Finished - Horse racing painting

Finally, after probably close to 18 hours work, I finished my latest horse racing painting in the Artists’ group last night. Here it is: -

Racing from Newmarket

I didn’t do a huge amount last night. There was more work to do on putting in the crowd on the far right of the picture, although I didn’t really want to do much more than suggest a less than capacity crowd. Above them I wanted to put in some detail of the main stand. Then, after adding some mottling to the turf I was rapidly getting to the stage where you have to ask yourself whether it’s time to stop before you end up overworking the whole thing. I did a wee bit more work on the roof of the stand, and then signed it in the corner. Done.

Another Urban Sketching Expedition

I’ve said a lot about Urban Sketching in my page about my urban sketching journey – it’s in the links opposite. You can always try to improve. I’m pretty happy with what I can do in monochrome with my ink pens, however I know that I’ve got a long way to go when it comes to applying watercolour washes. 

In my last post I wrote about Saturday’s expedition to the Swansea Museum. In several ways t was highly successful. I was very pleased with managing to make 6 separate sketches across the double page in the space of 3 hours. I was also pleased that 3 of them were ink and wash. However, one thing I think that I might have done better was combining the sketches into one overall sketch. So that was in my mind when I set out on another expedition, this time to the nearby Swansea Waterfront Museum yesterday. This is the sketch I made.

This is as close to the idea I had in my head when I started as I’m likely to get. I used colours to combine the 4 different sketches. The Trevithick locomotive replica being so much larger than the other sketches worked well for me, as for me it is very much the star of the show. That background yellow is not actually to be found in the museum, but I just had a flash of insight that the browns and greys of the locomotive would work particularly well against this colour – like monochrome print on old paper – and that I could apply the grey blue of the background on top.

The two sketches made on the bottom page were very quickly done since I spent so much time on the locomotive, and so I’m really pleased how well they both turned out.

Urban Sketching expedition

Yes folks, it isn't just about the horse racing painting, although that's my main project at the moment. Yesterday I took the morning off, and went on a sketching expedition. I was in Swansea Museum just after it opened at 10, and I gave myself until 1 o'clock. I wouldn't say that I had a hard and fast agenda, but I did want to try to do it in the same way that I'd do a sketchcrawl with the South Wales Urban Sketching group. This is the double page of my sketch book that I filled: -

I'm really quite pleased with this. One of the things I noticed in the January sketchcrawl was that I get so hung up on detail, I only produced the two sketches while everyone else produced much more. This time I produced 6, some of which even have watercolour washes. In particular I'm really pleased with the Griffith John bust. I only had a few minutes, and I was standing up the whole time. I've never combined different sketches on the same double page like this before, and so I'm quite pleased with the effect it has. I've seen much better on the net from other artists, but hey, this is a start.

Racehorse - getting closer

Here's the stages so far: -

That's after 14 hours. Now, I spent almost two more hours last night working on the painting in Artists' Group last night.

Give yourself a moment or two to spot exactly where the best part of two hours work has been put in. Got it? Well, I've done quite a bit of work on the fence between the grass and the grandstand. Then I've extended the crow a little further as well. Did you notice that I've put more shadows and definition on the turf itself? Now, be honest, did you notice the other horse's leg which I added poking into the extreme left of the picture? I also did a little work on the roof of the grandstand too.

It looks quite close to being finished, but that's a bit deceptive. The work I have left to do is on the rest of the crod, and also the grass, and that's fiddly, pernickety work, which is not that enjoyable to do, but essential to the final look of the painting.

Racehorse latest

I spent a couple of hours on this at Artists' Group last night: -

These paintings show the progress so far, and this next shows what I did last night

After 14 hours

I did more work on the sky and the roofline of the grandstand. I began putting the crow into the grandstand, and did more work in the fencing. Also I painted in some of the shadows on the grass beneath the horses. It's getting there, but I feel that there's still several hours of work in there.

Racehorse Update

Another couple of hours work last night in the Artists Group. Here's the sequence: -

After 5 hours

- after about 9 hours

- after about 11 hours

I'm enjoying painting this scene. I did a little work on the two chasing horses, just toning down the light and dark contrasts. I did some more work on the sky, and the grass, and also did quite a bit on the grandstand. I did add a little to the crowd, but that's something I'll have a lot of work to do on next Wednesday.