Reel'em In Ruby

A racehorse commission, to add to the animal and pet portraits

 

This graceful 4 year old mare has won a heap of prizemoney. The images I'm using are from a big win at Rosehill, so I'm trying to include some of the gardens out there rather than the corporate hoardings - which are very Brasil

The finished painting with the steward's lookout behind. The scene is a mashup so you won't exactly be able to find it out there, but I hope it gives a good feeling of the place. Joe's happy with the portrait of Ruby

With the green added its very naturalistic - Stubbs meets Muybridge? (LOL).

Below are a sequence of images as it all comes together

A sequence of images as the colour builds up \

Blogger's image uploader has taken to adding a bunch of images in reverse order since the recent 'interface upgrade' (teeth grind) so I'm having to cut and paste everything individually today. This shot has a strong blue cast I should fix sometime

 

Sketched up in raw sienna(not pencil!) with some zinc white and raw umber with a bit of purple(dioxazine) - some contrasting shadow and depth under the greens etc of tur. Complementary colours create depth and contrast

 

A first sketch from the main photo I'll be using as a guide. A  bit fucked up - proportion around the shoulders totally FOOBAR - but otherwise pleasing so its not really a problem if I don't repeat the mistake sketching up the canvas, which I'm ready to do - the best drawing has to be on the canvas, not a piece of paper