This piece was originally a photograph taken of me and a beautifully handsome Friesian stallion named Nanning, many years back from friend and photographer, Judy Wood. It’s always held a special place for me, as it captured a tender moment between me and my muse, my symbiant as it were. Two species interdependent on one another, in my dream world, we two are alter egos.

I looked up the word “Symbiance”, and technically, it has no meaning in that particular form, BUT, here’s one meaning I did find on one website, so I’m not the only one with this word floating around the brain:

“…a Symbiance is a form of total unity.
Unity creates an unconditional Love
and that derives the Truth that lays above…”

A unity, yes, that is what I have with the black horse. We are symbiants. So without further adieu, here is the next work in progress:

“Symbiance” in the pencil sketch stage. Now that I have the “raw” drawing down, time to refine it. Do a little tummy tuck, a slight reduction, and use some artistic license, lol and make it into a fantasy piece, representing the “symbiance” between me and black horses. The background will be a stormy majestic sky, and I will be adorned in a flowing dressy gown, with long flowing mane…err…hair…you get the picture. lol I might crop this one down a bit, there might be too much space above it, we’ll see. Right now it’s on 16″x24″ gessoed masonite, but it might be pared down to 16″ x 20″.

Back to the drawing board! Now I get to play “plastic surgeon” without all the gory bloodlike stuff. auditing management software Buy Microsoft Money 2007 Deluxe

Be sure to visit the Le Cadeau Du Cheval - The Horse Gift” Mural Mosaic webpage here:
http://www.muralmosaic.com/Cadeau.html

But now I have to wait for this layer of paint to dry first. Dang, I knew there was a reason I don’t work in oils much!

Here is the panel before I painted it, color somewhat adjusted, there’s not much blue in it as there is purple/mauve and purple blue.

And my digital idea before I started painting…

And then where it is so far as of today, in oils….(I didn’t photograph the acrylic mess I had put down, ha! Although you can still see a bit of it through the oils where the sun rays are…that part sorta worked out for my benefit!

Be sure to keep an eye on their site for updates! MuralMosaic.com/Cadeau.html

For my part, I chose panel #164 - a one-tone purkle panel. (Yeah, that’s not a typo, I like to be goofy and say PURKLE for purple. hehehe) I envision a magnificent black stallion galloping headlong against a stormy backdrop sky. It will be titled “Storm Chaser”, after a personal passion of mine for storms and horses. Yep!

Here is the panel as it came to me:

Stay tuned as I post a work in progress as I begin painting on it!

Buy it here:
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11″ x 14″ pastel on medium grey suede.
“Rebel Yell” - rearing black stallion (of course!)

So anyhoo, I’ve been itching to get some painting done, but every time I go to the easel, I sit not knowing where to begin.

Methinks I’ve gotten used to too many mediums now that I can’t make up my mind which one to work in!

I’ve also been battling with the “why bothers” of some of the paintings I do….not all of them are me. So I get bored with them quickly. So I have to think to myself often…why on earth am I painting something else other than what pleases me anyway?

So anyhoo, here is one of those ME paintings that literally blopped itself out onto the canvas in about 20 minutes. Yeah, 20 minutes! Took all day to think about doing it, wanting to do it, and then finally forcing myself to sit down and just DO it! Now, granted this is just layer 1 of many to come, but I don’t wanna overwork it either. So I’ll post it in stages.

This is 16″x20″ acrylic on stretched canvas. Something I said I didn’t wanna paint on anymore because I paint the acrylics so diluted, like watercolor, that the canvas texture is usually annoying as all heck so I prefer the smoothness of masonite. But I just took a bigger brush and loaded it up with more paint this time, and voila!!!! Even in this gesture blocked-in stage, it captures the feeling for me. Hopefully I can maintain it as I do more to it!

I have a lot to thank whichever kid put this video together -

I’ve kept it bookmarked ever since I found it over a year ago now. Whenever I’m feeling down or need inspiration, it always perks me up. It captures all the moments in those favorite movies that inspired me all through my childhood and set my heart a’dreamin. I gotta track her down someday and send her a nice thank-you gift. It helped me remember all the things I always loved about horses. Whenever I’m out somewhere and bored, I always picture the Black prancing around in the background, doing these sorts of antics, rearing, pawing, snorting, shaking his head, all that stuff. I know, it’s not realistic, but it’s the things fantasies are made of, right? I’m a daydreamer by nature who’s been living way too much in reality. lol! That’s where the love of horses sprang from, and I still compare horses to The Black. That’s what I love about my horse, Tattoo….aside from his color, he is the Black to me. I could watch him move forever! Someday I hope that I can get the one-ness with him like Alec had with the Black.

December 10th, 2007 -

Spent about another twenty minutes on it just now…again, another “splotch” bout. Not sure where it’s coming from, but this painting is working quickly! I think it’s because I’m trying to keep it simple and ignoring that voice in my head that tries to tell me all the things I have learned over the years. Ya know, about composition, color usage, negative space, yadda yadda yadda. One can easily get so caught up in the Do’s and Don’t’s that one doesn’t necessarily end up catching one’s vision at all!

