July 17, 2025
I did not expect to take this long to complete the horse portrait I started a good number of weeks ago. I had several other paintings on the go, and since the horse was done in multiple layers I often had to practice patience and let them dry for a couple of days before continuing. But it is finally done! Remember the first sketch?
This project was very different from previous horses I have depicted. And I have done many of them! But they were in done in pastels, never in paint. Plus, they were of feral horses and not of domesticated ones. And believe me: feral horses have different features! So this was a new experience. One, where I tried to make it as real as possible without painting every single hair. But allowing for some fuzziness where it counted most. Below is the end result…
The horse is based on a generic reference, I do not know it ‘in person’ and as such it gave me a lot of freedom to create it in a way that was most pleasing to me. I guess it qualifies as a Palomino, even though the light causes some of the coat to look more dark dun. Whatever the best description is, it sure is a fine specimen of a horse that I was happy to paint!