River Walk Demo

Horses are one of my favorite subjects.  I start with a velour board and lightly sketch out the image in a pastel pencil. I do not bother with the making final background decisions at this point, but I have an idea in my head where I want to go. When working in this medium and this board, it is important to lay the background base colors down first, this will help you with the general color scheme and you won't have to paint around the foreground elements. The colors are bright but will be toned down in the layering process. Here, I start to lay in my base colors on the horse. I am not happy with the head on the one I am working on, but I know how to fix it down the road. 

I start to work my way to the right, all the time going back and forth toning down the harsher edges and making the bright colors more natural. Remember, even if you cover up all of your under painting, it still adds to the depth of your color and comes through. Don't feel that you have can not "glaze" pastels, you can. My paintings have 20-30 layers in some places.

More and more layering. I like to call it sculpting with pastel. You push the darks and pop the lights. But be careful not to go to light with your highlights too fast, you will fight it for the rest of the painting. Those last little pops of lights will be your reward for a job well done. I am also always fine tuning my drawing. I moved the eye on the horse at the far right because I noticed it was too small and too high.

And it is done. Do not forget that a white horse is never white. They are a mirror of everything around them, that is what makes them so much fun. Notice how the tail on the left horse slims his hip down and pulls your eye back into the water and around again.

I was once told that I could not paint realistically or animals in pastel successfully. Well, I beat him in a pastel competition a few months later. Don't ever let a medium or some one intimidate you, there are no boundaries in art or in you.