Step by Step - equine oil painting by Ivetta Harte, STEP 10

STEP 10

Oil is never considered dry. When oil painting dries up, then it cracks. It takes a long time for oil to dry to be safely handled. It can take up to 6 months. I let it dry for several days before paining the details. That gives oil enough time not to smear from the touch of the brush, and I have to paint over the thick brushstrokes with the smaller brush strokes to do the details. Look for the added details in the foreground. This is the time that you can call the paining to be done. I prefer to put it away for a couple of weeks and let it dry and let my eyes rest. After that, with the fresh critical eyes, I paint the final details and correct anything that needed to be corrected. After that - it is the time for me to sell the paining or to loan it away: I can't keep my hands away from he paintings that I keep in my studio and they become never-ending perfection that I can't finish.... sometimes even paint over them or destroy them.
I hope you enjoyed the Step by Step equine blog entries for the "California Vineyard Gallop" by Ivetta Harte.

Oil panting by Ivetta Harte "California Vineyard Gallop" 2006, canvas size 22"x28" Please email for the price.

Step by Step - equine oil painting by Ivetta Harte, STEP 9

STEP 9

With background and middle ground finished, I concentrate on the foreground and the most fun part: the galloping horse! Originally I wanted the horse to be a dark bay, but when I started to paint it, it just didn't look right; the color was too quiet compare to the vibrant and fun colors of the California Vineyards. I picked up some colors form the ground of the vineyards and the horse and a rider came to life! Now it's time for this painting to dry for a couple of days, so I can paint the details with out smearing the rest of it.

Step by Step - equine oil painting by Ivetta Harte, STEP 8

STEP 8

This is the time that I painted enough of that canvas to see that I'm not happy with the background. It looks too disorganized and busy. I absolutely loved how I painted the brown trees that separate 2 vineyards, I tried to preserve them, but unfortunately they have to be repainted in much darker color. Composition of my color and movement of that paining depends on them. Look how I repainted the dark background to the right - and look how the middle vineyards POP now. That really gave the needed dimension. I also simplified the horizon line and painted down the little barn, now it blend in with the rest of the scenery.

Step by Step - equine oil painting by Ivetta Harte, STEP 7

STEP 7

I'm still working on the middle ground - I'd like to have a variation of the details even in the middle ground from right to left: the right side I want more detailed, colorful and vibrant. The left side I want to fade away, so it'll give even more dramatic contract with the foreground vineyards.

Step by Step - equine oil painting by Ivetta Harte, STEP 6

STEP 6

It's time to work on the middle ground. It'll be lighter and more detailed than the background. I'll lift the haze from it and give it some vibrant colors. As you can see, accidentally, I’m starting to smear wet oils on the painting with my hand - it's hard to paint above the wet paint, I have to hold my hand in the air, so I will not smear my hard work. I also started to paint the rider.

Step by Step - equine oil painting by Ivetta Harte, STEP 5

STEP 5

As soon as I painted the big shapes for the background, I move on to paint the foreground and middle ground. I'll come back to the background latter and I'll work on the details more, but for now, I need to fill the whole canvas with life, so I can see how the color and composition plays out.

Step by Step - equine oil painting by Ivetta Harte, STEP 4

STEP 4

I continue to work on the sky and the background drop. I try to avoid the straight lines in the horizon and give vineyard hills interesting movements. The middle ground line to the closer vineyards is very important - it will stand out, so I work very hard to give it the dynamic movement.

Step by Step - equine oil painting by Ivetta Harte, STEP 3

STEP 3

At this step I start actually painting with normal (not diluted) oils. I always start from the top and try to find the right sky, the right mood fort he paining. For this one, I wanted to show a lot of fun and a lot of color. As you can see that originally, my sky had much more yellow and emerald colors, but I decided that they are competing with the foreground and decided to sink the sky and the mountains in to the background more with the calmer and darker colors.

Step by Step - equine oil painting by Ivetta Harte, STEP 2

STEP 2

I'm ready to start paining and I take a much diluted oil color and start sketching my composition to the canvas. The color is very faint and transparent; it almost looks like I'm paining with watercolors on a canvas. Oil is so watery and diluted that it runs down my canvas, but I don't care, I just want to have something on my white canvas - I'm scared of plain canvases, so I always try to cover them with paint as soon as I can. I don't use pencils on canvas: first they smear and also can puncture the canvas or just stretch it too deep from the pensile pressure. By using diluted oil, I can see how the composition is playing out in the large size and I can easily paint over it, if it will not work. That's the reason why I'm using diluted oils.

Step by Step - equine oil painting by Ivetta Harte, STEP 1

STEP 1

First I think about the idea and composition for several months. I look around myself and try to remember the details that I like and inspire me, the details that make me smile. I then start sketching and trying to find the best composition: where to do the horizon line, where to place the rider, what kind of movement and direction my composition will have, how will I guide the eye of the viewer around the painting? I might spend a couple of weeks just sketching and changing the composition. At the same time, I start thinking about the palette for that painting: again, I try to look around me and find the colors that I like. The color palette can be anywhere: it can be on TV, magazine, books or even on the net. I take a lot of photos and rip the pages of the magazines, I clip all of those to my easel - they will help me to stay on track and true to the color palette.

Welcome to DA Horse Gifts and Horse Art www.DressageArt.com blog

Welcome to www.DressageArt.com blog!

Ivetta Harte painting "live" during the 2 day horse show.

Even I've been a professional artist for the last 18 years; I started to concentrate my oil paintings on horses in the year 2005. My oils take me a long time to paint; so I finished only a handful of them in a year. Several people asked me how I paint my horse oil paintings. I love to share my passion for the art and horses. To bring the horse art closer to horse people, I recently painted "live" at the CDS-EB dressage horse show. I started with a blank canvas. Many people revisited my booth and checked on my progress thought the day. It was so much fun and a great success. I really enjoyed having my own booth, though it was a lot of work and I was really tired after the 2 day outdoor show. I promised to several people to put up the finished painting on my website, so they can see how it ended up. I'll do that as soon as I'll finish this painting.

While thinking how can I show the progress of my oil paintings, I decided to give a try to keep a “blog” – a personal web newspaper or web diary or web journal. On this blog I’ll be talking about horses, horse’s art, dressage and horse paintings.

Visit DressageArt (DA) blog: http://dahorsegifts.blogspot.com/

Visit DressageArt (DA) website: http://www.dressageart.com/

Visit DressageArt (DA) gift shop: http://www.cafepress.com/dressageart/