So here it is so far. More paint on it now to finally cover most of the canvas up on the horse. I used a #10 round sable this time. First time was a 3/4″ flat sable. Next bout I’ll use likely a #6 round sable to get even tighter, like on the mane, nostril area and highlights. And to really determine where that shadowed eye really is. Oh, I guess I should mention too, the colors used so far are only Liquitex French Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber. There is NO black paint used in this painting at all. I added a bit of white to the mixture for the highlights. As well, I’ve used some Golden glazing medium to help it spread easier too. I’m thinking, at this point anyway, that I’ll just paint the background plain white. I have a vision of a grouping of four paintings similar to this, to be displayed without frames, painted edges (gallery wrap canvas this is). We’ll see if I’m that ambitious.

December 10, 2007

I guess today was a really good painting day. Spend another 30mins or so on it and I think it’s nearly finished! At least, it’s at a point where I know I should leave it alone for awhile before I overwork it. hehehe If I find anything that bugs me after awhile, I’ll go back and fix it. But for the moment, she is done!

16″x20″ acrylic on canvas
used only French Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber, and Titanium white. Some glazing medium. 3/4″ flat sable (not 1/2″ I mis-typed it above), #10 round sable, and #6 round sable for finishing.

There’s a little glare off the canvas, I’ll scan it for better detail later on. But overall, this is what he looks like…

So begins this journey. I took an 18″x24″ piece of 1/4″ hardboard, triple gessoed and sanded by myself, and began with a light wispy wash of the acrylics. Literally a wash. I brushed in the main dark areas, squirted the board with some fine misty water to make the colors flow loosely on the board. I rather liked how the paint handled and will have to bank this technique into my memory for later use in other paintings. The colors used at this point are just burnt umber, raw sienna, a little warm white and a wee bit of ultramarine blue mixed with burnt umber that I used to create a form of black. I brushed it all on with a 1″ brush.

Here is it after the first stage, with about an hour’s work done to it in all:

Then I went in with a second layer of washes, only slightly drier this time, blocking in more of the main chunks of darks and lights, along with splashes of the sages and reds I can see in my references. Nothing is defined yet, it’s all very loose. I like how it’s coming together so far. Used the same colors as above, with an added touch of burnt sienna. The blue is a mix of the above colors in a slightly different way, with a hint of titanium white. I’m working off the same stay-wet palette of Liquitex acrylic colors laid out from before.

That was last night’s progress. Today I spent another hour on it drawing in the pronghorn and putting in the beginning layers of color to define his body shape, and to cover over the background washes that showed through him. This is all still very loose at this point, although you can see I got a little more than a beginning layer done on his haunch. hehehe I couldn’t resist! Again using much of the same colors, with varying mixes of each to get the peachy tan shades for his hide. The black is actually the UB/BU mixture mentioned above. I brought out a couple of smaller round sable brushes for working on him. Size 6 and 4 rounds.

Now comes the fun part….doing more layers with tighter details in each subsequent layer. This is when the changes become less noticeable and it’s sometimes discouraging to see how little you come in such a long time. So far there’s only about 3hrs put into this piece, and it seems to have come so far. But from here on in it gets tougher and slower!

Sunday: Spent another hour or so on it, detailing the pronghorn more and adding a bit to the background around him to help define his edges. Still using the same palette as before. The second photo shows it where it sits after roughing in the shrub that he is laying behind.

Saturday, Sept 8: Spent about an hour this afternoon working on the background, and I spent another hour or two the other day working on details on the pronghorn himself, although it wasn’t enough noticable difference to bother shooting a picture of it for you. Today though there’s enough change that you can see. The pronghorn is for the most part done now, with the odd bit of touch ups here and there that I will most likely add to him later. But right now I’m focussing on the background…the landscape portion of the painting. Building up the foreground values, defining the grassiness under the pronghorn himself, building up the branches of the small shrub on the right. There’s lots more to do yet!

Friday, Sept 14 Spent some time this evening working on the background. It’s almost to the point of being called “done”, although I know I’ll likely do some tweaking on it yet once I’ve set it aside for awhile to come back and look at it through fresh eyes in a week or so. I did a lot of tonite’s work standing up, holding the brush at the end and dabbling the paint on here and there, trying not to work too tightly.

Tuesday, Sept 25 The painting has been sitting on my easel for a couple days, waiting to see if I was “done” with it. I think it is. I’m quite happy with it. Takes a bit of getting used to working looser like this though, a part of me wants to go in and add details, but I’m reminded of how too many details can be distracting. Yesterday when I was out hiking in the woods with my horse, I photographed what looked to be many nice scenes in the autumn grasses and trees. But the photo grabs too much detail and doesn’t let you see the simple beauty that is the richness of the colors and the light. So, an artist taking that beautiful scene and keeping it simple enough for the viewer to enjoy, there is definately something to that.

So here is the final painting, posted and ready for your perusal. If you would like to see it in person, it will be shown at the upcoming Reflections of Nature wildlife art show in Saskatoon, Sask, from October 12th to 14th, 2007

“Autumn Splendor”
24″ x 18″ acrylic on masonite
Available for Purchase - $1000 - Inquire

View Details Here - http://www.blackhorsedesign.com/pronghorn-painting.php