Another update on the horse watercolor.

I'm working to portray, I think, a wild-windy mane on this horse.  I can see I'll be changing a lot of things about the mane, I'll just keep working on it until it becomes what I want it to be.

I used one of my photos of a horse named Murphy to begin this painting.  He was my cousins' horse, he's no longer with us.  I rode him up behind Split Mountain, west of Dupuyer, Mt, one time on a cold, windy day.

Murphy had large ears, and a very expressive face.  I've used his image in several paintings just because he had such "presence" in the photos I took of him.

Hope you enjoy the updates, leave a comment if you wish!
Donna Ridgway

I'm working on a horse. Water color on Yupo paper.

This is the very beginning drawing, just laying in color with a brush, in the general shape of a horse's head.  From this point, I'll begin to refine the lines, fill in the mane, fix things I see that need fixing.  My favorite part of  creating a painting is this lay in stage.  I love to take a blank white page, to the point where it begins to come to life.  Where there was nothing, you now see a horse.

Because I've created paintings since I was 5 years old, I've refined my process to the point where this step takes from 15 minutes to an hour to complete.  If you counted the total of hours painting to get to this place, I'd probably have 20,000 hours in painting!  I really have no idea, lol!  But I know it's a lot of hours, a lot of lessons, a lot of work.  To coin a cliche, a labor of love. :)

Watch for updates as the painting comes along.

This is the last day of the Thanksgiving holiday for 2014, I'm wishing you will have many things to be thankful for in the coming year.
Donna Ridgway