Fur In The Paint

Or more appropriately: Some of the other horses of IERAL.

I thought I’d show you a few of the other horses at IERAL (Iowa Equine Rescue and Awareness League) that I had the option to paint for the fund raiser which is to be held this Saturday, October 25th. You can visit IERAL website for more details. or to see who is available for adoption, or make a donation at any time.

Thoroughbreds have such great faces and contours. Also I was liking the idea of a grouping. They were a little bony, though it was not so obvious to see in this photo. I really liked these guys. They were a very close second choice. If Colton hadn’t won me over with his sweetness, it probably would have been them on the print.

This is Bo. He is Colton’s father. You can see the family resemblance. Bo is another really pretty horse.

I have a soft spot for arabs. They were the first breed I fell in love with. Of course the Black Stallion helped that along quite a bit. For most of my childhood Arabians were my dream horse. How I went from petite and lovely, to Roman nosed and rotund, I’ve no idea.

How cute is he. This was Colton’s pasture mate when I was out taking picture. He was kinda stand offish but he and Colton got on well enough.

IERAL had several other horses up for adoption as well. But these (and of course Colton) were the horses I photographed the most.

Tomorrows post: When Good Dogs, Go Bad (It’s not what you think.)

Colton
16 1/2″ x 22″
Watercolor Pencil Painting on Arches 140# Hot Press

So here he is all finished. I waited to post him until I sent an image to Karla Siebert of IERAL. He is a little more portrait-y than I would have liked. But it is a pretty enough painting that it will hopefully make them some money. I chose to do a background very similar to Catch’s portrait because of the time constraints. (Meaning I had no time to start again if I buggered it up.)

Progression of the painting,

The early stages with only the nose completed.

Head and neck are complete and shoulder is started.

Body is completed.

The mane is added.

The early stages of the background. Many changes yet to come before the painting is declared finished.

Finished image (same as the top most pic.) He is slightly tilted in this photo because I didn’t get it quite square in the camera lens. However, he is also leaning forward in the painting as that is how he stood much of the time while I was there. I imagine since he is blind, he does this when he’s curious about something.

Here’s my latest on my Colton painting. Not making a lot of progress but I have been packing for an upcoming event. So far so good I think.

Technicalities
Okay, I am unsure if white is technically considered a color. But not being one for caring about such things, I’m going ahead with the premise anyway.

Here are all the various colors that went into creating my white horse, (actually, technically it is a grey horse.) Mostly I used both warm and cool grays, flesh and bubble gum pink, a nice rusty ginger color (which I love,) periwinkle (of course, must have periwinkle if I got a ginger color) and smoky blue.

I realize it doesn’t look like it but I have been layering like a madwoman. Layer in of darks, then scrub in a layer of lights, then back to the darks.

It is a little challenging to get a good idea of proper contrast without having my background in yet. I may have to put that in soon, so I can progress along without having to do too much more thinking about it

Colton
So here is the very beginnings of a painting featuring Colton. I haven’t quite given myself completely to the idea that this will be the IERAL painting. I am not so very much in love with the composition (just a little predictable) However if I get some lovely colors going, it could turn out beautiful.

So as not to jinx myself, I am looking at this as an exercise in getting nice looking whites. I find large amounts of white, as I may have previously mentioned is the hardest color to make believable (in water soluble pencil.) That’s one of the big reasons I like doing pintos and zebras. The other colors provide adequate contrast and creating a good white is much easier.

The only part of this piece that is done is the nose. The yellow cheek is the first color layer only. I do want a nice glow but in the end it will look more gray than it does here.

Since Colton is blind, nearly all the photos I have of him has his held tilted dramatically. (thus I am having some difficulty coming up with a pleasingly unique composition.) The head tilt thing, endearing though it is, is also a little sad. And since they are hoping to have surgical correction for him, it will not be how is he in the future. So I opted to straighten him up a bit.

This spring I went to photograph several rescue horses in preparation for doing a portrait as a fund raiser. This is the horse I chose to do for IERAL (Iowa Equine Rescue and Awareness League) as he is so beautiful in both looks and spirit.

Colton is a 7 year blind old Arab gelding. I fell in love with him immediately. He has the sweetest nature and in many ways reminds me of my own horse Chicory.

The following is part of an email to me from Karla Sibert with Colton’s story.

Colton, was brought to IERAL on August 18th, 2007, along with 5 other horses that were abandoned in Lee County, IA. He was six at the time and had never been away from his mother. When he arrived at IERAL foster care facility, we had no idea that he couldn’t see, and we were so taken back that he had never been away from his mother his entire life.

We took two stallions (Colton being one of them) to get gelded that same day. When we picked them both up at the equine clinic Dr. Abraham said “You know this gray is blind don’t you?” I’m like no way he is only 6 years old, what would cause the blindness this early in life? He said, probably moon blindness, which he probably caught some virus that went untreated and so he went blind. That would explain why he never bred his mother I’m sure.

So, he was put back in with a half sister and his mother upon his arrival back to foster care. We adopted out both sister and mother within about three weeks after that, so we brought in a pony to keep him happy. Well, he was lost with out the two mares, but he finally adapted with his pony friend. So, at this point you know the rest of the story. My goal is to get Dr. Abraham out to evaluate his eye sight, and get him referred to ISU for eye surgery.