Large commission..cont

Ok, Time to blog! Half term and sickness bug had put a stop to painting for a couple of days but we are back on track and steaming towards the home straight! This one is very nearly complete now so this piccy is where its at this eve. I have gone through each one doing underpaintings and loose details, now working my way back the other way (no particular reason) tightening them all up, adding fine detail and blending colours, light and shading. So 2 more to go. Hopefully finish Tues and have Wednesday for fiddling!

I am loving all the nitty gritty tack details and the colour blending :-)
Joined together with the looseness and course brushstrokes of the background.
The background is going to have to be re worked once the horses are complete. I have patched it up in places due to slight changes in the horses as I have progressed. The basic idea will be the same, working with sagey greens, middle grey, raw umber, buff titanium and titanium white.

Large commission..cont

Ok ! onwards and upwards. have been really cracking on with this one this week as its half term next week so will have ltd time to work. I will post the photos as i have completed work daily to show you on average how much i do in a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
Thats the thing with painting, as most artist will tell you, sometimes you cant get down to paint quick enough and sometimes I have to really crowbar my bottom off the seat and into the studio! :D
This weeks work has also been interupted by daughter no 2 being off sick yesterday with a sickness bug! probably caught at her birthday party or the germ pool of school.

Anyway I degress, here are the pictures from the last few days! comments very welcome :P

Large commission

Ok. On with the commissions. :D I have started a large commission now, Its of 4 horses. Two of them have unfortunately passed away so we are really ltd with photos of those two. I have managed to get some more photos sent of the other 2 and I am working from numerous photos to get this portrait complete.
One major issue when doing a large portrait is getting the sizes correct. None of the horses are photographed together so it is vital to get as much information as to the proportions etc. Who is the biggest? It might sound simple, but to get them all looking correct from numerous photos requires a lot of study and placing.

To ensure I had got this one correct, once each horse was sketched out, i copied the sketches and made templates up to the correct sizing and placed them on canvas. This is the stage you can see here in the the photo. Once these were all placed and the client had approved it, I could then draw them out onto the canvas for real. I have now done this and also put in the back ground. I will post an update late this week to show how this one is progressing. I have a tight deadline on this , so things should move along quite swiftly. Come back soon to see how its going :)