Tornado speedpaint

After the long haul completing the oil painting alt="plough horse oil painting" I was glad to switch to some speed painting in Photoshop using photo reference.

Plough horse oil painting

This year has been tough - lots of long hours at work and other commitments that have meant I was not able to do as much art work as I would have liked.

One piece that has being running since April is this plough horse.

 

It started out as an exercise and I was going to use acrylics.

I have not worked with them much but  liked the idea of being able to layer the paints quickly.

I used a couple of photo references for this - the main one was in black and white.  The sketch used that composition.  

20 march 2011

I sketched in pencil and  I should have spent some time getting this right but I didn't.  Next time .........

The next thing I did was started blocking in colour. This was in acrylic.

It was at his point I realised how massive the area was and how much effort it was going to take to make this work. 

 I stopped at here.  

When I returned to work on it I had decided to switch to oils.  

I chipped away at it for April and blocked in all the colour.  I worked on landscape behind. 

05 May 2011

Next I started to work on the furrows.  As it was such a big canvas I didn't want to get into too much detail.  I marked the lines out then defined

11 MAY 2011

 

25 MAY 2011

When all other detail was added I went in and added the harness and shadows.

I added a pale wash to push the landscape and sky back and that was it.

03  June 2011

As ever learned alot on this-I should do more prep and make more decisive decisions as I work.  

 

Firefighter

A quick effort sketching a firefighter.

Dog portrait

With some time off for Easter - two bank holiday weekends - I took a short camping trip. I also ended up dog sitting. Unusually the time off conincided with some unseasonably warm and dry weather. We treked in the Connemara National Park. If your visiting this part of the world do try to make your way there.
This was a photo I took of the dog after a little Photoshopping.

This image is how it started out.

Easter Bunny

Lolling Lizard

I  have kept working on the vectors and choose a lizard as the next unwilling victim.  I ended up with very much the same colour scheme as the last one but it was not intentional.

Lolling Lizard

Spring Sheep

Last Sunday was the first really spring day I got to enjoy. There may have been some earlier but as I work in a room with no windows I may have missed some. 

The fields were full of sheep and their lambs in sunshine. One of those days when it is just great being there.