Weekly Update

I've been working on the Rose Reiner mostly, here's where he's at right now:

This is the part where I tend to get stuck. I'm never sure how to proceed from here. Do I want to keep adding hair detail? Do I use dry pigment to soften it up a little and then add more hair detail? I think it needs a little more work but it's so hard to know what to do. I've put so many hours into it that I dread screwing it up by going too far, and then having to backtrack for several more hours.
I have some time before I determine how to proceed as I work on the other side. I'm starting to procrastinate because I don't know what to do.

Weekly Update

I have been really busy working on these roans, here are a few shots of the Reiner, who is finally starting to look acceptable to me:

I start to feel really overwhelmed when working on roans because they take so much time. I feel like I'll never finish! I'm experimenting with a test horse to see if I can come up with faster technique, but I really like the effect that I get with the way that I do it now. I really don't know if it's worth my while to do these. I'm keeping track of how many hours I spend on this one, and it's already way, way up there. It will be interesting to see the total hours in the end.
I'm still waiting for approval on Sushi, but I consider her done at this point, here are a couple of shots of her:

I gave her a big belly spot:

I've been trying to touch every commission piece each day, as well as one sales piece, but I haven't been able to meet that goal at this point. I've been putting in extra hours each day, I really want to get my sales pieces out the door so I'll be able to buy a fresh horse to work on (Dante....I hope...)
I plan on getting pictures of my newly finished pieces up on my website and Facebook hopefully by next week. And that's all for now!

Weekly Update

I was sick  last week so I lost a couple of days in the studio. I did manage to get some work done though:

Here's the Rose Reiner with some more work done on his hip, shoulder, and legs. You can finally see that he's going to be a roan!

I worked a little overall on Turko, there will be more dappling on his hindquarters so it won't look that stark, but I needed to emphasize some of the darks before I went forward.

Hank is starting to come together now.

This is still the first layer of Equus Maximus, he still looks really terrible. Of course those lines won't be on there when he's done. He's got some reverse dappling, and I noticed that one side's dappling is bigger than the other's, so I will need to fix that.
That's about all for this week. I completely spaced out and forgot that NAN was last week, I don't know if any of my pieces were there. Congratulations to all the winners and I hope it was a great time for everyone :-)

Weekly Update

Wow, Blogger sure changed their dashboard, I'm not sure if I like it or not. I'll have to get used to it.

I don't have a whole lot to show this week. I'm having a heck of a time getting good pictures of Equus Maximus, I've got one layer of roaning on one side of him now, and partially done with the other side. This is the best I could get at the moment, you can't really see much yet:

Next up is a roaning detail of the Rose Reiner I'm working on, I've also worked a bit on the blanket. I'm right at the point where I'm starting to emphasize some areas and then leave other area alone to create depth. I will probably switch to a brush pretty soon on this one.

And last is Turko, who's had a little bit done to his legs, and I've put another layer of light color on him and started playing with the dappling a bit.

Well, from this post I can see that Blogger hasn't worked out the quirky nature of their "compose" mode despite the update to the look of the dashboard. I always have to go in and delete extra spaces and fiddle around with things. I could start ranting right now! But I won't...

Update

Sushi is close to being finished now, I still need to work on her mane/tail and eyes, I think, and a couple of things I need to touch up. I might do a little more to the dapples, also. I think she photographs best from this angle, from the side she ends up looking a little distorted (even though she's not).

I've gone back and forth on the whites and body color on Hank, I'm letting him sit to dry for a bit before I work on him some more.

Turko's mane and tail won't be so garish when he's done, I usually just lay down a color and see how it looks relative to the rest of the piece. He's only got a couple of layers on him so far.

That's all the photos I've got this week, I took photos of Equus Maximus, who has one layer of roaning done on one side, but there was a lot of glare and you could barely see it, so maybe I will try again next week. He is really kicking my butt!

Some Yellow Ochres

I got a couple of new neutral yellows so thought I'd do a little comparison. They really vary from one manufacturer to the next.

W & N yellow ochre seems to be the most neutral, it makes a nice tint and I use it a lot. I like the consistency of it, too.

Rembrandt yellow ochre is new for me, I was surprised at how yellow it was, but it confirmed my thoughts that Rembrandt's colors tend to be kind of garish, in my opinion. It's nice and buttery but has a lot of oil in it, and is somewhat transparent with low tinting strength.

Old Holland Mars Yellow is pretty yellow, too, it's actually more yellow than it looks in this photo. It's opaque and dries fairly quickly, which would make it useful for base coats. I don't like the consistency of it, very stiff.

W & N Raw Sienna is another neutral yellow that I use a lot, especially in mixes with white. I use it a lot in hoof colors. It looks slightly greenish out of the tube, so I wouldn't mix it with any blue-ish color like ivory black or payne's gray because you might get a green color.

Old Holland Gold Ochre is another really stiff paint, and it's pretty yellow. It makes nice subtle mixes, though, so I like it. I use it often in combination with raw sienna and burnt sienna.

I got the Schmincke Norma Gold Ochre to compare it to Old Holland. What a difference! They're like two different colors. The Schmincke is a burnt yellow, closer to Raw Sienna. It makes a very pretty toasty color when mixed with white. I'm still getting used to the color of this one but I do like it. I have been very impressed with the quality of Schmincke Norma paints. They have a great consistency, not too stiff but not oily, and the colors are very rich. The downside is that they're expensive and the tube is only 35ml, compared to 37ml for W & N and 40ml for Rembrandt.

Update

Hank is coming along pretty well. I'm working ont the whites right now.

Here's Sushi after I've added a little pastel and some acrylic work to her roaning. I've started on her stockings, too. She has a big belly spot, I'll get a picture of that sometime.

Dafydd has had some refinement to his color and dapples, and I've started adding markings.

Turko is still in early stages, He's going have dappling on his hindquarters and shoulders.
That's all for this week!