Firstly I am indebted to Wendy Hodgkins Corniquet for her excellent reference photograph
I find it hard to resist Camargue horses and when I saw this picture, I felt that it would work well as a painting
The only thing I changed was the background. The photograph had a background more like a sunset, which I have changed to something plainer. I felt that concentrated more on the horses.
Camargue horses as you know, run wild in the wetlands in the Rhone estuary. They are always white, which adds to their impact as a herd, especially galloping through water.
I have painted them many times, as featured on my web site davidharmerwatercolour.co.uk
I have trieed a different image and with it a different style
I was intrigued by this image, having decided in my mind to give horses a rest for a while. I was struck by the simplicity of the subject, and wanted to capture that. Detail has been kept to a minimum. Despite the activity, the horses seem calm. The water is churned up, yet the painting gives a feeling of peace
I think this is a painting that you can look at for quite a long time.
I would first like to acknowledge with thanks Rebecca Photography on Pixabay who kindly allowed me to use her reference photograph, when preparing this watercolour painting
I like, as many will know, painting horses and horses in water. This image intrigued me and presented problems from the start. Horse and rider were a complete silhouette. So? Well, there were no details to help me with the drawing or very few at least. It was difficult, if nigh impossible to check my measurements as I proceeded with the drawing. Likewise the rider, which I don’t normally include but they were the same image. They could not be separated. If you have ridden horses, and I have a little when I was younger, you will know that you have to adopt certain attitudes or body shapes, otherwise you will just fall off. Legs must be in the right place for example. You can’t see the legs in this image so what to do?
I ended up doing a separate drawing of the horse with rider showing her legs and stirrups. I had to match the correct leg position with the rest of her body. That took me some time. It was quite a long time of experimentation, before I was ready to paint. Sky and water were comparatively straightforward in comparison. I had to give horse and rider two coats of burnt umber before I had a perfect silhouette.
I must have done something right. The painting sold on its first announcement
I would have liked her for my current show at Denbies Wine Estate but you can’t have everything, and anyway you can only sell a painting once
When I posted this painting previously I thought the horses were floating which was not an effect that I had been trying to get. It was suggested that I add spatter so that it would appear the horses were kicking up mud. So that is what I have done, and I prefer the result. They do now look as though they have feet on the ground
That really finishes this painting, and I can move on to other things
I came across a photograph of Tower Bridge in London, which looks like early morning with very deep orange in the sky and reflected in the water. It is the sort of colouring that I like doing in watercolour. The bridge itself is silhouetted against this bright sky, so not too much detail in the architecture. There are a couple of large boats but little more. It will be very much an exercise in tonal values, which should be enjoyable
This is my finished version of the photograph for which I am grateful to Pixabay
I am not sure about the marbling, not that I have tried to emulate the original exactly. I have used more orange and more blue, which has made the painting brighter, rightly or wrongly. My eye at the moment, is going from one image to the other. I don’t think I have captured the same feeling of movement as the original . When I look at the original I can almost hear the hoofbeats. My horses seem to float on a cloud, which is weird or ethereal depending on your preference.
Still it has been an interesting exercise and one of the most taxing that I have tried for a long time. Certainly a change from architecture
Horses with acknowledgements to Image by Artower from Pixabay
I am grateful for the loan of this image provided by the royalty free website Pixabay. I thought that painting my own version in watercolour would provide me with quite a challenge. The horse that worried me most was the chestnut mare in the centre. How to get the colour that vibrant was a question I couldn’t answer. Obviously a glazing exercise, but where to start. I consulted the mighty Google and looked at various options. One was interesting, starting with an under painting of dilute sap green, but I drew back from that and went for something safer
I decided to do two trials, and start with drawings in coloured pencil. I have never done that before and it seemed so obvious, after it was pointed out. One I drew in terracotta and the other in golden brown. I washed in the coloured lines so that it started looking like a painting. I then gave both a coat of Cadmium Orange and I photographed them both for the record.
