Horse Paintings by Carrie L. Lewis

6″ x 8″ Oil on Prepared Masonite Panel

March 13, 2009
Buckles & Belts is the first ’still life’ I am attempting. Although the composition includes a horse, the focus is the combination of buckles, straps and shadows where a bridle and halter meet.

I’m actually thinking of it as still life, rather than a horse painting.

The horse was a pony horse I photographed years ago at Mt. Pleasant Meadows, a small horse racing facility in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. He was a regular for the several years I visited the track and on this particular day, I ended up with quite a few photographs of him and some of his ‘coworkers’ at the track. So far, this is the first painting to result from all those images.

The drawing had been worked out some time ago. If I remember correctly, it’s been in existence since 2003, when I needed to put together a body of new work for an art show to be held in conjunction with that year’s Kentucky Derby (the year of Funny Cide!).

All I had to do once I decided to tackle the composition again was to reduce it to the appropriate size, then transfer it to the prepped panel (prepped with a 50/50 recipe of gesso and modeling paste finished to a very smooth surface).

That drawing was then inked in to make it permanent. That is what you see here.

That was followed almost immediately by the imprimatura. Because the ink is water based, drying took only half an hour or so.

The imprimatura is a mixture of Lamp Black, Yellow Ochre and Titanium White. I wanted a light tone for this and a high degree of transparency, so I rubbed the color on with a rag, then rubbed it more to smooth and thin the color layer.

The imprimatura will take about a week to dry completely. Further work will have to wait until the imprimatura dries completely.

Because I am using straight Burnt Umber with a minimum of mediums, each day’s work generally dries over night.

I was able to work on the painting on March 23 and March 24 and pretty much finish it up.

March 23, 2009
The Umber Layer is the first stage of the actual painting process. During this stage, values and details are established for the first time.

The Umber Layer for Buckles & Belts was completed in three stages, gradually building values and detail to the required degree. Part of the reason for that is the complexity of the design. In spite of the small size, it was less risky to finish it in stages and allow each stage to dry before moving into the next stage.

The amount of dry brush work than went into the umber layer also shortened the drying time for this painting and that expedited the completion of the umber layer.

March 31, 2009
This is the finished umber layer.

I am very happy with this painting in spite of the complex design and the non-traditional subject treatment. This image is almost enough to make me consider calling it finished at this point.

Almost!

The painting will dry for at least three weeks. That will put the dead layer at about April 21 for beginning work.

June 3, 2009
April 21 came and went and Buckles & Belts sat idle. Too many paintings coming due at the same time, too many things going on in other areas of life and two weeks of a cold that prevented all studio work all combined. All of my paintings suffered from neglect, but this one most of all.

And it would have set idle for another except that when I finished painting on Impulsion this evening, I decided to use the same brushes and paint and begin the dead layer on this one. The intention was to do just enough to get started, but I ended up painting all of the parts of the horse’s head, jowl and neck that show through the various straps and buckles.

I was quite surprised to get so much done, especially since the complexity of this painting has been somewhat intimidating. Surprise, surprise! It was a great way to end the studio day.

September 1, 2009
Today’s dead layer work focused on the halter and bridle and the rest of the horse. I began with the eye, then worked my way out into the rest of the face, finishing for the day with the buckles and belts on the right side of the composition.

This composition is both the most complicated painting I’ve designed and one of the most unusual. I suppose that explains why it’s also been the most interesting painting I’ve worked on in the Flemish technique.

September 19, 2009
More work on the dead layer. It looked finished when I stopped for the day today, but I’ve noticed that whenever I think something’s finished, it usually needs another day.

I focused on the halter and bridle and the rest of the horse. I began with the eye, then worked my way out into the rest of the face, finishing for the day with the buckles and belts. I used a third session to tidy up whatever remained and when I finished that day, I was thinking the dead layer looked complete.

I’ve very satisfied with the horse in this composition, but there are still a few somewhat ragged edges on the bridle straps and I’ve just barely suggested detail in the nylon halter.

I was quite surprised to get so much done, especially since the complexity of this painting has been somewhat intimidating. Surprise, surprise! It was a great way to end the studio day.

September 21, 2009
I took a few minutes to add details like highlights on buckles and straps and punched holes today. The little things that will make the painting sing or resign it to mediocrity.

I also looked at a few other areas, especially around the eye. This is a challenge for me because the eye is usually the focal point of any up-close-and-personal painting.

Not so with this painting. There is an eye in this painting, but it’s not the focal point. The grouping of buckles behind the eye is the focus.

So I have to paint a realistic and believable eye without drawing too much attention to it. That’s a tough call for me! I love painting eyes.

