How to paint horses in motion with Bill Truslove

How to paint horses in pastel

I have always had a fascination for horses. Born in 1936 in the, then, country village of Stoney Stanton, Leicestershire, the main industries were granite quarrying, haulage and farming.

In 1939, when tractors were virtually impossible to obtain due to armaments taking precedence in manufacturing industries, farmers were reliant on horses for motive power, and the local quarry company used a large group of shire horses to move the wagon loads of stone. These were large and impressive animals with a wonderful, gentle nature. One of the handlers used to open the field gate, jump on to the back of one and they would trot happily down to the quarry.

When I started in art school, in 1986, I painted all the usual things - landscapes, seascapes and still life, etc. being tutored in all the mediums that give students a wide range of skills.

After leaving art school in 1992, I attended two WEA courses with John Patchett, an English pastellist, who at that time was living in Adelaide, South Australia. I was instantly converted to using pastel as my favoured medium.

Early on in my career, I started painting horses. Taking photos at race tracks, country shows and anywhere else I could find them. My first efforts were a little disappointing but gradually I started to improve. Sketching from pictures in magazines and books, was one way I used to get the anatomy right.

St Patrick's Day Races, Broken Hill

In 1999 I moved to Victor Harbour, in South Australia where Clydesdales were used to pull the trams to Granite Island, over the 150 year old causeway, on the old broad gauge railway tracks, which were originally used by the trains taking cargo to the ships moored at the jetty, so once more horses became a feature of my life.

Carmen the Clydesdale, one of the horses used to pull trams at Victor Harbour

DEMONSTRATION: The Final Turn at Broken Hill

I began by sketching in the rough shapes of the horses using soft charcoal, not looking for perfect shapes but more an impression of the general forms, and spaces between them and the angle of them, showing the speed at which they were travelling.

I added the white rail as the lightest tone compared with the horses as the darkest tone.

I put in a soft indication of the riders with a charcoal covered finger .

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Using various tones of browns and reds, I applied the rough shapes of the horses, noting the direction of the light and the different angles of the horses, going into the turn.

The shapes of the riders were put in using a white pastel pencil and a charcoal pencil, some of the heads were shown at this point. I was now starting to get into the rhythm of the subject.

At this stage I started to give more form to the horses. Adding light tone to the rumps and refining the colours.

More heads were added, the legs given more definition.

The jockeys white pants were roughly shaped and the bodies given more shape, too.

The rail was also reinstated.

I could now start to see what I was aiming for.

The jockey’s colours were invented with a range of tones often seen being worn by them.

White highlights were put on their pants and blue for the shadow side.

A mixture of warm and cool reds and browns brought the horses bodies to life.

At this stage I felt the lead horse rounding the rail was distracting, so I deleted it leaving, me with an odd number which made a better composition.

To delete it, I used a stiff, oil painting bristle brush, gently brushing the pastel off, followed by a putty rubber.

I was using Art Spectrum Colourfix paper and they sell a set of pastels which match exactly the tones of the paper, these can be used for correction, too.

I then started to bring in the red earth track and the dust around the horses feet.

The city of Broken Hill is home to an iron ore mining and smelting plant, just over the border from South Australia and is in the desert area. The rainfall is very low, every thing is red dust, the buildings are covered in it and there is very little vegetation, so it is important to get the colours right where the horses were kicking up a dust.

The left rail was touched up and the far rail was added.