Come paint with me! Art Lesson, paint horse.

I decided we could work from this photo today. It isn't the greatest photo, the light was bad, and it was kind of dull.

To add some interest to our painting, let's crop it to this view! It brings the horse up close to us.

Now we'll start to draw our horse onto the paper. I'm using a gessoed matboard. I gesso the boards on all sides, and give them about three coats. If you're using watercolor, which I am, be sure you don't touch the boards after you've prepared them. The oil on your hands will create a resist to the watercolor paint and you'll have blotchy spots.

Here are my first marks on the paper. I'm using burnt umber. It's a little grainy because it's an earth tone, but I'm using it anyway. It does wipe off clean if I make a mistake, which is nice in the drawing stage.

Here are some more lines, it's starting to look like our horse all ready!

I'm now adding some more lines, and some background color. Sometimes when your horse doesn't stand out very much, begin to throw some back ground in, it will help your horse come to life. I used thalo blue and thalo green for background color. I threw it on randomly, who cares at this point?

At this point, I added some yellow ochre around the horse's nose. Put in a hint of mane, using French Ultramarine Blue. I use it instead of thalo on the horse because the thalo is staining, it won't wipe clean if you want to move it around. I've added some shadows, highlights and details around the eye. Shaded the back some, put in a hint of shoulder muscles.

Now, I darkened the background by adding some green over the blue and blue over the green. I keep the background darker behind the white of the horse, and lighter behind the brown of the horse. I added burnt sienna to the horse's face to give it some orange tints. Orange and blue are complementary colors, and I like to use them together. I blended along the edge of where the mane begins on the neck. I added some lines in the mane by taking an almost dry brush and rubbing the lines in. I work the highlights the same way on the horse's face. I leave his rump area burnt umber, because I don't want your eye sticking on that place. Our focal point is the face of the horse.
The background felt kind of "raw" to me. I took my big Chinese Hake brush, with the bamboo handle. I dipped it in the water, swished it around, then dropped it into a paper towel. I didn't rub it dry. Just touched it to the towel.

After that, I dipped it into the burnt sienna paint (using a pan watercolor set) and swished it around, I wanted some fairly strong paint on that brush. I then took the brush and smooshed it against the paper in random places. Sometimes, I kind of roll the brush across the surface, the idea is to create random patterns and this brush works best for this. I did the same thing with the thalo blue paint after the sienna had dried. I keep a hair dryer at my desk for drying the painting between applications.

When you work on this surface, you can carefully lay one color on top of another, so long as you do not scrub or rub the brush in anyway. Let each layer dry, before you add another layer.

I also laid in a layer of orange on the horse's face to give him some more color.

I added some lines for the short mane that falls on the withers. I lightened an area over the hip. I worked finding details in the face. After I have several layers of paint on the animal, I can work in details by taking my almost dry brush, and rubbing back ward into the paint. It creates highlights and details. I must be feeling close to finished, because I signed my name.
I shortened the left ear, and added some burnt sienna lines at the base of it, on the neck, that area stood out to much. I added some French Ultramarine Blue on the withers, it brightened up the face. It's 10:30, so I'll stop for tonight. When I look at this again in the morning, I might soften that mane on the withers so it blends more into the rest of the mane.

Hope you enjoyed this painting lesson. Email your painting to me, and I'll post it on the blog! I'll add it right to this post.

I hope the directions were good enough, and had enough demonstrations so you could tell what I did as I went along.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!
Donna
Remember, you can find horse art, wildlife art, cow art, and animal paintings, for sale on my website.
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How to begin your painting.

This is the easiest, fastest way to begin painting. Place your primed or gessoed support flat on a table. Dip a large round oil painting brush in your turpentine or odorless thinner. Dip your brush into any color of paint on your palette. I like to use colors that will be complimentary to major colors in the painting. This gives the painting a glow you don't achive otherwise. Smear the paint and turpentine around the canvas. Your goal is to cover the support with some color. You want this color to be loose and what a painter will call "washy". The color doesn't need to be dark.

While I'm finding my image on the board, I'm constantly thinking. How far away from the edge should this line be? How does this shape curve? Where does it meet the next shape? Is this line half way across the painting horizontally? Where does it cross this vertical line? You can see in the image above, you might call this a complicated painting. It really isn't. While you're drawing, never think about horses. Don't say to yourself, is this horse's neck long enough? Is his head big enough? Gosh, I don't know how to draw horses. I can never get the eyes right. Toss all of those thoughts out of your head and think about your lines and shapes and where they need to be on the painting. You'll be surprised at how easily your drawing will appear.

This method of drawing the image right onto the support will save so much time and energy for you. You don't have to bother with drawing an image on paper or transferring it to canvas. It's there on the painting as you go along. When you make a mistake on your drawing, dip your brush in some more paint and turpentine, and smear paint over the area you wish to correct. Dip your brush back into the turpentine and begin to find your image again. Keep the drawing light in color and you can paint over it and redraw it over and over until it looks right. When you grow used to this method, you'll find it easier and easier to create each painting.

