There have only been 3 animals I have loved all my life, and one probably more so than the rest. I have always loved elephants, dogs, and horses. Horses being the one I’ve loved ever since I can remember. Dogs, I’ve been a bit afraid of growing up, but love for the most part now. Elephants, I’ve only seen in real life a couple of times, and then, from a distance. But I love them.

That being said, I have only painted just a couple of horse pictures, and then they’ve been quite small and simple paintings. But, I found a reference photo that I loved on a Facebook page that offers free reference photos for artists to paint. This one came from one of those sites, the picture being taken by Susie Bell. All of her photography is beautiful, the photos I have seen have all been of wild horses in Arizona I believe. It’s somewhere down in the desert southwest anyway.

If you have followed my artwork very often, you know my style is often much closer to the subject than most. I don’t take in a lot of the grand views, but more of the up close detailed view, and this one is no different. The whole horse is not in view, just a piece of it as it gets a drinks in what appears to be either the late evening or early morning light.

The photograph caught my eye, not just for the horse, but the background I liked the pink at the top and then filters down through blue to the yellow that is most of the background with a few blue streaks throughout. There’s a bit of grass or rocks coming through as well.

The horse’s body is a beautiful orangey brown color, with lighter yellow highlights, the brightest point being the white in the face. This is all contrasted by the beautiful black mane and the blacks and deep browns of the lower legs.

I really enjoyed the process of this painting, taking my time to let each layer of paint dry before moving on. Between the drying time and the other things I have been up to, the painting took about 2 weeks to finish off, but really only about 5 or 6 hours of actual painting time total.

This was a fun one to paint, and the finished product is something that I love as well! Now, to move on to the next subject matter. I’m thinking flowers as I have a floral painting class coming up. The featured artwork is changing today as well, so check it out below. The Horse will be featured soon, but I have to figure out what products I want to put it on first.

Featured Artwork: