Egg Tempera Progression - Painting, May 2007

Usually, I begin with a full value sketch in pencil or graphite so that I know and understand my subject intimately - really look into the areas of the subject, see the value relationships. This time, as I'm quite familiar with horses, and this one in particular, I chose to go directly to the painting, only mapping out a few key reference points lightly in on the gesso board.

I chose this subject, as she is a very special horse to a very special friend of mine, Wendy Ladurantaye of Briarwinds Farm in Minden, Ontario. I was about 8 months pregnant with my daughter and unable to ride so for solace, I used to go to the barn and the paddocks to enjoy the solitude and company of my friends and the horses. This particular day, I carried my camera with me. It was close to sunset, and I was alone out in the field, just looking and enjoying the horses. One by one, they came up to me and we began our usual silent communication of movement and sight. Sassy almost sat in my lap and the evening sunlight streamed through her gorgeous palomino hair, lighting her with an inner light that horse people appreciate.

I knew that someday, I'd paint what I felt in the meadow that day - I just didn't foresee all that would happen with us over the next three years to take me away from painting and so far from my friends and home.

Egg tempera begins with an underpainting. For me, I prefer to complete a full tonal underpainting in blue tones on just about all of my paintings. (I suppose someday I'll try warmer undertones and see where that goes!) The process is painstaking, and requires a building of layer upon layer to achieve a final weaving and translucent painting, full of life and pure refracted pigment - a reflection of my subject!

Working Space: This is my wee tabletop easel that Kevin bought me a couple of weeks ago. I taped the original photo above the panel and worked on it "size as" just for a test painting, as I plan to complete this as a life sized piece, and this is just the study painting for it. As you can see, I've begun to paint in some of the warmer tones over the cool blue, creating some interesting effects and starting to build the foundation for that golden sunlight that backlights my subject. Layers transposed over each other begin to model the depth and value for her soft eye.

Brushwork on the face of Sassy is very fine and takes a great deal of time, even following the rule, "use the biggest brush possible for the job".
Here, you can see the fine brushwork up closer, and the use of sienna, umbers, cadmium reds all over the cobalt blue base underpainting.
Detail
Additional layers of burnt umber, deeply pigmented cobalt blue, cadmium yellow and a glaze of burnt sienna begin to build up the warm golden colouration of my subject. I wanted to achieve a different effect from the initial photograph and capture the warmth of the horse as she stood near me, so close to my unborn daughter.
Complementing the golds, I begin to work in the darker shadows in a few layers of ultramarine blue, cadmium red and viridian, mixed to give me that lovely partnering violet of the shadows. Not the eye developing.

In the final steps, I bring forward the white areas and the delicate eyelashes and eyebrows. At this point, I like to stop, walk away from the painting for a few days and just watch it - see what it might need to make it sparkle and live.

From start to finish at this point, this painting was done over a two day period, with about 7-8 hours spent in actual painting.

- Janice