Chocolate Milk Coming Along ... Calf Painting in Progress

She is starting to look like something ...

Ahhh ... this is better. So far, I have done all the work wet-in-wet, using my favorite colors for animals, with a touch of aureolin and alizarin for the inside of the ear.

Now I've come to the nitty-gritty bits ... getting the darks as dark as possible to achieve a backlit effect.  I am doing this by moistening the area I want to paint, and then touching in a thinner version of the mixture, softening the edges, and going back in with a very dense version of the pigments. This way, I am able to keep the edges a bit soft while getting some real darks in the center of the darkest areas. It's fussy and precise, but it seems that's the way I like to paint.

This is the second wash of the paper experiment, which blogger decided to place before the first photo. GRRRR! And I can't figure out how to easily move them around into proper order.

I tried to get a bit loose with this quick, small experiment. I had a cute photo of the cat, sitting in the evening sun, with a  gorgeous backlit effect and some very strong shadows. So I thought I would play with the idea on some paper sent for trial by the Garzapapel company in Spain. I used a 90-pound sheet, not my usual 140-pound. But I must say I am very impressed with the paper so far. It has a beautiful, bright white color, and so far, stands up extremely well to wet work. I'll have to try some small flower images I have on the 140-pound paper, and really put it through the proverbial paces.

Speaking of paces ... right ... Bruno. Wow, is he FINALLY moving well! It's taken 4+ years, but he is now [sometimes reluctantly, but doing it] using all four legs through his back. When a horse uses his back and legs properly, in a balanced and fluid manner, the back becomes a dream on which to sit. I can feel everything he is doing with his body [even pick up on some of his thoughts about the workout] OK, enough - nothing to do with painting, other than it thrills me like nothing else to be able to communicate with him like this, to have him move so beautifully.

That's it for today in the land of horse and watercolor. Thank you for dropping by! Your comments are always welcome.