This is the kind of eye painting I like to do - I like a crop with both eyes and ears, because I feel it makes more of a connection. This is Medz, the Thunder Gulch gelding with the mouthful of a name - Medidocihospisurg! I just call him Rupert...but I know his owner doesn't really like that!
I used another one of the 5 x 7 panels that I'd prepared with a mixture of gesso and marble dust, and once again I really liked how it worked. I got a late start today, and this surface just really helped make it easy to do this basically alla prima - more or less in one sitting, save for the time spent stepping back, taking a progress photo, running upstairs for a brownie..that sort of thing! I'm going to prepare some larger panels with this mixture, I like it that much! This time around I didn't stick strictly to the limited palette - I've also used Viridian Green, Naples Yellow, Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Medium and Flake White.
I had a lot of fun with this one, more than just because I love this horse. I guess after yesterday's income tax marathon (yes, I managed to get it done, cheque written and mailed it today) it was good to do something loose where the brushstrokes are actually visible. If I had my way, I'd paint this way all the time. It's rather interesting that I don't - that I can't just say "I'm going to paint this way from now on." For some reason it doesn't work that way!
I've decided to post a little work in progress montage at the bottom. I'm not sure it's big enough to show just how loosely this starts out, and how much correction happens along the way. The first one may look like nothing, but that's just me starting to map out the drawing - I'm eyeballing proportions.
Hard to believe there are only two days to go! Oh, and for those of you that weighed in on Saturday's eye painting, the horse was Clever, so I'll be finding a little something for the ones that guessed right! The other guess I had was Billy, which is a pretty fair choice, as he is Clever's son, and has a very similar expression!
See you tomorrow!
3 comments:
I love this painting!! I was wondering, can you use the marble dust/gesso primer for acrylic? I paint on masonite as well and I have been just using plain white gesso :)
Thanks!
Michelle
Thanks Michelle! I can't see it being a problem for acrylic, as it's gesso-based. I was thinking yesterday actually that it would probably work really well for that. I'd intended to use them for oil pastels, but well, I've been waylaid!
How wonderfully expressive the eyes are! That is what I love most about horses, you can read their thoughts so wonderfully, and you, as always, have made a beautiful painting. My best for a wonderful day.
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