I read many books on how to draw before I found one that made perfect sense to me. I didn't like methods where I learned to draw circles, put the circles together and try to make them form the shape of a horse. I didn't like other methods I found. Nothing seemed to work for me. Then I took a drawing class put on by an artist friend of mine. She used the Betty Edwards book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". It was like a light came on in my head! After I studied this method of learning to see, I could draw anything!

Save on Art Supplies at MisterArt.com

I hope this lesson was helpful to you. You can see some of my horse art on my website. I've also posted pages of Christmas gifts there. You'll find gifts you can't get any where else for a horse loving person.

The Support Beneath your Painting

The support is what you actually paint upon. Some artists use prepared canvases. You can purchase them in online stores, craft stores in your town, and from art supply catalogs. If you want longevity in your work, use the good, stretched canvases. They come on wooden stretcher bars. For practise, the canvas boards are fine. Gallery wrapped canvases are wonderful as they don't require framing! As soon as your painting is finished, it's ready to hang on the wall.

Other artists prefer to use mdf board or masonite boards. Unless you're planning on doing very large paintings, 1/4 inch board will work for you. Lumber yards will cut 4X8 sheets of this board into sizes you require. They usually charge a small fee for this. You can also cut your own boards if you have the tools.

If you want to get extremely creative and find your board at the best possible price, (which is free) find a friend who has a cabinet shop, a contractor, or woodworker who throws the scraps away. They'll be happy to have you pick the scraps up so they don't have to haul them off. You'll also find this material in dumpsters where general contractors have thrown excess materials away. Choose only the good fresh boards that are clean.

Once you've aquired your board and cut it to size, it needs to be gessoed. Gesso is a special kind of paint that covers boards, sticking to them and giving you a safe surface to apply your paints. I use several coats of gesso on my boards. (4-6 coats) I paint both sides so the boards don't warp. Some artists like to sand between the coats of gesso to get a smooth surface. (Let it dry thoroughly between coats.) I like the texture of my lines and lumps to show through, so I tend to slap the gesso on with abandon. Many artists use house paint or primer for this application. There are pros and cons to this line of thought. You might want to do more research on this method and decide for yourself which way to go. I've done it both ways and it hasn't seemed to make much difference. Gesso can be found in art catalogs or art and craft supply stores.

You can also gesso mat board and other surfaces before you paint on them. Don't be afraid to try new things. If you watch House and Garden television, you'll see how any surface can be painted! A word of caution. To create fine art, use only the best methods, materials and preparations. For other painting, you can get as creative as you wish.

When I purchase supports, I like to use the Fredrix Stretched Linen Canvas I find on Mr Art.com. This canvas is so smooth and rich! When you see it, you can't wait to start your next painting. I've bought supplies from Mr Art for less money than I'd pay buying them in a local craft store and I saved the gas it takes to make a trip to town.

Save on Art Supplies at MisterArt.com

You can see horse art on my website and purchase Christmas gifts on the special pages I set up for the holidays. Thanks for stopping by....
donna

Creating Equine Art

The first things you need to know about becoming an equine artist are some basic rules about image use. As an artist you must learn to work using live subjects to capture your scenes, or using a camera to take your own photos. Your unique way of seeing the world of the horse shines through when you use reference materials you've gathered yourself. Another way to create an image, is to call upon your imagination. Let it flow and see what appears on the canvas or paper.

Artist's also find images, by purchasing the rights to photos or pictures that belong to someone else. It's perfectly acceptable and legal to use images if you purchase rights. You may also ask permission when you find a photo you like, some people will allow you to use their photos for free. Becoming a member of certain organizations and contributing to their member reference libraries gives you the right to use other members reference photos. Two such art related organizations are the Equine Art Guild and Wet Canvas.

There are other sites on the web, where you can receive help in your quest for learning to paint, these two above, happen to be the two I belong to at this time. At both organizations, you'll have help with any problem that arises. Artists there are happy to assist you with information about supplies, mediums, techniques and encouragement. There's a fee to join the Equine Art Guild, Wet Canvas is free at this time. Both organizations accept you at the skill level with which you paint at this time. You don't have to be famous or skilled to join.

If you choose to paint human subjects with famous horses, be sure to obtain a model release. Images of some people and horses are legally protected against use. It's wise to ask permission before you begin to paint these subjects.

Copyright law might seem complicated. It becomes very simple if you remember this basic rule. Don't copy another person's work. Use your own reference materials! You'll hear from some sources it's permissible to copy a work if you "change it 10%". Don't do it. It isn't legal. Use your own materials! I can't stress this enough. Think of it this way, would you want someone else copying your work? You won't be considered a serious artist, if you don't gather your own sources for your work.

You don't have to own a horse to become a great equine artist. Perhaps you work with horses and have endless ideas coming your way for your art. Many artists I know go to the track, parades, rodeos or other equine events to gather material for creating their paintings. Perhaps you have a friend or neighbor who's willing to allow you to photograph their horses. I like to drive around the countryside taking photos of horses I find along the way. I'm careful not to disturb the horses or try to get close to them, I take the photos from a distance. This method gives me natural looking poses of horses in their environment.

