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Painting a white horse.
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Message
Posted
I became a bit stuck on my woodlands wip so decided to try out something I’ve wanted to experiment with for quite some time. I often paint snow scenes and leave white areas of papers for reflections etc, but can I actually paint something white without using white paint? . Thought it’s time to give it a try , I’m reading a lot of at the moment about the countryside in the 1940/50 s , seems such a long time ago but in 1954 I live in Germany as my farther served in the RAF .
We lived in Luneberg near a lot of farms , and I used to watch the horses going up and down the fields eventually pluck up courage to cross the road and walked up and down with the farmer . We could not understand each other , he spoke in German obviously and I in very broad Yorkshire but we came to understand each other. As I became tired , fields are very long for a six year old he lifted me on to the biggest horse as you can imagine it became a daily event.
The team was made up of a white horse and a bigger brown horse, that memory was my inspiration, do a white horse.
Hope that you find my attempt interesting.
Posted
Paul - it is SO difficult to paint white critters in watercolour; many use a soft blue for the shadows of the animal, I think you've used Payne's Grey or Neutral Tint, but all of us, I expect, find the deeper shadows very challenging: how do you define a shadow so it doesn't look like a mark on the horse? A question which, I suspect, has tortured you when you were working on this painting.
On the other hand, if you use white for the animal rather than the white paper, but yet don't use it anywhere else in the painting, it can stand out too much. So you've done well here with that challenge - not one I would have exactly rushed to attempt.
Posted
I used a mix of blue and Payne’s more on the blue side it’s showing more grey in the photo. It’s one of those things I needed to do Robert to satisfy the itch. I had started it when you posted your thread about using white paint and had decided beforehand that I was going to try to paint without it , it been a very interesting experience and makes you think a lot more about shadows etc. Would I do it again possibly but don’t feel the urge to get it done now that I h to do so has gone.
I think it’s done but like yourself if I don’t stop I will fiddle with it to much.
Posted
This is tricky Dixie. Well done for giving it a go. As I can't stand masking tape, I try to leave areas of white paper. But there's always bits I miss and end up having to use gouache or something. Robert's point about the white paper standing out too much is a good one. I often find myself trying to knock the white back with a really wet brush with some blue in it, almost no colour at all...practically a wet brush with slightly dirty water. Sometimes helps, sometimes doesn't.
But many watercolourists manage with masking really well, so many I haven't allowed myself time to get used to it.
Posted
I don’t like masking tape or fluid it literally painted around the horse before attempting anything else . I like you and lots of others find leaving white paper a bit odd , even when I do snow scenes . I’ve done very similar things Lew , dirty brush , big of blue , purple hardly any colour but enough to just take the glare off.
Posted
Yes, I entirely missed one thing here - well done for painting horses at all, not just for trying your hand with a white one: they are, as many, many painters have proved, very difficult indeed to paint: I'd rather paint an elephant, a dog, a cat, even a giraffe, before a horse - they're such works of art in themselves that it feels like a bit of a cheek even to try to capture them in paint. Some people have a natural affinity with horses: my father had (more of an affinity than he ever had with people!), my grandfather had (who was great with people), but I was a bit of a big girl's blouse with horses, until one, catching sight of me, galloped over a paddock to thrust its nose at me for a good rub: lost my fear of them and have got on well with the occasional creature ever since. Animals are better than humans.....