Bard Goes Green

When I pulled out the time sheet for Bard's portrait, I was shocked to see that it's been three months since I last gave him any attention. It had been my intent to work on him at the same time as the Mural Mosaic panel, but the panel paints dried so fast that I was able to work on it every day. With a short deadline, I just kept going until the panel was done.

So, here is Bard with a fresh new background. Using bristle brushes, I tried to keep the brush strokes loose and mixed some of the pigments on the canvas for a varied, leaf-like look. Bard just LOVES to go trail riding, and I'd like to give the background the look of the deep woods that we ride in where he loves to go.

The hues are a little more intense than I'd planned, and since I managed to scrape some paint off with a finger nail this morning, I'll do another layer after I work on Bard again. If I'd been back more in Painting Brain, I would have added a touch of cadmium orange to the greens to dull them down a little for a more realistic look, but I can do that in the next go round. I was also a little concerned that the values might be too close, but when I walked into the darkened studio last night, Bard stood out from the background just fine.

I must say that after all the pondering I've done about what to do with his background, I like this a lot. And after all the gardening, it's good to be painting again.

Poor Bard Gets Ugly

The good news is that I was able to finish the underpainting stage of Bard's portrait yesterday. The bad news is that it's in the Ugly stage, as we artists call it. Every work of art seems to go through this stage at some point in its creation, so I'm not too concerned.

I did have some problems, however, getting the paint to go on the canvas smoothly. It just wouldn't happen, and I don't remember having that problem with the Belgian painting. But, then again, I did that underpainting so long ago that it's nothing more than a dim memory. This stage will be covered over with layers of paint, and the roughness will disappear as the layers build up, resulting in a glossy coated look for our boy, The Peppermint Kid.

And now that Spring is here and the horses are pretty well shed out, I can always run out to the barn with the painting if I need to check something, like accurate coat color. That could be risky, though, since no doubt his pasture mate, Cory, will be right in my face with nose to the canvas checking it out. And Bard will be looking for peppermints!

On second thought, maybe it would be safer to take a few tubes of paint or colored pencils and just do a quick sketch from outside the fence. Yeah, that'll work!

The Tweaking Stage

Bard has now gone through the tweaking stage as every work of art does. You think it's done and then you see little things that need changing. The tweaking stage could last forever if you don't put your foot down at some point and say, "Stop! Enough is enough. It's as good as it needs to be."

There also comes a point when you have to put the reference photos aside and ask yourself, "Now what does it need, artistically?" Maybe something in a reference photo just doesn't look right in the artwork or isn't working compositionally. That was another step I took today. I set aside the photos and went with what I know and what gave Bard more roundness and form. 

You may not be able to see any difference from the former version because the changes were mostly subtle. I did darken the inside of his ears, added more shading on his cheek and lower neck and reshaped his shoulder among other things. And, I'm calling it good unless my client requests any changes.

I did start back to work on an old drawing also today, but it isn't far enough along to show you yet. That's just a little tease to get you curious and coming back. It's a much larger pencil drawing of a dressage horse and rider. 

A Stormy Day in the Studio

Today was a perfect day to stay home and get something accomplished. We've been under a winter storm warning since last night when temperatures dropped from 44 degrees to a low of 7 this morning. The wind howled all night and continues to do so today although we aren't getting much snow. I love stormy days in winter and the cozy warmth of the house, knowing that my horse is safe and also warm in the barn where I board him.

So, today after washing some really grimy saddle pads in the laundry tub, I got back to work on the portrait of Bard. I thought it was going to be an easy portrait, but it hasn't turned out that way. After tracing the line drawing onto some drawing paper, I began the shading process and immediately things went south. Bard didn't look like Bard anymore! How could that be? So today I studied and studied all the reference photos, made a change here and another there and gradually Bard reappeared in the image. 

When you're doing a portrait and trying to get an exact likeness, a very small change can make a big difference. My challenge in doing this value study is to keep the light source consistent at the same time I remain faithful to Bard's facial features. He has a typical Quarter Horse head but it's also on the lean side. Getting the shadows and highlights in exactly the right places is very important to getting a good likeness. Since I don't have a reference photo in sunlight from exactly the same angle as the pose my client wanted me to use, this has been a real mental exercise.

Above you can see how far I've gotten up to today. The photo isn't very good because I neglected to check the camera settings and shot it at a slight angle, but it will have to do until the next update. Click on the thumbnail to see the larger image on my website (if I can figure out how to do that).