Primitive horse painting

In keeping with “small art” in June, I decided to use a primitive horse chatchke as a model.  I got him as a gift many years ago and he now lives on a dresser in my studio framed from behind by a 26″ flat rice basket.

Primitive horse watercolor

I had the worst time sketching him out.  I am using a rectangular piece of watercolor board and initially had it in landscape layout.  He has over long legs and I kept running out of room for them.  Finally, it occurred to me to just turn it to portrait and that worked out much better.  I can be slow sometimes.  I outlined sketchily in ink and then put down a base layer of watercolors.  His legs and head are metal, but the base and body are wood.  I used a dark sepia on the metal parts and yellow ocher for the wood.  I left it alone over night and today added more of both.  I put down some green to ground the figure and decided to highlight with purple.  At the last, I went back and added more ink.

I’m up in the air how I feel about this one.  I don’t dislike it, but I’ not overwhelmed with it either.  I’ll let it sit for a few days and decide whether to list it or not.

And, I have been keeping an eye out for Mr. Turtle this spring. The last few years I have seen him plodding down the gravel driveway when I was out weeding, but I missed him this year.  I was concerned about his survival given the months of drought, but fortunately, John saw him last week under the deck so he has already made it around the house.  I’m glad to know he is back even if I wasn’t the one to see him.  Maybe he’ll decide to head into the hillside flower bed and I’ll get to say hello.