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.