Starting out and making the tough decisions

Today we spent the day digging into the workshop. I went over equipment and supplies in the morning and then we ventured outside to spend some time with the horses. Getting inspired to paint is sometimes easier said than done. The night prior we viewed a number of paintings of horses that Kim and I had downloaded so that we could talk about what sorts of paintings inspired us. We piggy backed on this today by looking at our own images of horses. Lynn and Kim grabbed their horses and then brought them one by one into the round pen to move around. I think the horses enjoyed it and it gave me a chance to get some great action shots of them with my camera. We even staged a photo shoot with one of the horses and Astri on the ground to give her a source photo to work from for a painting that she had been coming up with in her mind (that was an experience)!

Once the gals downloaded or chose the image they wanted to work from, we headed downstairs to get the main composition onto the canvas. Usually in workshops I spend a long time going over basic sketching techniques so that people can get their composition right and onto the canvas. This can sometimes take a long time and I know that it causes anxiety in people who are worried about getting it right. Like most things, if you don't get the composition right, you will struggle with everything else as errors accumulate. So, to help move this along - I brought the new projector I bought. It projects the image of whatever you want to paint onto canvas and then you can sketch around the image. I haven't used it before as sketching is pretty old hat to me now, but I watched the students use it and they loved it.

So, with the hard work done on decision making - tomorrow will be about getting colour onto canvas with the intent of leaving with a painting done. Based on what I see so far, these paintings will be some of the best yet. Stay tuned...

Pasture pals

I decided I needed a new painting in my office - something warm, fun and inviting. Inspired by a photo from Gisele's latest horse photography book, I composed a painting of three young horses playing with one another in the pasture. I wasn't too crazy on the coloring so changed the colors of the horses and took out a couple from the photo to arrive at my composition.
This painting caused me a lot of stress, likely because it is on a large canvas and the faces needed to appear clear in order for it to have the right impact. I am a semi realism/impressionism artist so I struggled with the clarity needed on the face of the one in front - particularly because I didn't have a reference photo to work from. At many points I had to close my eyes and imagine where the sun would hit which contours on his face in order to have it come across okay. There are far too many photos in the progression of this one to show here - suffice to say it took a few more hours than I was expecting.
Then when adding the glaze, I ran into a problem I hadn't had before - I think the glaze went a bit dry before I put it on and I ended up having some big sticky sections which, when dried, really stood out from the others. No matter what I did, you could see the streaks. So I ended up redoing it all in a matte finish, which makes it appear a bit darker than I would like, but I am happy with the end product regardless. Learning with each one - some more than others.
Back at work now so feeling an energy drain in the evenings, hope the weather clears soon and we can get back to riding so I can take more source photos to keep inspired.
Enjoy.