Poseidon's Gift; Finished!

It took some marathon painting sessions over the past few days, but I was able to finish the painting today and even signed it, the very last thing I do when I finish a painting.

To the strains of Mozart and then some Gershwin (An American In Paris), I repainted the bay horse and the gray, put manes and tails on the horses, finished the galleon and painted two wee horse heads out in the waves swimming for their lives to shore. I even painted water draining off the horses' bellies, and that may be the coolest part of the whole painting.

I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out after some grave misgivings earlier. In the end it came together and serves the purpose for which it was created; to be a part of the Mural Mosaic project.

This painting is probably the biggest challenge I've given myself to date. It required a lot of research to pull it off, required that I paint something I've never painted before; the ocean and waves on a beach; and required working from less than optimum reference photos. The composition is entirely my own creation. I had no photo to copy to tell me where to put the elements and how big to make them.

There were many times when I thought that I'd bitten off more than I could chew and wished that I'd chosen a simpler subject that wouldn't have taken so much time and effort. But now that it's done, I'm glad I had the courage to go so far out of my comfort zone and do something that would help me to grow as an artist. It isn't perfect, but it's the best I can do at this time in my development as an artist.

And that's all I need ask of myself; to do the best that I can do today.

Click on the thumbnail to see a larger view and a detail view of some of the horses.

Poseidon's Gift; Water World

It took me two days just to paint the waves and the ocean. There were many false starts as I laid on paint, wasn't happy with the results and wiped it off again to try something different. Working without a good, solid reference of large waves coming onshore proved to be challenging, but I did the best I could and can only hope that these waves are a reasonable facsimile of moving water and the power that they represent.

You'll notice that the bay horse no longer has ears. He will get new ones today when I repaint him. With luck, I should be able to finish the panel today and then do some touchups if needed tomorrow.

Click on the thumbnail above to see the larger image. I just couldn't get a sharp image of the panel, but when it's finished, I'll use the tripod and that should yield better results.

Poseidon's Gift; Purple Clouds?!

Here are the results of another two days of painting, and this thing is finally coming together. Click on the image above to see a larger view.

Why purple clouds? Well, one of the challenges of creating these panels is that we have to follow the patterns and colors that are on them while adding our own artistic interpretations of the horse to them. We are only allowed to deviate by 20% in colors and lights and darks. So, purple clouds were a better idea than northern lights in a tropical setting in the daylight.

They ARE rather purple, though, aren't they? When all is dry, I will glaze some blue over them to bring them into a more realistic realm.

Tomorrow I start to paint the ocean and am really looking forward to that!

Poseidon's Gift; The Blood Bay Stallion

Yesterday was frustrating because I wasn't able to paint until late afternoon, but I kept at it until this horse was finished about 11:00pm. It was a challenge to paint a whole horse at such a small size, and I tried to keep my brush strokes more loose than usual and not fuss too much over every little bit.

This Andalusian horse is the main focus of the painting. I chose to make him a rich red bay because his warmth would be a good contrast to all the greens and blues of the ocean waves and therefore attract the eye. As usual, there are lots of corrections to make on him if the paint is dry enough. But, my goal for today is to finish the other two horses and the ship. Then I can go on to the sky and ocean.

I found the last time I painted that some of my alkyds had begun to dry in the tubes and become stiff, so I replaced those colors on my palette yesterday with oils of the same hue. That worked much better.

Poseidon's Gift; Spanish Galleons

I admit that, although I love sailing ships, I don't know a lot about them. So, my first step was to do research on the internet for spanish galleons. In fact, I got so caught up in all the information that I spent way more time than I needed to on this step. I learned about their design and uses and found several useful drawings and etchings of them.

Using these materials but being careful not to copy exactly, I drew a side view of a galleon in order to get a feel for its structure. Since no two galleon images I found were exactly the same, I sort of designed my own from the information that I'd gathered. That's what you see above. Since this is a working study only, I didn't bother with all the rigging or fine detail. I also did a stern view that will possibly be used in the painting but wasn't entirely happy with it.

My next step was to shoot the panel with my digital camera and put the image on my computer where I "played" with it in Photoshop, creating waves and clouds to see if the idea I had in my head would work or not. I think it will. I also put in a little version of the galleon for placement. Photoshop is such a useful tool for us artists in composing our artwork and saved me the time it would take to create a color study. Here is my little digital layout.



Next, it's on to creating the horses! The really fun part!