Other than that, there wasn’t much to do to finish the dead layer. A lot of the details will be added in the final stages of color work so it’s a challenge to leave them alone at the other phases of work.

The painting was then put into the drying area and will dry for a minimum of three weeks (until October 12).

October 13, 2009
Color work began today as Buckles & Belts enters the final stage of the painting process.

Work began today with a rubbing of Transparent Yellow Oxide over the parts of the horse that are more golden in color. Around the eye, over the jowl and the area adjacent to the poll. I used a small (about 1/4″) frayed sable flat brush to rub color directly onto the surface of the panel. The color was kept thin enough to allow all the details of the dead layer to show through the paint.

When that was complete, I switched colors to Transparent Red Oxide and rubbed that into the redder areas. Where golds and red overlapped, I worked the red color into the previous color, blending them wet-into-wet.

That was followed by a combination of Burnt Umber and a green made from Transparent Yellow Oxide and Manganese Blue into the darker areas.

I used the same brush for each step, working from light to dark and blending colors wet-into-wet as necessary. By the time I finished, the entire horse had color on it. The only areas I didn’t work on today were the eye and the long hairs of the forelock.

To end the session, I rubbed a little bit of golden mixture into the leather straps of the bridle. The halter and bridle will be painted in a more opaque method, but I wanted to put some color into the bridle to help distinguish it from the horse, as well as from the halter, which will be blue.

This work will be allowed to dry completely before the next glazing.

December 10, 2009
Color work continued as I began placing more precise details in the face of this horse.

Since it was toward the end of the painting day, the intention was to work just the face, so I rubbed that area with Alkyd/Walnut Oil medium until it was warmed, then wiped off the excess.

I also intended just to put in some of the highlights and let them dry so I could later glaze local color over them.

So much for intentions!

I did start with the highlights and placed those that are the brightest around and above the eye. Then, while I was using a blue-tinted white, I decided to add the highlights to the buckles and eyelets, as well.

Then I thought it would be a good time to tone the areas of the horse to more accurately reflect coloring. Yellow ochre was used in the gold areas, burnt sienna in the red areas and burnt umber in the brown areas, with ivory black mixed with burnt umber in the shadows. Before I knew it, I had painted over the entire face.

Work was going so well that I then proceeded to paint the section of jowl behind the cheek strap and the end strap and that led, naturally enough, to darkening and repainting the shadows of the neck that provide the background for the jowl.

I could have gone ahead and repainted the neck and poll, too, but painting time was over and I was beginning to run the risk of accidentally smearing fresh paint, so it was time to stop.

December 18, 2009
Today’s 90-minute session began and ended with the blue halter, but also encompassed parts of the bridle, hardware on both and all of the horse to the right of the tack as color work continued.

I didn’t intend to spend a lot of time on this painting today as there were other things I should have been doing and there was half an hour or less of studio time left when I started.

But I popped in a Mannheim Steamroller Christmas CD and not only painted all through that (a 58-minute CD), but painted for another hour! Considering the fact that I’d already finished two small landscapes, that made today the best painting day this month.

Work began with the halter, which I painted using Cerulean Blue and Titanium White, with a little green mixture (Prussian Blue and Transparent Red Oxide) in the shadows.

In order to get the edges I wanted, I also painted the parts of the horse adjacent to the halter. The colors used on the horse were Burnt Umber, Transparent Red Oxide, Yellow Ochre, Titanium White and, in the deepest shadow areas, the same green mixture above.

The largest brushes I used today were a couple of old, beat up #2 rounds. Most of the work was completed using 20/0 and 10/0 sable rounds. I can’t say the work was time consuming because I was quite surprised to realize so much time had passed when I finished.

But I can say the work was very satisfactory. The parts I worked on are essentially finished with the exceptions of a few places that will need highlights dropped into them after paint dries. There will also be some repainting in some of the areas as I work edges from the opposite direction.

June 19, 2010
This painting has set idle for a long, long time. At one point, I decided to scrap it. But the paint layers are very stable and it gets a lot of compliments even unfinished, so I’ve decided to freshen it up and finish it.

A few weeks ago, I tried colored pencils on it to see if I could finish the detail work with wax-based pencils. That worked so long as I could get the color down in one or two solid passes and was working over a smooth surface. I worked on a couple of halter sections, then set it aside again.

So the first thing to do today was to remove the colored pencil. To accomplish that, I used odorless paint thinner and a clean rag to wipe the painting thoroughly. It was then allowed to dry completely and was wiped again. A lot of color (all colored pencil) came up the first time. Less came off the second time. When I began to see evidence of oil color lifting on the third pass, I stopped and left the painting to air and dry for the rest of the weekend.