ACEO Morgan Portrait
3-1/2 by 2-1/2 inches

At this stage of the painting process, it doesn’t seem to take much to go from looking good to looking better.

In the top image, a layer of Burnt Sienna has been applied to the previous work. Since the object at this stage was to adjust the color of the horse evenly, I mixed a little bit of walnut oil with the paint before applying it to the painting.

I discovered immediately that that did not produce the look I wanted. The paint was nice and transparent, but the paint film was not as even as I would have liked. In some areas, it even looked streaky.

To eliminate that streaky look, I added small amounts of additional paint to the affected areas and brushed them in every possible direction within the area I was painting. The end result was exactly what I was looking for, even if the method left a little bit to be desired!

Although the overall painting is still a little bit darker than what I’m looking for, I am satisfied with the work so far. Adding highlights to the horse will make a major difference, but that will have to wait for the end of the process and there are still a few other things to be done.

Like add some gold tones to the basic chestnut color of this horse’s coat.

After the paint was dry (24 hours), it was time for the next step.

Before doing anything else, I rubbed the entire painting with walnut oil, then wiped off the excess with a clean rag. The purpose was to allow the paint to flow onto the surface more easily without creating the ‘greasy’ look that resulted by mixing paint and oil in the previous work session. This method, which I have used before on larger paintings, does improve the flow of the paint and allows me to create smooth gradations of color as though I were blending wet-into-wet without actually working wet-into-wet.

I did notice one thing that caused momentary alarm…. There was color on the clean rag I was using when I finished. There wasn’t a noticeable difference on the painting, but some of the previous day’s work did lift in when I removed excess walnut oil. Twenty-four hours wasn’t quite enough time for that work to dry. Consider it a lesson learned and a mental note made!

But the rest of the work went extremely well.

The colors used were Cadmium Yellow Light mixed with Titanium White to paint the highlights in the face, upper neck and shoulder. Yellow Ochre was then applied wet-into-wet as needed to add yet another dimension to the array of colors in the highlights.

As the horse continues to advance, I am also adjusting the background. Those adjustments are less drastic and are geared mostly toward focusing the attention where it belongs…on the horse.

In this case, all I did was add some of the highlight colors from the horse to the background around the horse’s throat and face, then brushed them out into the surrounding areas so they blended smoothly.

©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.