Malla - more or less ready

Ok, I painted the finishing touches today in a studio that was in near sauna temperatures (ahh, summer...). I'll let this rest a bit and then see if I have missed something. Now it is just a question of letting it dry. Oils are fun to paint with because they are so flexible, but they take their time to dry. While they do that, often the darker colors get a bit of a dull appearance. So after a while you need to varnish the painting to bring back the brightness of colors.

Here is my reference photo:

And here is the painting:

Malla - worked some more on the neck

I had little time today to paint, but managed to paint the neck some more. A horse's neck looks very smooth at a glance but is full of tiny light changes.

Malla - basic blocking of color and details on head

Ok, so now I moved to the mare. I blocked the basic colors and blended. Then I began working on the details of the head, but when it was 10.30 pm I had to admit there was not enough light anymore... So this is today's work.

Malla will have a black mane. Plenty of work still to be done - there is an amazing amount of detail in a horse's neck... Not to mention legs. And then the mane... Oh, the mane... Let's see how long I'll be doodling that LOL :D

Malla - background

This is where Malla goes at the moment. The background is from a photo taken after a storm by another artist (used with permission), modified a bit. I tried to make the leaves give some glare of the afternoon sunlight, the bakcground scenery is dulled by haze.

The tree trunk has a lot of deep shadows in it, but so will this beautiful mare. The background is dulled by the haze.

Malla - background sky

I have been studying a new painting method to define colors and paint straight with colors, no layering. This is why it took a while for me to start - did not want to make a mess of this painting. I wanted to do this right - and much faster than my old painting method.

I stained the canavs first so I could see the lights and darks correctly, and then I painted the sky first.

Multi Malla sketch

Life is too hectic... Maybe one day I could afford to spend the daylight hours to painting and studies. At the moment the Egyptology studies and full time job effectively "rob" me of painting time and that really is rather stressful, no matter how much I like the job and the studies. So it seems I won't be taking any assignments any time soon... I did not have time to do this sketch even until I hurt my left hand and could not type at work - two days of sick leave and nothing wrong with my right hand = I had time to do this sketch!

Oh well, maybe I'd better go and buy a lottery ticket! LOL :D

But here is now the first draft of Multi Malla - she truly is a lovely mare. I am going to paint a background to this one too - maybe an autumn forest and fields... She seems to be enjoying her freedom to the full, don't you think?

This will become an oil painting.