Winter Scotch - Finishing The Horse

I'm not a fan of getting older, but my body has other ideas. Since the beginning of the year, I've been exercising regularly which is something I haven't done for a long time. One day I do leg exercises and the next I do shoulder and neck exercises. These were all prescribed by the physical therapist for various injuries and the arthritis I have in my neck and shoulders. Unfortunately, this week I suffered a setback when my shoulders and neck pretty much seized up, and I could barely lift hand to mouth to feed myself. (that might be a good thing if it weren't so painful!) Lifting my saddle around to clean it was just too painful to even contemplate, so it still sits in the laundry room in pieces as does the bridle.

Clearly, a change in strategy is in order.

My horse is advancing in years also and has been lame in the hind end for over a month now. He had his second chiropractic adjustment on Friday and will soon be going on a joint supplement. I ordered a quarter sheet from Dover last week which I hope will help him to warm up safely when we ride which I should be doing more often, for his benefit and mine. He's now wearing his winter blanket since we've had so much sub and near zero weather of late, and I'm sure he appreciates that immensely, even though he gets it dirty by taking his morning roll in the arena after his breakfast grain. He'll be 24 on April 15.

Several years ago I decided that when Scottie can no longer be ridden, I will quit riding. At this point, I'm not sure which of us will give out first!

Yesterday, I was recovered enough to work on this painting again and managed to pretty much finish the horse last night. Although he could use some adjustments, I'm so happy with how he turned out that I'm debating whether or not to just finish up the background and call the painting finished. The horse looks just like Scottie, and this painting will remain in my collection no matter what.

It's time to start thinking of what to work on next.

Winter Scotch - The Horse

In today's painting session I tackled the horse and almost finished him.

You know how horses look like plush toys in winter with their long coats, especially when the fur stands on end on a cold day? Well, that's the look I'm aiming for with this horse. One problem I encountered was that in the reference the horse is dirty from rolling in the indoor arena, so that confuses his form, making it hard to tell what is highlight on the coat and what is dirt. So, I had to go with what I know.

There isn't much left to do on this painting, but I may not be able to paint tomorrow. That's frustrating. But, my saddle and bridle need cleaning before I go riding in the afternoon.

Horse In Winter Study

One of my goals for this year is to devote far more time to working in the studio actually creating artwork. That will be a huge improvement over the past several years. To that end, I began a new painting yesterday using one of the photos I had taken on my photo shoot at the barn two weeks ago. For now, I’m simply calling it Horse In Winter Study #1. It will be done in oils on an 8x10 inch canvas board.

What you see is the drawing done directly on the canvas (with many corrections) in Burnt Umber. Often I tone a canvas before beginning, but since this is to be a winter scene, I decided to eliminate that step this time. The subject is my own horse, Scottie, whose warm orange coat will contrast nicely against the cool of the snow. I hope to also show how plush horses look in winter and indicate the long coat.



Here’s the reference photo. You can see that I eliminated some of the very busy background behind the horse in order to reveal his topline better and to see how he would look against a plain background. This was done in Photoshop. The photo was taken before I groomed him, and he looks kind of scruffy, but no worries. That can be changed with artistic license.

Today is devoted to watching the historic inauguration events going on in our Capital, but tomorrow it will be back to the daily routine, and that will now include generous amounts of creation time. With luck, I’ll have an update on this little painting tomorrow.