Felix with preliminary watercolor

Felix with some watercolor

I decided to jump right in and start watercoloring Felix.  Sometimes it is just better to dive in, come what may.  If I think too much about what I want to do, I start to get overly cautious.  So far I like the black, but I think it needs to be darker in places.  It’s not quite clear that he is a black horse yet and I haven’t decided whether or not to add his “worried” eyebrow.  The trick, as always, is not to overdo it.

I will be taking a short break on Felix, which is probably not a bad thing.  I already see some parts to darken.  I got a house commission over the weekend and will have to devote the drawing table to getting it out.  It is on the small side, so it will be quick, but it has some very cute eave details.

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Inked Felix

Felix

Here is the preliminary inking of Felix.  He is a black horse (my nemesis in pet portraits as black is so hard) so the interplay between the ink and the watercolors will be interesting.  I will have to be aware of the light reflections off of his coat so he doesn’t get overly dark.  I also don’t necessarily want the watercolors to overwhelm the inking, but it may turn out that the inking is more of a guideline for the coloring than an accent feature.

He often has a slightly worried look on his face, indicated by a slight upward pucker in his eyebrows and it is so characteristic of him that I think it has to be there at some level.  He really is a bit of a Nervous Nellie but a wonderful and kind horse to ride.  I feel so fortunate to know him.

I will start the watercolors but then go back to add some more ink where I need to afterwards.  This will definitely be a multi-session piece.

Don Giovanni – or Felix to his friends

Felix

This is the first of 2 horse portraits.  A few weeks ago I took some pictures at a Maryal Barnett dressage clinic for my friend and I decided to try horse portraits as a gift for her. She has given me the great privilege of letting me ride her 2 wonderful  horses in a lesson every week and this is one of them.  Meet Felix, a 19 year old, 17 hand black Westphalian gelding.  He has competed in the upper levels of FEI dressage competitions, but he is very tolerant of me bouncing around way up there.  I never thought I could ever sit an extended trot, but he makes it easy.  We really start groovin’ it though at the passage and piaffe work.  He gets wonderfully enthusiastic and seems to enjoy it as much as I do.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

He is my nemesis black for a pet portrait, but we’ll see how it turns out.  If they are nice, I will frame them for my friend as a surprise.

Think pink!

Surprisingly pink entryway

I finally got back to work on this massive looking wooden entryway located in Germany.  I have always like the pink facade combined with the huge wooden doorway.  The last time I looked at it was before the Christmas rush, so now that I’ve caught back up, I thought I’d get back to it.  I didn’t really have much left to do, but I deepened the colors some as well as the shadows.

This exemplifies what I like most about Old World architecture – the use of vibrant, unexpected colors.

We have been having a little bit of wildlife excitement here the last couple of days.  This year’s crop of coyote puppies has made its appearance.  I think they are denning across the lake as the mother hangs out past the far end of the dam just outside of the woods.  The boldest 4 of the 6 puppies (!) have crossed the dam and come to hunt and play in our back yards.  I am surprised the parents let them roam so far away.  It might take them 10 seconds to get over here if there was trouble, but I guess they are not too worried about us after all this time.  I took some pictures, but even with my telephoto lens, they hung down too close to the lakeside for really clear pictures.  If some manage to turn out, I’ll post them.  The last time they appeared in 2013, we saw them every afternoon for about 5 days.  I hope we get to see them at least that often.  These are younger than the 2013 group we saw early that July.