Blue Velvet Bay

I'd come across this horse in a pen at the side of the highway and I was so taken with the amazing color of the horse and the brilliant red tin of the building, that I had to get some photos. Even then, I was picturing this horse with his glorious color and the red building in the background as a future painting. I posted one of the photos on my sidebar labeled (ha ha) Blue Roan? - making all the horsey people wince - and I wrote this about the photographs I'd taken.

I've been letting this painting percolate until this past week. On my Wednesday "demo day" I did two mock-ups (pictured left) neither of which pleased me compositionally. I felt the hues of the foreground were about right, but I wanted a more abstracted painterly look, not a classic landscape. In the mock-up, the red building was taking over - and for me this painting was all about the horse. I came up with the final layout while drawing on the panel in chalk, as I did not want to be doing a paint-over this close to show time.

I thought I'd finished - and even took photographs. And looking at the photos on my computer realized the eye, muzzle and head were too detailed and fussy, so I went back and changed them to the version seen here. It's another large one: 30 x 34, on deep cradle panel.

This is the last painting for the March show at the Heritage Center Gallery. The show will open Monday, March 1 and run through the 31st. Here's the original look at the horse and red shed.