Horse Country

Ten minutes from the house in Corona and at the base of the Cleveland National Forest are these stables.  I have never painted a horse but I love the hills.

Because I am condensing the composition, I wanted to put it down to make sure that once I started painting I could fill the panel with all the information I wanted. 

This is my initial drawing of my composition.  This approach to the start of my painting was a reaction in the moment.  There are times when I choose to start differently.  I am not sure why this was my choice.

The largest shape was the sky so I quickly set the value orientation for the painting by choosing this color / value.

I then focused on the shapes of the trees and their value.  Once I start working through the progression of values represented in the painting, I did not want to loose the power of their shapes by diminishing their size in later stages of the painting.

The size of the panel 24x32 had me shorten the features I wanted to capture.  I really have to focus on speeding up my painting so that I can work with my favorite size 24x36 for landscapes.

Feeding time.  I took a bunch of pictures of the horses getting fed.  I may try to paint some horses in the studio.  I am not brave enough to try then en plein air yet.

Now I kind of using a paint by numbers approach to fill in the rest of the space in the painting.  I am working around the trees and brush so I can preserve their space within the painting.  This is a more time consuming approach which I will need to change in the future.

Pushing to get through this stage of development so that I can focus on the highlights and relationships of spaces within the composition.

Because the day was fairly clear the atmospheric perspective did not really show the distance, I was going to have to push the values to portray my vision of what I was after.

Filling the space with the darkest color within each of the smaller shape spaces.

The space has been divided.  Now it is time to embellish within that space.

The surface is covered and ready for detail and highlights.  I have preserved the space for the trees within the painting.  In retrospect, I could have done a better job in establishing the aerial perspective in the painting.  Sometimes you are too close to the painting to feel the entirety of it.

Done.

The finished painting.  Oil on board en plein air measuring 24x32.

The value shot.  I think I fell a little short in pushing back the farthest hill in the background.  

The detail shot.  I really liked the brush work in this painting.  They flowed nicely for the most part.