This Christmas commission has been started in oil paint on a Belle Arti fine cotton board, size 40 x 50cm. I use Winsor & Newton Alkyd Oils as they are faster drying, and I mix the colours with a little Zest-it in the under painting. So the first picture is of the drawing with its first layer of blocked in colour. I played around with the composition and cropping of the photo to make sure it would balance before sketching it onto the canvas board and then applying the paint with a large brush. After letting this layer dry overnight I started to work on putting in the darker tones to sculpt the bone structure and shape the muzzle. I also like to paint the eye early on in the painting so I can work with the character of the horse. A little more detail was painted into the background and the gate and clouds scumbled into the sky. In picture 3 you can see the shadow areas have been darkened - I use burnt umber with prussian blue to get some lively dark hues into the mane, on the neck, eyes, ears, nose, mouth and shadow areas. About halfway through the painting I chose to paint with smaller brushes. This is because I needed to hatch in a number of different hues to give Brandy a rich coat… indian red was used in pic 4 when lighter colours like naples yellow and titanium white mixed with some of the other browns were painted in tiny flecks to create more form in the sunlit areas. In the last two posts I deepened the shadows using ultramarine blue, cobalt violet hue and burnt umber before balancing the final hues and tones with burnt sienna and mixes of white.
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