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.

Horse Portrait Commission in progress

Being Halloween, I guess I could be painting the headless horseman and his horse but I must get caught up on my commissions so....

I am working on a larger horse portrait and finding it a bit challenging to work with not-so-good shots, but unfortunately, that's all I have.

I decided to use medium gray velour board for this piece because one can effortlessly achieve a soft look with pastels.

Lesson in Horse Anatomy

Observation and understanding of the key underlying muscle, nerve and bone tissue can prove extremely useful when drawing horses. These structures easily show through the relatively thin skin and velvety short fur of these animals and the appearance will vary depending on the breed, age and stance of the horse. In this step, I continued building up color in the horse's neck and  began defining the major muscle groups that are so distinctive of equines.  You can also see the beginnings of the  highlights of the glossy sheen on the coat.

Overdue update!

Feels like forever since my last post but so much has been going on here that I just did not have the time to update my blog. Business and personal life just kept getting in the way!

For starters, I just returned from a 20 day trip from USA and Eastern Canada. Our family and I traveled to Lake Placid, New York with the next stop being Bar Harbour, Maine were we visited spectacular Acadia National Park. While in Maine, I also had the opportunity to photograph native wildlife on a preserve while being up close to the animals. Being inside a wolf enclosure sure was an amazing experience and the poses I was able to capture will surely become some of my next painting projects. Bears, tigers, lynx, deer and moose were some of the other animals I was able to photograph at the preserve.  I have all the inspiration I need now!!

The second part of our trip, we returned to Canada and travelled to Nova Scotia and camped on the Bay of Fundy in Grand Pre. A good friend of ours was getting married so we had a whole week to explore the province! The highlight of that stay was probably photographing and filming the thousands of migratory plovers and sandpipers that feed off the rich invertebrates found in the mud of the Bay of Fundy. The most exciting moment was watching the swift (and rare!!)  peregrine falcons bomb diving the flock of birds in an attempt for a kill. Wow, these birds are fast!!

The trip home was exciting as well since we had to plow through the remnants of hurricane Irene...it seems it rained forever and the winds were so strong, swaying the truck and trailer at times so hard that it felt we were in a boat (and getting queasy)!  Oh, and I should mention the hydroplaning was an experience as well...I am thankful for hubby for being such a great driver!

Just before leaving for my trip, I completed another commission of a dog for a client in Newfoundland. This is a Shih Tzu nammed Hannah, 11x14, graphite on Fabriano paper.

And now that I am back, I was able to try out my new glass top drafting table and daylight lamp while I started working on my next commission of a horse (pastel on green suede).

I am happy to be back at the easel!!

Painted ripples-swan painting update

It sure is taking a long time to add all those ripples and waves to this painting! It should all be worth it in the end, I would hope. Next, I will try to finish the last of the 2 cygnets and the water in the middle of the painting.

Swan Painting-bird art in progress

A bit more done today. The water is proving to take such a long time!!

Equine Artwork complete!

Click to enlarge detail.

Working late into the night, I managed to complete the horse mother and baby. Even though I am tired, I am quite satisfied with the end results. Tomorrow however, I may wake up and find I need to rework certain areas and so I will take out my pastels again, perhaps.

It is important to me to have the chance to take a few days (or more) and place the portrait somewhere very visible so that I may observe, analyze, criticise...whatever one calls it. It is a step that I feel is necessary as it gives me one last chance to fix the painting to my liking before it is under glass.