My Entry for the Virtual Party

The Virtual pARTy Hosted by Equine Artist Linda Shantx.

From Linda's Blog:

"Participants are then invited to create art from the referenced image, Anything goes, but the artwork must have been started and finished within a 24 hour period."

 This is the Picture Linda took for us to use as a reference:

My Strategy:

For my entry I decided to do a little manipulation of the original Photography by Linda Shantz, My idea was to paint a quick watercolor painting in two sittings. The entire painting two about 8 to 9 hours.

The first thing I did was flip the entire composition. I also wanted more horses and absolutely no fence. I wanted the illusion of freedom so no halters were allowed in mine. Another thing I wanted the drama and peacefulness of  an intimate secluded meadow perhaps at the edge of an abandoned orchard. We see a lot of those type of  paddocks here in Virginia. They are thick with orchard grass and  shady trees.

My Painting: "Afternoon Pasture" 12 by 9 inches Watercolor

Both Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses are likely to be seen where I live. But since this wasn't a formal farm I decided on some nice nice quarterhorses. Three mares and three foals. Actually I simply repeated the mare with the foal beside her. The mare in the back is just a smaller version of the larger mare on the right front. One of my very favorite things to do is also to turn a horse around. I did this when I turned the foal in the center back ( originally with his back to us) of the painting around to face us. He is actually the same foal that was with the mare. 

The last thing I did was to change the colors of the horses. I have three palominos in this  painting. Quite fun to do as well.  Because of the speed there is not as much detail as would be in a painting I would have taken pains with so the viewers eye must do more of the work.  All in all it was great fun. I cant wait to see what the other artists did. The greatest challenge with these events is to take the same  image and create something unique from all the other artists.

This Painting is available for sale on ETSY.com just follow the link: Buy Afternoon Pasture Here