Finished this little painting today! It is small, 9 X 12" oil on canvas and took me about 20+ hours to complete. I'm happy I'm finished another one for my body of work for the Stampede Artist Studios show in July!The horses in this painting were the Calgary Stampede roughstock that were part of the 2005 Alberta Centennial horse drive. The herd was driven into the village of Hussar and circled in the middle of main street. Over 200 horses, a living whirling, sweating, wild eyed carousel! I had the good fortune to be able to stand in the back of an obliging rancher's 3/4 ton truck to get the awesome reference photos I used for this piece.
It is my hope that the photos will speak for themselves as far as the progression of the painting goes. I don't really want to spend the time talking about each step individually...I think my time is better spent working on the painting part. So study them closely, compare and enjoy!
I did corrections on the negative spaces in the far background a few times to get it where I wanted it. I used toned down, grayed down colours and looser brushwork for the horses in the distance to imply space. I did quite abit of dry brushing on the main bay horse to bring up the detail and to soften the features of his face. His eye was corrected a couple of times with drying time between each correction. Being the focal point, he is more detailed than the rest of the herd.
I used Burnt Umber + French Ultramarine for the blacks, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Cadmium Orange, a tiny bit of Cadmium Yellow Pale, Naples Yellow, Alizarin Crimson, Cerulean Blue and Titanium White. I used a tiny bit of linseed oil for the fine detail, and used Res N Gel for the bulk of the painting when it was needed to work wet onto wet.
Enjoy!
