Second session painting the Peach Panel

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!

Mosiac Mural Panel "A Tribute To Peach"

When I received my panel for the Le Cadeau Du Cheval -The Horse Gift I was excited that I received my first choice! When I originally chose it, I thought I knew what I was going to do with it. My first vision was to paint a generic palomino horse throwing its head up, a roughstock horse, one loaded with attitude. This is what I saw in the tonal values of the panel...but when the panel arrived, I had already been considering an image that meant a whole lot more to me emotionally. This mural will be travelling the World and I felt the need to pay tribute to our beloved pony Peach.

Peachy Keen, fondly known as Peach, died in December after a heroic battle with colic and the surgery that followed. She and my daughter did so much together through all the years they shared. They were in pony club, participating in Prince Philip games, jumping, cross country, dressage and lots of trail riding. I wanted to capture the free spirit and Alpha mare attitude she had. She thought she was much larger than her 13.3hh stature. A Shetland/Appendix QH cross, Peach LOVED to jump! She could easily do a 3'6" jumping course, and she and Laura made it to C level in Pony club. She loved it so much, that on numerous occasions she would jump while at liberty, or follow Laura across the cross country course jumping along side Laura.

So I dragged out all the photos I could find of Peach and Laura. It was hard to do, it bringing so many mixed emotions, so many great memories of the two of them and reminding me of the great loss.

I found the photo I was looking for, one of Peach the day we first brought her home to the farm where we boarded. We had set her loose with the herd, and she galloped, played and teased the geldings relentlessly, showing the character and attitude to which we would come to love about her!I found other reference shots I would use, wanting her in summer coat, not the motley coat of late spring. To use the eye and muzzle from another, and lighting from another to better suit the design of the panel. I fiddled with the drawing part for a couple of days off and on. Then the other night I started to paint Peach at about 11:00pm, just wanting to block in the basic tones and ended up putting about 2 hours into it. I will be sorry to send this little panel off and not keep it, but I want to share this wonderful little pony's spirit with all who view it.

diving into the realm of blogging

*Splash*!!

I have just dived into the realm of blogging! I thought I would never do this, I have far too many 'other' things to do in my life, let alone allow the Computer to drag me away from my artwork with yet another distraction.

Its all Mosaic Murals doing. I wanted to be part of the online sharing and interaction that will be going on with the Le Cadeau du Chavel project.
http://muralmosaic.com/

Having said that, I need to find my towel and climb outta this 'pool' and go get some stuff done!