Working on this panel has brought many tears to my eyes.It was my hope that painting it would be part of the healing process for myself, of the loss of a great little horse! I hope that this painting will touch those who have shared in the suffering on the passing of our equine family members.I worked on Peach's eye in this next installment for most of the time and am very happy with how it turned out. I have been using Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, a tad of Alizarin Crimson and Naples Yellow so far in the palette. For the black of Peach's eye I used a mixture of Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue. I then worked on the cheek and face around the eye, cheekbone and then the muzzle. I will be adjusting the muzzle somewhat for tone and shapes, but am happy with the results so far. I am definately going to have to get my main reference photo of Peach blown up at Costco though...my eyes are killing me!
I am concentrating on getting most of the tonal range and colour the original panel had on it, as well as the shape it had on that diagonal...once I get this down, I can adjust the painting as I go. I am going to have to sacrifice the light palomino colouration of Peach somewhat to make the panel work as a whole, but I feel I am capturing her character which is most important.I was blocking in some of the colour with my synthetic brights, and then working with my sable brushes for the application of the rest of the colour and some blending on the panel. I find the oil paints are SO JUICY on this panel. I had forgotten how much fun it is to paint on panels with hardly any texture to them. I am having a wonderful time with this piece!
