It's getting to be that time of year - when I start trying to plan the annual trek to Saratoga. Getting away from the farm for a few hours, let alone a few days, is always a challenge. It's kind of a dream to one day spend some time painting on the porch of the Beresford Gallery during the Saratoga meet - will this be the year I pull it off? I'm not holding my breath. It's more likely this will be another whirlwind. Theoretically, I could go down in the morning, go to the races, and come back at the end of the day - it's only a six hour drive...
I started a new painting this week, which is helping fuel the plans. This one is much larger than what I've been sharing of late - 24 x 30 - and my reference photo is one I took at the Spa a few years ago. I had to wait until I'd made a little progress on at least one of the horses to share it - this is very early days, very loose, throwing paint around just to get the canvas covered. As you can see, I have yet to accomplish that!
I've come to enjoy this messy way of doing things - starting with broad areas of tone and refining from there. This is just the underpainting, of course. It's quite fun to do a racing scene this way, concentrating on tone for the first few layers, then starting to gradually add all the colour that makes Thoroughbred racing such a beautiful sport.
5 comments:
Saratoga is always a highlight of my year. We have so much fun. Good company in a wonderful setting. And Ben&Jerry's. What more could I ever want!?!
All I could ever want is just that - more!! :-)
The summer of '69 I had the chance to spent it in upstate New York. I worked in Lake George and two of the biggest highlights from that year was going to Saratoga and, believe it or not, Woodstock! I even paid to attend the latter!
For this Florida girl, seeing mountains was such a treat. Attending the meet at Saratoga was wonderful as I was horse-crazy even then! How lucky to live so close!
This shows great promise Linda looking forward to it's development :)
Glad you've been there at least once, Trisha! Saratoga is definitely one of the places the horse-crazy must visit in North America, IMO!
Thanks Elizabeth. I still like doing the underpaintings...it's just very methodical and works a different part of the brain from the quick studies, I think. Makes a nice balance.
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