I really enjoy looking at the restoration projects you all are doing on pumps, air meters, etc. Seeing that wooden pump being built was cool too!

Now that I am temorarily without a studio, I can finally do the projects that have been stacking up at home. I can't sand much any more nor cut a straight line with my Skil saw, but I can hold a brush, so I thought you might enjoy one of my "wooden" projects.

The purple belly I painted while the horse was off the pole. As many of you car painters know, the color underneath can influence the colors on top so this is one of my undercolors. I have taped off the feathers for this initial step and the saddle, to finish the undercolor of the body, but I'm not so worried at this stage about the blanket or harnesses. Later I will be taping a lot more. Tomorrow or Friday I will be putting on two coats of the rest of the undercoat that's not taped off.

mixed 4 different colors to come up with this dark purplely red that has dark blue spots in it. I am thinking that will be the 'skin' color that can be seen under the white fur up close, but from a distance will make the white fur look almost 3 dimentional. Not sure if this color will work as I am imagining it might, but will test it with the white on top, on a block of wood first. If it doesn't work then I will alter the color.

In case you all are wondering, I'm kinda doing the fur by the seat of my pants kinda thing. If you don't experiment, you'll never find that 'wow' thing in art.

The blue painted sections are going to be the leather. Brown is a kind of orange so blue is the complement. I already know from both paintings and other animals that the blue underpainting will give the leather depth. When it's all shined up, it won't look like plastic as it can if you just paint brown over the white.

p.s. I'll try to get a better picture later
p.p.s You can't see it here, but the purple belly covered with this paint is darker than the areas painted over white. That way no matter how lit up the horse is, it looks like it has a shadow underneath.

You go Girl! Lookin good. Mitch

LOOKS GREAT SO FAR, KEEP POSTING PIX.

Lee and Mitch,

Not sure it's gonna look so good in these pic's LOL

Ignore the orange saddle. It won't stay that color.

The red center of the sun is what all the other green areas are going to be. The close up shows the effect I am trying for. The green underpaint (and it was painted green) is showing through as a kind of shadowy color. This makes it look to me more like painted over leather. IMO. The orange I'm not so happy with--it's still in draft form so I will be tweaking it. I may wait though until I get the brown leather painted in.

So, anyone out there have a blue parakeet? I have a front picture but would love a side shot and a back of the head shot. Yes, this was designed this with two blue parakeets as part of the saddle. Incongruent I know...

Two days spent taping, two days spent painting (tape, paint, tape, paint). You can see the coat is not complete (belly and legs) and I will probably redo the coat anyway. Got fur swirls in the white, but it looks weird next to the black which has swirls too, but you can't see them. Makes the white look unfinished. I also want to add more colors to both the white and the black. The slight mottling of the red and brown areas are the under colors, which give those surfaces some depth.

The saddle (crazy blue parakeets), around the eye, the mouth, some of the leather decorations (everything green will be red), the orange on the leather areas which I need to tweak, saddle strap, feathers--lots more to do.

p.s. it's a flash picture just taken. Will try to get a daytime picture tomorrow.

I know it's a bad pic (it got dark on me and the light there was is hitting its butt) but here is phase 2 of the saddle, plus first coat fur now on belly and legs and adjustment made on neck, plus all the bitty green triangles (2/3 were not done) painted red.

Deadlines, deadlines....

Another bad photo taken when the light is starting to go...

Phase three on saddle: Bizzare! Hopefully I can pull it together in the end. It can't be as realistic as I hoped because the carving is rough.

Roughed up black coat with thick paint.

I'z tired...

Pretty neat, all I've heard about for years from my Lady was about Pintos. She had one as a kid. She would love it. Mitch

WOW! NICOLE!

That piece is sweet. I know my mother would've wanted that for sure. Your talents make me smile BIG!

Thanks guys!

I'm just stopping by long enough to post the feathers--3 of the 5 I did from 8:30 to 3:30. Then rounded out with some punch out work on the horse.

Photo 1 is the underpainting. Gotta cover up that white! In fact much of the punch out is covering up little white pin holes in the wood, filled in with the dreaded white, which one of two of my paint applications did not fill.

The last pic is my pallette of colors I used.

I'm bug eyed from working till now (5:45 EST)so I'm off to do something I don't have to think too much about--weeding the garden!

P.S. the feathers are Bald Eagle and Red-tailed Hawk, using artistic licence to skip the whitish fluffy feathes that are at the top of the RTH feathers. They were not carved in, so I didn't paint them!

Looks great Nicole, I have one in primer big like the one that was out front of food stores as we grew up. You have had so much fun with this one you should be ready to start another soon?

Loyd,

Is it wood? If so prime some wood scraps and test paint techniques on it before the horse. Keep some base available to repaint your mistakes on the wood.

Wood is a porus and uneven surface and that's why I do underpaintings to give texture and depth to the paint job. The saddle flap and reins for example, look used, not brand new and plastic-ee.

If you are close to those items, blue being the complement to orange, which is what brown is, you see a mottleing (sp?) from the blue where your one coat top layer (in this case burnt Sienna) or a light second layer (over the areas that needed it) is not thick enough to hide it.

I do caution you that it's a labor intensive way to paint...

P.S. if you notice, I left the small bright blue areas not covered by the paint. They are tiny, and though you notice it up close, it actually enhances the look from far away. Get the viewers optic nerve working to 'fix' a piece and that piece will seem more vibrant. Don't know why it works but it does. Step away from the computer screen and you see what I mean. It's the trick of impressionist paintings. But I did, in my punch out, remove some of that heavy blue line next to the orange (see next post).

p.p.s. Happy Birthday yesterday!