yearlng record of $330,000. Overall Results for this sale may be found on the www.fasig-tipton.com. Look for the Texas Sale Results for the 2007 Summer Yearling Sale.

Sale Day - How to fix a bad background

Today was the first day of a two day Fasig-Tipton Summer Yearling Sale in Grand Prairie, Texas. Photographing horses in the middle of a bright August afternoon is quite challenging. The stable areas at race tracks are not known for park-like landscaping. Weeds, straw bins, cars, unattractive barn sides, weeds, and people with horses can make a nice background difficult to find. The sun direction also dictates in which direction I must shoot. I look for my shadow and it points to where to set up the horse. After I return home I use photoshop to remove all unwanted background clutter. As you can see in the before (above) and after (bottom) photos, I have taken the folks that were leading their horse to the sale barn, out of the image so that I have a clean photo of this Trust N Luck Filly consigned by 4M Ranch.
I never change the conformation or appearance of the horse in any way.

Sketchbook: Turrell Skyspace

Thursday evening I departed from the assigned drawing project at the Nasher Sculpture Center and went to the The Turrell Skyspace Room where I spent the remaining opening time drawing the view of the sky space in the image to the left. This drawing was done on black archival construction paper with charcoal, white pencil, and oil pastel. After returning I studied this work a bit more and repeated but reversed the image in ultramarine acrylic (skyspace) and medium and soft pastel (ceiling and walls) on 15x20 watercolor paper.

Mid-Week Photo Trip

This past Wednesday I went on a teaching photo shoot to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Northwest Shores of White Rock Lake. Since my student is a Professional Artist, the goal of this shoot was only to teach a friend how to use her new digital camera. We first visited the Dallas Museum of art and worked on taking photos of some of the permanent collection. There are very strict rules concerning photography in the galleries, the most important of which are 1) Permanent Collection Only and 2) No Flash. There are gallery attendants that will answer any questions regarding which art work can be photographed. The biggest challenge is white balancing our images so they show the natural color with the available light source. I photographed many of my favorite art work and museum subjects and have posted them in this Gallery.


After a lunch break at Cafe on the Go at Central Market, we headed to the Northwest Shore of White Rock Lake where we worked on Outdoor subjects. While I worked in color, my student experimented with the B&W picture modes on her camera. We compared our images as we shot. The color images I captured at the lake are posted in this Gallery.

Sketchbook: Manet's Isabella Lemonnie

After several weeks I returned to sketching in the galleries. We were assigned to the European Galleries tonight. I chose a 1879 portrait by Manet. I first did a contour drawing and then did this drawing on brown paper with Ebony, graphite and white pencil.

In the Kitchen: Eggplant and Canadian Bacon Parmesan Pizza

Tonight I wanted to find a new way to fix eggplant. I decided to try pizza. After soaking my sliced eggplant in balsamic vinegar for several hours, I sauteed it in olive oil along with the Canadian bacon. In a separate pan I also sauteed some bell pepper. For Pizza sauce I used crushed tomatoes with Italian spices. I prepared a crust using an inexpensive dried mix. After preparing crust I put in oven at 450 til the crust was firm but not yet browned. I then added the sauce, eggplant, Canadian bacon, bell pepper, and fresh Parmesan cheese. I then returned the pizza to the oven until crust was browned and cheese melted.

Summer Cutting Spectacular, one last look.

This is the view I had from above the cutting working area. The Cowboys you see to the right are trainers watching the cows, before their clients ride later in the set. They help find the cows most likely to provide the best opportunity show the horse. The cows they choose must not be too soft that the horse cannot show his best cutting skills, and not so wild as to run past the horse back into the herd.