I have finally completed this painting! It's a large one 30" x 40" in acrylics on canvas. I worked on it for three years off and on. I would get frustrated and set it aside for a while then pick it back up and paint on it. I have to say this is the longest I've ever worked on a piece of work. The reason is because I did things the wrong way. I could hear my art teacher Mr. Platis in the back of my head yelling at me for not doing any preliminary sketches. So if nothing else this whole experience has taught me what not to do. I'm going to share the evolution of this painting and all my mistakes.
As you can see in the beginning Hotties head -the one on the left was completely different. I was working from several photographs that I took. At first I wanted her head to be low.
It looks really awkward and
I'm embarrassed to show it.
So then I completely painted over Hotties head and painted her in a different pose. I like this pose much better, but another error her eye was too big. Argh!
So over it I paint it again with a smaller eye. Then I constantly would study and look at my painting and nitpick everything I didn't like. I did this by taking cell phone pictures of it and staring at them in my spare time. I didn't like the color of her eyes they weren't right yet and I kept playing with my colors and layering different glazes until I came up with the final result below.
Although it was a very long process I am happy with the final result and all that I learned through my journey. Never again will I start a painting without preliminary studies and sketches. I want to note that the horse on the left is my horse Hottie and the horse on the right is Whisper. The two mares used to be in stalls side-by-side and liked each other. Whisper has since moved away but they are depicted here happily together with fond memories!
I'm wishing you a happy,wonderful creative new year!
