Quarter (Barrel) Horse Pencil Drawing Portrait Commission

Horses have been a favorite animal of mine since early childhood so it comes as no surprise that I embrace every opportunity I have to paint or draw them!

I was asked to draw this beautiful horse's portrait as a memorial tribute for a friend. I used mainly 8B and F pencils along with my tortillions, chamois and Q-tips for delicate blending.

The original photo included a busy background and the horse was wearing a halter but it was decided to leave those out of the drawing to focus on the subject.

"Darby"

11x14

graphite pencils

COMMISSION

View the work in progress below: 

Horse Portrait progress

I am happy with the progress I've achieved so far on this portrait, considering this is larger commission than usual for me.  You can see my pastel pencils at the bottom of the image for size comparison.  

 

Horse portrait painting in pastel update

After spending nearly all afternoon working on the mane, I am pretty happy with what I have achieved so far. I will leave the muscular neck for another day (and the shadow below the mane) as I decided to move on to the forehead section of the horse. I love the spiral pattern of the fur on the forehead, also called a cowlick.  You can see the pattern more clearly upon enlargement of the image.

More progress on the horse painting commission

This horse's coat color is what is called dark bay. I am achieving the dark color by adding many layers of pastel on top of each other, with a reddish brown being the base coat. One can still see areas where the base coat still appears even though the darker grey black pastel has been added on top.

Horse Pastel Painting update



In this step, I pretty much have completed the horse's neck and mane.  During the next sitting, I move on to the shoulder and leg area before adding the reins last.

Horse hooves and grass...

Well it seems I've been motivated enough through this summer heat to work through this drawing some more. With only the hooves and grass left to fill in, I'm very excited to complete this piece!

What attracted me to draw this horse scene was not only the composition but the range of values and sharp contrast on the horses' coats from the light of the late-day sun.

Update on current drawings

It's been a while since I last posted an update on the gorilla portrait. I have not worked any more on him lately but have so much little left to do that it would be a shame not to finish him (considering all the work I put in it so far)! Hopefully, I'll get back to him this week sometime or the next.

The horse drawing is coming along nicely, although the middle horse needs more blending in the darker areas to fill in all the tooth of the paper. I'd like to finish this one within the next few weeks as I have a large commission to work on once I receive all the ref photos. Let's hope I get good reference material this time!

Happy Canada Day to fellow Canadians!

The Three Amigos??

This title just popped into my head as I was uploading the image to my blog. Sounds good to me at the moment but I might wake up tomorrow thinking differently. Oh well, I have plenty of time to think of something else, should I change my mind.
This sitting lasted about 2 hours...gosh I am slow tonight...must be getting rusty from my 2 week absence due to my trip.

I'll soon be posting some photography of interesting subjects that will become my future painting or drawing projects...all of which were taken during my trip to the US.

New Graphite pencil drawing of horses

I needed another pencil drawing to bring along to work on during "wait" times. Since working with graphite requires minimal equipment, it is perfectly suited for my grab-and-go sittings.

I'll be leaving for 3 weeks for a well deserved trip across the Eastern US with our final destination being Fl. An exciting stop along the way will be at the US Pentagon to meet and visit with one of my clients and his K9 partner Kira. Many of you will remember the US Pentagon portrait with the police k9's I worked on last winter...it is not often that I get to meet my online clients so this will be a nice surprise for all of us.

See you all soon and keep on painting!

huggs,
Colette

Horse portrait of mare and foal, update

Close up:

Click image to enlarge

Well, after a busy week (and a half!), I pushed myself to work a bit more on the mare. Today I mostly worked the face and mane. I know there is not much left to do so I really should get this portrait done!!

Pastel Horse painting-update

I took advantage of my creative energy and continued to work on this pastel painting tonight. I'm not certain anymore if I am going to add the background as on the mock as I kind of like the darker simple background...which would be less work for me!! I tend to not want to do backgrounds that much unless they are necessary for the composition.

You can view a larger image on my website here:

http://www.colettetheriault.com/descriptions/paint1description/mare_foal_painting.php

Mare and foal pastel painting

This is my first try using my new Rembrant's soft pastels set and I LOVE them!

I am using dark grey suede board for this horse pastel painting. Pastels on suede are perfect for horse compositions as I am able to achieve the soft velvety appearance of their short fur. I enjoy using darker suede colors for white horses because of how I lay down the pastel. It is almost like working backwards because you can remove (or add) more or less white pastel to create the various grey tones that form the shadows.

The reference photograph was taken from inside a barn while the mother and her 3 day old foal were standing in the doorway. It was raining that day and to my surprise, the lighting on the photographs I took turned out very nice. I had many refs to choose from but decided that this one of the foal suckling and the mother nuzzling her new baby was the perfect choice!

Group Portrait of Percheron Horses

Well, here is the portrait, finally! You can see close up views of each horse by clicking on the links below (horses from left to right).

Jane: http://www.colettetheriault.com/descriptions/petdescriptions/Janedescription.php

Prince: http://www.colettetheriault.com/descriptions/petdescriptions/Princedescription.php

Duke: http://www.colettetheriault.com/descriptions/petdescriptions/Dukedescription.php

Francis: http://www.colettetheriault.com/descriptions/petdescriptions/Francisdescription.php

Jake: http://www.colettetheriault.com/descriptions/petdescriptions/Patsydescription.php

Patsy:http://www.colettetheriault.com/descriptions/petdescriptions/Patsydescription.php

Large horse colored pencil commission finished!

I've completed my latest horse portrait of a group of six percherons today. This has been a year long project, and I thank my client for being so patient and understanding. I have delivered the portrait to the photographer's today so that a digital copy can be created in the event something were to happen to the original. The portrait's large size (23" x 40") makes it unsuitalbe for scanning so a high quality photograph is the next best thing for reproductions.

I will post the finished artwork as soon as I have the clear image.