I heard myself tell my friend Anje "Cowboys make me drool."
She answered "So maybe you should paint cowboys." Tsk. Anje was right again.
I had taken my good Nikon Cool Pix camera to the fair this year. It was VERY hot and sunny, and there was a working horse event in the big arena. I wanted reference photos of western horses in tack, so I wandered around shooting horses and their riders from lots of angles, hoping to get some interesting horses for painting. One thing that I have learned is to take LOTS of photos, because you never know what detail you may find on one that you may need in a painting. When I got back to my computer and started sorting through these images, I was so excited about what I had captured! I found several different horses of interest, and I especially loved the face on this mare. I sketched her out three different ways but was not satisfied with the results. It took me a few tries to see that the mare needed her cowboy! The two of them together made a much more interesting painting.
I was intrigued by the way this guy was resting his right hand on the saddle and holding his beer and reins in his left hand. I liked the folds in his jeans and the light falling on his boots. I liked painting the tooling on his saddle...his hat is perfect....
While I was painting this, I played with a new technique that I had learned from the fabulous Jeannie Vodden, lifting out color to add highlights. It was really fun to paint different areas separately and watch the image come together. I turned up the color on the mare and and once I got my painting down, it was time for prismacolor!!!
...this cowboy is entered in the Stockton Art League show...