Drawing with terracotta pencil and orange washDrawn with the golden brown pencil and washed in with orange
There isn’t much between them, although I quietly favour the golden brown
These can harden overnight, and I will start tomorrow on successive coats. Burnt Sienna with a dash of red. Shadows in burnt umber with a dash of indigo. That should give quite a sharp finish, I hope but we shall see. The whole thing is like nothing I have attempted before
If I haven’t mentioned before, my own website davidharmerwatercolour.co.uk was completely redesigned recently. It is now set out better, in subject headings, so that things are easier to find, and is working well
I changed some of the colouring on some of the horses as I wasn’t pleased with the way that they were turning out.I used some very dilute rose in a glaze over some as well as a very dilute gold over the lead horse, just to see what that did for the effect
I found I quite liked it. That is why I have changed the name to Horses in the Wetlands as they don’t look like Camargue horses any more, although arguably the rose colour could come from a low sun. Anyway, I am quite pleased with the overall effect
I am not going to feature this one on the internet just yet as I am starting to build up a collection for my show in December, and this one I think will work well. Strange to think my first bricks and mortar exhibition of 2020 will be in December, unless cancelled of course. Life is getting restricted again
As I said in my last post, I am looking for another horse painting, ideally of horses on the move, to replace Horses in the Snow which sold last week
This one should work hopefully. You can’t tell from this sketch but horses are cantering through water, so a lot of splashing going on which will give the idea of movement hopefully to the picture. A good excuse to do a lot of flicking and splashing during the painting as well. One of those defining moments when you throw paint at the picture or spray with an old toothbrush and hope it lands in the right places
I have painted Camargue horses before. We were there a few years ago, and they are magnificent to watch. I don’t trouble much with background for these shots, just paint the horses and sky the same blue/pink/grey combination, and then build up the horses with dark shadow
It worked last time, which is no guarantee of future success of course
Horses in the Snow, you may remember was the subject of a recent post. It sold extremely quickly from my Artfinder site, which is most gratifying. In fact I don’t remember a painting selling so fast. It is on its way now to its new owner, who I hope will get years of pleasure from it
It leaves me with a happy problem, but a problem no less, of a gap in my collection that I am putting together for my first and only bricks and mortar exhibition this year, which will take place through the Christmas break. This will be at Denbies the winery near Dorking, which has an art gallery, which is let out to groups throughout the year. This will be the first time that I have shown there, and I am very much looking forward to it
Horses on the move are a popular subject, and are fun to do, so I shall be looking through my photo stock for inspiration. There are several to choose from as kind persons have been sending ideas through to me. Mostly excellent screen shots of wild horses galloping through water which do look dramatic, but for the moment I am going for an image I brought back from my visit to the Camargue three years ago, and which I attach
I like the way that the lead horse looks at the camera
For some reason, I couldn’t access my blog until now, so a gap of about 10 days. Something seems to have changed in the format and probably I missed the update. However having taken advice, I have tried something different, and bingo, it seems to work
As you can see, I have finished the painting. I quite like it. The pallette was limited which I like. I used transparent brown with violet blend for the dark horses and cobalt blue with vermillion, which made a sort of pinky brown for the pale ones. The same mix only verging towards grey, worked well for shadows on the snow
The snow on the horses’ backs wasn’t so easy. I used the same blue mix with white gouache stroked across the backs of the horses. I am looking at the original now, and I think it looks convincing. I shall be taking the painting down soon, as I shall soon need the easel for something else
An interesting development this week. It would appear that some exhibitions are starting up again, after some months of lockdown. I have been invited to take part in an exhibition over the Christmas period to be held at Denbies Art Gallery near Dorking. Denbies is a well known wine estate with probaly the largest vineyard in the UK. They also have their own art gallery there. I’ve not shown there before so am quite looking forward to it
I shall need to do some pieces specially for it, and will no doubt show them here as I do them
offtoafineart 