Keyodee Star: The Drawing

There is no greater satisfaction than to see a project advancing sharply through the various stages, with no missteps, miscues or accidents.

Those kinds of projects don’t happen very often in this studio, so I’m always delighted when I encounter one.

There seems to be one on the easel at this very moment. Keyodee Star.

I haven’t shared many images of the painting in progress because it is a portrait and the client needs to see and approve each stage before I’m at liberty to share it publicly (unless, of course, the client agrees beforehand to having their portrait be a blog feature).

The portrait of Keyodee Star is now in the final color stages, though, so I am going to share some of the previous stages.

The portrait is being created with the Flemish technique. The Flemish technique is comprised of seven steps. They are:

A detailed drawing
“Fixing” the drawing
An imprimatura
The umber layer
The dead layer
The color layers
The details

Each layer builds on all of the previous layers and the end result is a painting built step-by-step from opaque under painting to transparent color glazes and opaque detailing.

Each layer is also allowed to dry completely before the painting advances to the next step. Generally, that requires two weeks, but the drying time can be four weeks or more if the colors used are slow drying.

The picture above shows the portrait at the first step. This is the completed drawing.

The drawing was developed at full size (16�20) from an 8�10 enlargement using some of Neal’s engineering rules and lots of calculating. The paper was actually taped to the painting surface and I cropped the original photograph to the appropriate composition before drawing began.

It took about 7-1/2 hours of actual drawing time and countless reviews spread over a week to complete the drawing. It was then presented to the client for review. Once it was approved, the portrait moved to the next phase.

A confession: when I was asked to paint this composition, my first thought was “Look at all that wood! I’ll never get that right!”

What a pleasant surprise it’s been to have the architectural portions of the painting be as enjoyable as the horse itself!