Many factors enter into becoming an equine artist. First and foremost, is the image you create and how you come upon it. In following articles, I'll post lessons, with examples, on how to draw and paint horses.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed this article on learning to be an equine artist. You'll find horse art and gifts on my website. I've put up some special pages for Christmas gift giving.

Free art lesson. Value study.

This is pretty crazy. But I'm showing you what a difference value can make in a painting. The reason I show it isn't to set myself up as knowing something, it's to maybe help another person while they're trying to learn to become an artist. I learned everything the long hard way. I didn't have many resources, there was no internet back then and art lessons cost money I didn't have.

I've often thought, if I could just "pay it forward" maybe someone else could become a good artist from what I've learned, and it would save them a lot of time.

The point of this lesson in values is this, look at the way your eye is drawn to certain points in each of the four examples above. The reason your eye goes to those places is this, that is where the lightest color in the example meets the darkest color in the example.

When you plan your painting, think ahead and decide which part of the painting will be where you want people to look the longest. That will be the point of the painting that helps to tell the story of what's going on. That is where you'll place the most intense value change of the entire painting. Save your lightest light and your darkest dark for that particular place and you'll create what's called the "focal point". Every great painting has one.

Don't place your darkest dark anywhere else on the painting, and don't place your lightest light anywhere else on the painting. Save them for this exciting thing called the "Focal Point". The human eye can see the smallest variations in value changes so you still have plenty of value ranges to use in the rest of your painting.

If you scroll down that jpg I placed above, your eye will follow the focal points of each demo. Proof that it works!
donna

How to draw fur, lesson two.

Here's lesson two in how to draw fur. We all know the shape of an animal isn't square like the boards in my first example. Animals have a softly rounded shape and their fur follows the form created by their skeleton and muscles.

The way light falls on an animals form is what gives us the ability to see how layers of fur lay upon each other. These plates demonstrate this principle. The shadow will move as the light changes so we have to take that into account as we draw fur, it might not always be shining down in the same direction as it is in this picture. So take that into account when you draw fur.

I'm using boards and plates (very familiar items) to help you make the transition to fur. These examples help you to see what's happening in a very simple form.

On to lesson 3, how to draw fur!

How to draw fur, lesson one.

When you first begin to draw fur, it's easy to get lost in all the layers and colors of an animal. I've devised a way to think of fur, that takes the mystery out of the process. See the image above. Imagine it to be a stack of lumber out in the yard. The sun is above the lumber and it casts a shadow around the top of the boards where one board lays against another. As this light hits the boards, the top of each board is lit up where it's closest to the light. Then you see a shadow that's formed when the edge of a board blocks the light from falling onto the next board.

The light has created a pattern of shadow and highlight. This same process will happen in an animals fur.

Lesson two is coming next.

Free art lesson 1.

Creating Equine Art

The first things you need to know about becoming an equine artist are some basic rules about image use. As an artist you must learn to work using live subjects, capturing your scenes, or using a camera to take your own photos. Your unique way of seeing the world of the horse shines through when you use your own reference materials. Another way to create an image, is to call upon your imagination. Let it flow and see what appears on the canvas or paper.

Artist's also find images, by purchasing the rights to photos or pictures that belong to someone else. It's perfectly acceptable and legal to use images if you purchase rights. You may also ask permission when you find a photo you like, some people will allow you to use their photos for free. Becoming a member of certain organizations and contributing to their member reference libraries gives you the right to use other members reference photos. Two such art related organizations are the Equine Art Guild and Wet Canvas.

There are other sites on the web, where you can receive help in your quest for learning to paint, these two above, happen to be the two I belong to at this time. At both organizations, you'll have help with any problem that arises. Artists there are happy to assist you with information about supplies, mediums, techniques and encouragement. There's a fee to join the Equine Art Guild, Wet Canvas is free at this time. Both organizations accept you at the skill level with which you paint at this time. You don't have to be famous or skilled to join.

If you choose to paint human subjects with famous horses, be sure to obtain a model release. Images of some people and horses are legally protected against use. It's wise to ask permission before you begin to paint these subjects.

Copyright law might seem complicated. It becomes very simple if you remember this basic rule. Don't copy another person's work. Use your own reference materials! You'll hear from some sources it's permissible to copy a work if you "change it 10%". Don't do it. It isn't legal. Use your own materials! I can't stress this enough. Think of it this way, would you want someone else copying your work? You won't be considered a serious artist, if you don't gather your own sources for your work.

You don't have to own a horse to become a great equine artist. Perhaps you work with horses and have endless ideas coming your way for your art. Many artists I know go to the track, parades, rodeos or other equine events to gather material for creating their paintings. Perhaps you have a friend or neighbor who's willing to allow you to photograph their horses. I like to drive around the countryside taking photos of horses I find along the way. I'm careful not to disturb the horses or try to get close to them, I take the photos from a distance. This method gives me natural looking poses of horses in their environment.

Many factors enter into becoming an equine artist. First and foremost, is the image you create and how you come upon it. In following articles, I'll post lessons, with examples, on how to draw and paint horses.

The support under your painting.