WIP New Horse Action Painting Continued

I truly did not forget about blogging the WIP, just been busy! But now I'm ready to complete the WIP. Once I had the initial sketches done, I made a few changes to correct proportions, like horses head size, legs and feet size, riders arm positions,etc.. and then used tracing paper to copy and lift the designs to the watercolor paper. Here you can see how I placed the drawings ready to be rubbed on the background.











So now the big decision, COLOR! I've decided this painting is going to be more loose in style and more contemporary in presentation as opposed to my usual realistic style. Every once in a while I like to go "outside the box" for me!! When I paint, I really enjoy painting using lots of complementary colors so that was my starting point. Found my trusty color wheel and went to work. Here is the initial color sketch for horses and riders.

I tried to chose colors that would all complement each other (according to my trusty color wheel) in some way or another. This was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together, which color would "fit" with another, I hope I pulled it off though! I used three brands of watercolor pencils, Faber Castell (FC), CretaColor (CC) and Derwent (D). So let's start with the left horse which is in a left spin manuever: horse, blue violet (FC) body, bluish turquoise (FC) mane & tail and receeding areas; rider, naples yellow (D) outline and recessed areas with ochre light (CC) and golden brown (D). For the larger center horse performing a sliding stop, colbalt green (FC) body outline with orange (CC) for eyes and forelock; the rider in madder carmine (CC). For the right side horse in a right handed spin manuever, horse in permanent red light (CC) with magenta (D) for mane & tail and eyes; the rider is in moss green light (CC) and earth green yellowish (FC). Yea, LOTS of color here! Well, this is what I think I want, LOL! So now time for water and painting!