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; Let The Painting Begin!

During the past week, I came to the conclusion that the original pattern on the panel as provided by Mural Mosaic was intimidating me and holding me back. So, I decided the best way to proceed was to cover it over with a thin layer of paint using the local colors for my design.

After designing the waves and combining them with the horses, I traced all onto the panel and began laying on paint. Since time is getting short, I used my alkyds but found that they had become thickened over time and were difficult to work with. They were drying fast on the panel but also drying fast on the palette! I did manage to get a layer of paint over the whole surface and didn't worry too much about staying within the lines or putting in details at this early stage. So, the panel is very much in the Ugly phase right now.

After some advice from my artist friends who are also doing panels for this project, I've decided to switch to oils from now on since they seem to be drying faster than normal on these panels. I'm getting very worried about the time factor because the deadline is fast approaching, so I'll be painting many hours per day from now on and hoping for the best.

I'm not very happy with the waves so they will need to be revised, but first I'll work on the horses and get them to a more finished state before doing the background again.

Click on the somewhat neon colored thumbnail above to see a larger version and how I arrived at the design. At this point you don't see much of the diagonal lines that are an important element to incorporate in my design. Those will come later as I put in the clouds and details in the waves.

Barn Time and Happy Accidents

I spent last Friday afternoon at the barn because it was Spring Checkup day for the horses. It's always quite a social time, too, because usually we three boarders are there along with the barn owner, Shelley. As usual, Scottie was a gentleman for his shots and teeth floating, and I also had the vet do a chiropractic adjustment on him. This time there were no major issues found although his left hip was locked up and his ankles were stiff from a winter of bracing on the icy hillside which leads up to the barn in the winter turnout.

Afterward I rode for half an hour, and Scottie definitely had more spring in his step and was very responsive to my aids, clumsy as they are. I told the vet that my ride had been "cushy" compared to before. But now I'm the one who needs working on because I'm so out of shape for riding that I'll never be able to manage trail rides this summer if I don't do something about it. It's back to the exercise program that will also include more regular riding again. This past winter I basically hibernated and didn't go anywhere unless absolutely necessary. I guess I needed that time to regroup and recuperate after last year's unpleasant events.

And then there was the Happy Accident I discovered when going through the photos I took last week at the beach. We artists talk about Happy Accidents in our work which usually involves messing up what we intended to do but having it come out better but in an unexpected way. This time the accident was in my photos. I'd been aware of one lonely gull hanging around hoping for a handout, and in one photo (see above) he flew by leaving a lovely shadow of himself in the sand. You can't see him against the foam of the surf, but there's that shadow to betray his presence.

I probably won't use this in my Horse Gift painting, but it will have to go in some future painting for sure. Speaking of the Horse Gift painting, I'm coming along on that and have been designing my waves. With luck, by the end of the day I should have it all traced onto the panel and can at long last begin painting! With all this preliminary work done, I'm hoping it will practically paint itself.

Poseidon's Gift; The Horses

I live just a mile down the road from beautiful Torch Lake in northwestern Michigan. One day this week it was particularly windy, and I knew that waves would be higher than normal on Torch, so I grabbed my camera and headed for the beach to catch some waves. Surf's up! Reputed to be the third most beautiful lake in the world, on a sunny day Torch contains all the lovely colors that are in my panel. Besides which I needed more good wave references for the panel painting. The waves weren't as large as I'd hoped, but I got some excellent shots just the same which will help in studying wave action across a large body of water and waves as they break on the shore. To supplement those, a friend sent me some really large wave shots to use, and I'm reading a very good book on painting water titled "Painting the Sea In Oils Using Special Effects" by E. John Robinson. It is one awesome book!

Of course, the most important part of the painting will be the horses, so they were the next objects of my attention. First, again, I did research by going through my reference photographs and pulling out photos of horses walking toward the camera. I had quite a few to choose from and quickly narrowed down the possibilities to just a few. I also did a little research on the internet to find out the breed characteristics of Andalusians and their colors. In centuries past they came in more colors than today which gave me greater latitude to selecting the colors of my horses. Then the fun began as I sketched five horses in different poses and changed them from Arabians, Quarter Horses and a Morgan into Andalusians. They also had to be changed to look as if they were stepping out of water after a strenuous swim onto an unknown shore.

After the horses were drawn to my satisfaction, I made copies of them in different sizes, cut them out and tried different arrangements on a sheet of paper marked in the exact width of the panel which is a 16 inch square. When I found an arrangement that worked the best, I traced the horses and refined them further, adding flowing manes and tails that would follow the directional lines in the panel. Below you can see my horses as they will appear on the panel.

One final step awaits before I can begin the actual painting, and that is to plan the wave action which will be such an important part of the panel and the story.

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!

Poseidon's Gift; The Journey Begins

A few months ago I was invited to be part of the creative team for an exciting new project directed by Mural Mosaic. Called Le Cadeau du Cheval, or The Horse Gift, it consists of a very large mural that is made up of panels painted by the creative team of artists. When all put together, the panels form a large image and yet each panel is an individual work of art in itself. The concept is pretty neat, so I suggest you visit the website to see how these unusual murals are created.

Two weeks ago I received my panel which is shown above. The object is to paint whatever I want on the panel while keeping the same color scheme and values (lights and darks). Anything, that is, related to horses.

The first challenge was to come up with an idea for my panel. The colors reminded me of the sea, so I thought about how the sea and horses are related. Then I remembered the legend of how the Chincoteague ponies came to live on Assateague Island hundreds of years ago. The legend says that they swam ashore from a shipwrecked Spanish galleon, possibly one of the treasure ships sent to the New World to explore and bring back plunder. It is also surmised that the horses brought over on these galleons by the Spanish escaped or were turned loose and became the ancestors of today's mustangs. It seems fitting then, that the subject of my panel be these Spanish horses, probably Andalusians, carried on ships to the New World; Poseidon's Gift from the sea.

I will be updating you as this project progresses and will be posting the images on my website where they can be seen larger. I've already begun, so take a look to see how my panel is progressing.

Background Issues

For a while now I've been pondering what to do with the background for Bard's portrait. Then it occurred to me to resort to the digital world and try different approaches in Photoshop. Above you see the results of three different possibilities. Since I have a new version of Photoshop and don't know it very well yet, I wasn't able to blend the different shades and tints very well which I would do in the real version. At the moment I'm leaning toward the green version. Since Bard lives in northern Michigan which is known for its lush greenery, that seems appropriate.

Or, maybe the blue.... Hmmm....

Photoshop is a wonderful tool for us artists and allows us so many ways to compose our artwork before we actually DO the artwork. By using the layers tool, one can move elements around the composition and see what fits best where. By using the colors palette, one can change colors just as easily. And that's just scratching the surface of what this powerful program can do.

I got my first version of Photoshop many years ago when it came bundled with my first scanner and have upgraded a few times over the years. I was perfectly happy with PS 5.5 until my hard drive died over a year ago when I upgraded from OS 9 to OS 10 Tiger and 5.5 wouldn't work any longer. So, that meant another upgrade. PS CS2 has so many more bells and whistles and changes in the way you do things that I haven't had nor taken the time to learn it all over again. If you learn one new thing at a time, it isn't complicated, and once you've played with what you can do in Photoshop, you'll never want to go without it again.

Things like trying different back ground colors for your current painting. Bard will be much brighter and "full of life" in the final painting, but these little digital sketches give me a good idea of what choices will work best without going to the trouble of laying on paint, deciding it won't work and then having to wipe it all off and try another.

I love Photoshop!