Original Colored Pencil

Rising Stonehenge Paper, 90 lb. Natural, 16″ x 20″

Those who follow this blog are already familiar with this guy. He has been been the subject of multiple ACEO horse paintings and is currently the subject of an ongoing oil portrait.

His name is Lockkeeper and he’s one of four or five Michigan Standardbred stallions standing at Starwin Farms in Coleman, Michgan.

I met and photographed Lockkeeper way back in May, 2008. A great horse, he also proved a great subject for photographs and paintings alike. He made an appearance in two or three ACEO horse paintings and is now making another appearance in a traditional colored pencil painting.

The goals for this painting are multiple. Because it’s a colored pencil, I will be using it as a demonstration piece for my colored pencil class.

I chose the same image of Lockkeeper that is being used for the portrait so I can use this as a study for that painting.

It is the first traditional, non-small format artwork I’ve created in colored pencil in several years.

Finally, it will be one of the images to be considered for the 2010 Kansas Christian Home Christmas Bazaar this coming November.

There is, in other words, a lot of incentive to get this done!

The photograph I’m using was taken by photographer Mark Adair. Thanks, Mark, for your generous permission to use your work!

Color Used: PS Light Umber

The primary difference between this painting and the portrait – other than the medium – is my treatment of the background. A new background has been created for the oil painting. This time around, I’m using the background that appears in the reference photo.

Some changes were made. For example, I included the fence around the paddock in which Lockkeeper cavorts, but I eliminated the other fence beyond this one. The mesh of fences was too distracting and didn’t contribute to the sense of distance in the painting. Had the illusion of distance been created by that fence, I would have used it to break up the background a little bit more.

In the oil painting, all of Lockkeeper’s hooves appear. For this painting, I decided to deepen the paddock grass and conceal those two hooves on the ground. There isn’t a lot of movement in this image, so disguising those two feet in tall grass disguises those two ‘anchors’.

Even though a drawing already existed for the horse, I took two days to rework the drawing. On the first day, I used mechanical drawing methods to place the fence, then reduced the original drawing and taped it over the fence.

On the second day, I reviewed the drawing, moved the horse a little bit forward in the composition and refined problem areas like the face and feet.

On the third day, I selected the paper to be used (Rising Stonehenge 90 pound paper in Natural) and mounted it to a 20�24 panel with masking tape. I did that toward the end of a busy day, so rather than begin the transfer process immediately, I waited for the next day.

On the fourth day, the area of the painting was marked off on the drawing paper, I shaded the back of the drawing with Light Umber, then taped the drawing over the fresh paper and carefully transferred it onto the Stonehenge.

The finished drawing is shown above. I apologize for its condition, but I forgot to shoot the drawing until after I’d already shaded the back! The darker values you see is where the transfer shading was applied to the back of the paper. You will note that I didn’t shade the entire paper, just behind the actual drawing.

I should mention that the drawing is on tracing paper.

Color Used: PS Light Umber

The first mark on a fresh sheet of paper is always the most difficult, so I started with an area that could be easily fixed if I messed up. The fence!

Beginning behind the horse, I used Light Umber to shade faint values in the top rail. Color was applied in a horizontal pattern that mimics wood grain so that even though the values aren’t very dark, the area is already beginning to look like a wood rail fence.

To further define the fence without darkening it too quickly, I then worked in the background behind the fence. A couple of tree trunks were lightly sketched in to break up the area beyond and above the fence, then light value was applied with a sweeping, vertical hatch stroke in Light Umber with very light pressure. The goal was to create as light and broad a value layer as possible without paying much attention to detail. I worked around the tree trunks, which will be darkened after the foliage is dark enough for the trees to become visible through the forest.

Here is a detail image of the section I worked on. In this photo, you get a better look at the darks and lights in the foliage. These areas were created with hatching, cross hatching and brillo (circular) strokes applied at random.

I am more concerned with the pattern of light and dark and how it relates to the horse and fence at this stage, than with getting the lights and darks in exactly the same place on the painting as they appear in the photograph. I love detail but that level of detail would drive even me crazy! In this case, a reasonable facsimile is all that’s required. It’s the prop against which the actor (Lockkeeper) appears in the painting.

There is about an hour’s worth of work in this section and the only color I used was Light Umber. Light Umber will be one of only two colors I use for the under painting. The other color is Dark Umber and I will use that only in the darkest areas. Most likely in the horse.

©Copyright 2010 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.