DARA DODSON FINE ART

April 10, 2017

As I said before, I am finally back to working on my large painting for the Nature and Wildlife show. I had set it against the wall out of the way of harm, or so I thought. When I picked it up and set it on the easel I saw small paint spatters all over the painting! They were all colors and sizes. OUCH! I almost panicked, but took some deep breaths, sat down and studied it. Apparently I spilled or splashed paint on it while working on other paintings. It was against the wall, behind the easel! Big mistake!! I won't do that again!

Anyway, I looked again carefully and moaned. The splashes weren't huge, but there were many different colors in those clouds and grasses so it was going to be difficult to touch up without it showing as dots of color that were different! It took me about an hour of painstaking mixing, dabbing and smoothing in colors to cover the splashes without ruining the work that was there. Lesson learned.

Next, I studied the painting with "fresh eyes". I just wasn't happy with the lower right corner. I liked the rocks but not the "ditch". It just drew the eye too much and that is NOT what I wanted. So I decided to make the rocks cover the ditch. That looked much better! I liked the overall painting so I set about highlighting and finishing the horses. I brought up the light on the green grass back under the cloud. I became the "destination" for the horses. I have the stallion, the biggest horse looking off toward the "destination". These are Connemara horses, thus all white. They technically are from the highlands of Ireland and this is the highlands of Scotland. That's ok by me. Haha.

Below I have some photos of the progression of my work. It is still not finished but I think I will have it done by next week. I will post the final photo then. Also, I have photos of other paintings I did last week. I have several small paintings (about 2") that I glued magnets to the back of to sell at the Art Walk. I think they will be popular. I priced them at $5.00 each and some have already sold to friends! So enjoy and Thanks for looking!

You can see the ditch on the right bottom. See how the eye keeps going there? Not good! You want the eye to follow the horses to the top of the painting! This is why I changed the design.

I think this works much better, don't you? The eye now stays on the horses and follows them instead of the ditch! You naturally move your eyes up to the top of the painting taking in the sights along the way. Notice how I lightened the grass in the valley at the top to pinpoint the "destination".

Here I have begun highlighting the white horses. It is pretty much a full moon so they can be fairly light, but I still want to be careful as there is a delicate balance between the light of a full moon and daylight. I also made the rock between the horses smaller. I may take it out, but haven't decided yet. The white is not truly white. It is greyed down with blue-green. It just looks white next to the other colors. I will reserve pure white for little touches of highlights at the end. That is very important to remember. NO CHALK!

This may look finished, but it is not. I have more work to do. I see some dead spots among the rocks on the right and the middle horse is too bright I think. I also want to work more on the shadows of the horses. I will play with it for a few more days and then maybe declare it done. Also, notice how dark the bottom corners are? That is what you want in a painting like this.