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Jake - A New Original 6x6 Horse Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Jake

 A friend of ours was kind enough to invite us out the her parent's ranch for the day last spring. I had hoped it would be a day of painting, but brought my camera along just in case. We also brought our daughters  who were not quite 1 and a little over 2 along with us. While that seemed like a good idea, it did make painting just about impossible. Good thing I had my camera with me. I was able to take tons of pictures of their horses, ranch, and fields of wildflowers that were in bloom when we went. Of course, like any good father, I also took a ton of the kids playing on the ranch. Our friend had mentioned that she might like me to paint a commissioned painting of one of the horses. Since I had never done a portrait of a horse, I thought it might be a good idea to try one out in a smaller scale and see how it goes. That was about 2 months ago, when I started this painting. I was able to get it to about 70% complete, but couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. I knew it was lacking something, but being unable to put my finger on it I set the painting aside to think about it and do some research. I read many pages about horse anatomy and studied a lot of other pictures and painting of horses. Finally today, I felt like I might take a shot at finishing this one up. I'm glad I did!

Jake © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Howdy - An Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Howdy

 Last week, we were at the Fort Worth Stockyards. I couldn't help but take a few photographs of the cowboys riding around on their horses and getting ready to drive the cattle down the street. I rarely paint this type of subject matter, but it's good to stretch occasionally and push in new directions. With this in mind, I decided it was time to try to tackle the challenges presented by these two rugged figures of the cowboy and his horse. I loved the lighting in my reference image. It's very strong and cast a great shadow of the cowboy hat across his face. That and the wonderful contrast in the outfit he was wearing made this painting a joy to paint.

Below is how this painting came to life:

This is my block-in today. It's a bit more detailed than I normally do for this stage because I wanted to make sure I had the correct proportions of the figure and the horse. I also wanted to paint with simple, strong brush strokes where ever I could, and, without a pretty clear idea of where those brush strokes need to go, they inevitable get overworked with corrections.

I let the block-in dry, which only takes a few minutes since it's painted with paint that's thinned down with turpentine. Once the turpentine evaporates, the paint is fairly dry. I started with the cowboys face and hat because, well, might as well get the most difficult part out of the way first.

I continue to work on the cowboy and his horse getting the basic shapes and forms worked out before tackling the background. I'll use the background to help correct some of the drawing mistakes and adjust the edges of the cowboy and his horse.

Howdy ©

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x8 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.