White Horse by Frances McGarry

Beautiful smooth and detailed work!

Beautiful watercolour painting Frances, looks like a photo,

It does look like a photo! It must be an Arabian...the white on white is eye catching....

Beautiful.

Lucky friend! I love the white-on-white.

Shame the hooves are disfigured, and far too small, in reality they should be twice the size. It appears the photo this was copied from did not show the hooves.or the hooves were covered in grass ? No feet no horse. The hindquarter is not right either. The top as a straight line near the tail would have been rounded, rather than straight.. May I suggest you take a critical look at other photos of the hooves to get the proportions correct. There is a painting on this forum of a chinese horse, with one of its front legs disfigured. The hooves and fetlock are facing backwards. It is such a pity, as it is a beautiful piece otherwise, and you should be proud of your work.

Thank you for your comments Paul, Ros, Cheryl, Lesley and Kim.

Beautiful horse, I bet she was pleased, horses are so hard to capture,

I paint a lot of racehorses in quite a loose style. I also had horses and ran a livery yard for years, so know about horses. I think the criticisms regarding proportions here are somewhat irrelevant. A painting is an artistic interpretation, not a photograph, and accuracy is all very well, but the interpretation is what is most important. I appreciate that Elizabeth obviously knows a lot about a horse's conformation but I would suggest that some of this knowledge has to be put aside when viewing a painting as often total accuracy doesn't actually matter if the painting works. I think this painting works as, even if the small hooves were an error (which I doubt knowing your skills) they suggest a light-footed and dainty horse to me and tell me something more about the animal. So my message is - look at the total painting and when viewing it, accuracy should be at the bottom of the list of criteria for judging it and artistry should be at the top of the list. This is a very clever painting,especially as painting a white horse on a white background is a real challenge.

Thank you so much Thea for your comment above and your support. Obviously some people don't know their Airbrush from their Easel, do they? ??

That'll be me then..lol. I didn't know what an airbrush was! Do you use an airbrush for your wonderful portraits, in which case, I should perhaps learn more about them!