Friday, August 14, 2009

Sunshine

Sunshine, 24 x 24
NFS

Apologies for the sparse postings of late, but I've been helping my son get his new-used car ready to head out of state for his sophomore year of college; and also spent nearly two full days rounding up various documents from all over Austin for my daugher's learner's permit exam. Check and check. He's hopefully in Knoxville, TN by now, (please, God) and my daughter passed her test. Locals, beware of the latter.

I met this bright-eyed beauty on a horse farm in northwest Austin. There were several others I took pictures of, but this one — I'm calling her Sunshine — loved the camera. There are two other poses of her I hope to paint in the next week. This painting is my first attempt using only palette knives, which I really enjoyed and will continue to explore.


7 comments:

Gwen Bell said...

Really interesting and pleasing use of angles and cropping. The area of cool shadow on the blaze is great. I also like the red & purple on the lip and the bright red on the right side of the head. Very expressive eye. Great job!

Laura said...

LOVE IT!

Angela Elledge said...

Sunshine is beautiful, love your knife work and I especially like the contrast of the green and reds. I have a horse commission to work on, but am too scared to begin it.

We must have a child the same age, my daughter leaves for her 2nd year of school on Friday, but is only about 2 hours away. She's probably more like you daughter though in the driving thing, just recently got rear ended and it totaled her "old-new" car, so she's without transportation until she and Dad find another suitable "old-new" car. I will say, from experience, we prefer being on this side of the insurance thing than the other side, but oh, how the driving and the letting go thing is so difficult!

Angela Elledge said...

Also forgot to mention that I really like the opposing angles in the background.

Marla said...

Wow, this composition is fantastic. I love the expressive eye and the soft muzzle (or whatever it's called on a horse). I've done a couple paintings with palette knife, but used a more primitive-looking technique, nothing like the subtlety you've achieved here.

Sandra Galda said...

Love this one, such gorgeous art here.

Anonymous said...

this is what i would call a perfect image of horse behaviour, look, attitude. wonderful work. r.