Snowbaby

It seems, somtimes, that when a life is lost, often a new one arrives to help deal with the pain. "New life makes losing life easier to understand," a recent Jack Johnson song says. Well, as artists, I guess we have the ability to be proactive and create a new piece to fill that role.

I had actually started this little piece a few weeks ago, just drawing right on a gessoed panel, 5 x 7, tinted with raw sienna, intending to complete it in oil. This was a baby foaled last winter at a nearby farm where I've worked off and on over the years, helping out with prepping yearlings for the sales. Tonight, it seemed time to jump into this, maybe do something different, just to do something to divert my attention from recent events. So I did something I've never done before -- I threw in some coloured pencil to rework a bit of the pencil drawing, then took some oil pastel. This is going to force me to stay pretty loose and spontaneous with this piece. I'm not sure yet what the title will end up being, but for now, he's just "Snowbaby". His mom's name is Jingle Berry, so maybe that's appropriate for this time of year.

The first image is just of the little bit of reinforcement I did of the drawing with some coloured pencil... and the next, I've laid in some oil pastel, very lightly, and smudged it with either a Q-tip or a piece of cloth. I will likely refine the drawing a bit as I go along, but the OP won't allow me to fuss over detail...which is not a bad thing!