Andalusian Stallion Painting: And So It Begins
Spanish Gold (working title)
approximately 18×22
Watercolor pencil on suede C1741
The easiest white horse ever.
I often struggle with getting a decent looking white horse. Of course I am always working on a white board or paper. So today with this soft grey suede, the white is almost effortless.( Sweet.)
I am having so much fun working on this guy. Long time readers know that I am a sectional painter. So these little pockets of horse divided nicely by the fancy tack are also keeping me quite happy. At the moment the tack is making him look a little askew. Part of that is when I drape in his forelock and mane it will be covering some of it. And part is because all the tack has yet to be colored in. (and perhaps part is because I was following my reference photo to closely. Ummm . . . . or not closely enough.)
The challenges of working on suede have once again stimulated my brain. (today I played around with working while the suede was still wet) I tend to get bored and it is the new challenges and the figuring them out part, that keeps me creating.
Honesty
My dear friend Barb McGee stopped by the gallery yesterday and was looking at the drawing (I hadn’t yet begun to work on the actual painting yet) and she’s all “Well at least you didn’t crop off the ears.”
I smile and say “Actually, I think I might.”
With exasperation in her voice she’s all “Why?” Followed by a little shaking of the head and rolling of the eyes to indicate the insanity of such a thing.
And I’m like “Because it’s my thing.”
Truth is, whether or not the ears get cropped is all about my balance of negative space. So if I must loose the tips of the ears to achieve the desired results, so be it. And yes, that is my thing.
Transitional Title
I am pretty sure Spanish Gold will be the final title for my Big Al painting. But I have not completely settled on it. I started with “The Spaniard” and then thought perhaps “Silver & Gold” and then I just sort of combined the two.
Note: Barb is one of my favorite people in this world. She’s honest, though occasionally harsh sounding. She can say things to me, that if said by someone else, would totally piss me off. But coming from Barb, I usually just laugh and roll with it.
Tags: Andalusian, WIP
Or something like Andalusian Dancer. My daughter Kitten loves Andalusians and they are among the breeds that do all those fancy moves that used to be medieval war forms, martial art horses along with the Lipizzans. This is so magnificent. Crop the ears or not, he’s coming out so beautiful! Thank you again for sharing your process.