Horse Paintings by Carrie L. Lewis

Posted By Carrie L. Lewis on February 24, 2010

After a few weeks for drying the landscape portion of the painting, I put Lockkeeper back on the working easel this week.

Work began yesterday with an umber under painting on the horse.

The idea, when I started work, was to begin with the head and eye and to finish each area before moving on to the next area. I did start with the head and with the eye, but the rest of the plan fell apart within a few brush strokes.

I love working on Baltic Birch panels and I love the methods of the Flemish technique, but combining the two has proven to be more of a challenge than anticipated.

The method used to prep the panel involved a couple of layers of acrylic gesso on a lightly sanded wood surface. When those were dry, I mixed gesso and acrylic modeling paste 1 to 1 and used that mixture for the final surface prep. When it was dry, I scraped it and sanded it lightly to create an ultra smooth working surface perfect for detail.

Unfortunately, that working surface also means that until a sufficient amount of paint is in place, there are only one or two workable brush strokes before paint begins to ’slide’. So after the first couple of brush strokes, I was moving paint around more with each brush stroke than I was applying fresh paint.

So I changed tactics and used that characteristic to block in lights and darks for the entire horse, painting as much detail as possible, but not finishing any area. After ninety minutes, the horse was completely blocked in. Not what I expected to accomplish, but still a good day’s work.

Another quality of this hyper smooth painting surface is that paint layers require more time to dry enough to work on. Getting in too much of a hurry has resulted in previous work being ‘lifted’ by new work.

So even though the colors I used yesterday are almost completely dry to the touch this afternoon, the painting will be allowed to dry for another few days before I touch it again. When I do get ready to paint again, I’ll test yesterday’s work with a razor blade and will paint the next layer only when it passes that ’scratch test’.

Part of doing any job well is learning what you can and can’t do with the materials in use, then learning how to push those usable qualities as much as possible.

That applies to new paints, new supports and new techniques. I would have much preferred to have this portrait proceed without difficulty, but nothing is gained by playing things safe. The lessons I’m learning with Lockkeeper will advance every portrait I do in the future. I consider it on-the-job training. That training will not end until I stop painting.

Category: Classical Painting, Color Work, Materials, Oils, The Painting Process
Tags: Horse Portraits, Lockkeeper, Michigan Standardbreds, The Painting Process