This painting did not turn out as I envisioned it. I had a whole other technique in mind and it was just not going where I wanted it, so I stepped back, hung it on the wall for a few weeks and waited till something else came to mind. I started solely with painting knives and tried to use color and direction of stroke to make the face appear three dimensional, instead of strong value contrast. The initial layer of the hair drove me crazy. I hated it, so I abandoned my original intention and got out the brushes and then on the next step (after it dried), put a little texture with small painting knives.

I was at a loss for what to do with the background. It seemed a blue grey would just loose the horse and blue would not work either. I was taking an eye break one day while painting something else and looked back at the horse and pictured wide, strong, sharp edged strokes for the background like I used in a big painting of a jay when I first started painting with my mobile arm support. I used this a few other times with more of a wet on wet technique with a heron and an egret.

I was eager to try this dry brushing technique the next day. My brush was new and even though I had worked it with brush cleaner, it still had too much sizer on it, so it would not do the dry brushing technique I had wanted. It did get these nice wet colors, mixing together at the edges. Again, I abandoned my plan and went with what was happening on the canvas. It ended up that I really like the final results, with something weeks before I thought was headed for the dumpster.