CHAPTER 3 
OIL & ACRYLIC
Profile in Oil
1 Begin with a sketch, blocking in basic shapes and proportions. You can draw directly on the canvas or create a pencil sketch and transfer it onto your canvas using the grid method (see here).
2 Begin defining the muzzle, using ivory black to fill in the nostril, outline the lips, and apply the darkest shadows. Work in burnt sienna and flesh around the nostril. Add Payne’s gray to the upper lip and nostril.
When creating a sketch for a painting, use charcoal to draw directly on your canvas, as it rubs off easily.
3 Further define the lips with short strokes of Payne's gray mixed with titanium white, and begin outlining the eye with ivory black. Create the forelock with long strokes of ivory black and fill in more of the muzzle with burnt sienna and Naples yellow light. Develop the eyelid, create shadows with ivory black and burnt umber, and add highlights with titanium white.
4 Complete the eye; then fill in the rest of the face, following the forms of the horse’s musculature and bone structure. Paint the neck with brown madder alizarin, burnt umber, and ivory black, with the flesh, Naples yellow light, and burnt sienna colors of the face carrying over. Finish the forelock and mane with ivory black and Payne’s gray highlights.
Three-Quarter Portrait in Oil
This horse makes a great model for learning to paint and blend a wispy mane.
Paint the lighter burnt sienna first; then tone it down with a thin wash of darker color to allow the warm tones in the horse’s neck to show through.
1 Sketch the portrait with an HB pencil. Next, thin raw umber and use a small brush to draw in the outline. Then use a larger brush to roughly paint in the dark areas. Use just a little paint on the brush to “scrub” these areas.
2 Once dry, mix a thin wash of olive green and roughly lay in the undercolor for the background, using a flat hog brush. With the same brush, apply a slightly thicker wash of burnt sienna for the strong undercolor of the horse. Let the painting dry.
3 Paint another layer of the background, using a flat brush and a thicker wash of olive green. Roughly brush in the background and, while the paint is wet, brush in some Naples yellow. Softly blend the two colors together for a mottled look. While the background is wet, mix some raw umber and ultramarine blue on a round brush, and paint the dark ears, mane, neck, and nose areas. While the paint is still wet, add another layer of burnt sienna over the horse. Allow to dry completely.
Gently brush over the background with a clean, dry brush to eliminate brushstrokes.
4. Mix raw umber and ultramarine blue, and paint over the dark areas again with a round brush. Thin the paint and coat over the whole face with a flat brush. While the paint is wet, mix a highlight color of ultramarine blue, burnt umber, and titanium white. With a round brush, start to blend the highlight areas in the face. Notice how the highlights melt into the undercolors. Use a mix of burnt sienna and raw sienna to fill the eye.
5 Use the same raw umber and ultramarine blue mix from step 4 to paint the neck; follow it with a thinned layer of the same color. Load a No. 4 round brush with the dark raw umber and ultramarine blue mix. Also load a No. 1 brush with a cream mix of raw sienna, burnt sienna, and titanium white. Finally, load a second No. 1 brush with a light highlight color mix of ultramarine blue, raw sienna, and titanium white. Paint over the left side of the neck, switching between the three brushes. Add some highlights in the fringe area. Then, using a small round brush, add in the eye detail using burnt sienna and raw umber for the main eye color and raw sienna at the bottom of the eye. Add highlights with a mix of ultramarine blue and a tiny bit of titanium white. For the bit in the mouth, apply a base color of raw sienna mixed with a little burnt sienna.
6 It’s time to add the reins. Mix a gray for the base color, using raw umber and ultramarine blue; then paint the reins with a small round brush. Blend a little gray mix at the bottom of the bit while the paint is wet. Add some titanium white at the top and blend, and do the same for the silver ring. For the highlights on the reins, add more titanium white to the gray mix, and gently stroke in the highlights.
Three-Quarter Portrait in Acrylic
This portrait is beautiful, particularly for the way the eye connects with the viewer.
1 Begin by painting the background with white, sap green, raw umber, cerulean blue, and Payne’s gray. With a large hog-hair flat brush, paint wet-into-wet using flowing brushstrokes in all directions. Allow the paint to dry; then sketch the horse.
Begin the painting with large brushes and switch to increasingly smaller brushes as the portrait progresses. This will prevent you from getting bogged down with details too early in the process.
2 Begin to block in color, using thin paint at first to allow the back of the horse to fade into the background. Use burnt sienna blended with flesh tint and yellow ochre for lovely warm hues that contrast with the cool background. Add white on the horse’s flank, which contrasts nicely with the dark muzzle.
3 Develop the strong tonal values of the head—the main area of focus in the portrait—using Mars black with some ultramarine and burnt sienna on the eyes, ears, and nose.
When wet, a sword liner brush is shaped like a sword. To effectively use this brush (see step 5), mix a fair amount of watery paint, and then heavily load the brush. This brush does not need to be reloaded with paint every few strokes.
4 Next focus on the shadows, using a small round brush to fill in the midtones with various umbers, siennas, and other brown hues. To emphasize the warm areas of burnt sienna on the muzzle and flank, mix ultramarine blue and cadmium red into the surrounding shadows to create more depth; then add white highlights on the left side, indicating a glossy coat.
5 Finally, use a sword liner brush to sweep in the fine hairs that make up the fringe, mane, and whiskers. Then use an old, small round brush to stipple in fine dark and light lines for the slightly longer hairs on the bridge of the nose and to create surface texture to illustrate fine hairs.
Foal
Foals have a number of unique physical attributes, including an almost entirely different set of proportions that make them distinct from their adult counterparts. A foal has smaller, more upright hooves and longer pasterns than an adult horse. They also have smaller heads and muzzles, and most also have short tufts for tails and brushlike, upright manes.
ARTISTIC LIBERTY This foal is a lovely buckskin pinto, but its color won’t stand out against the yellow-and-gold background. For contrast and interest, you can paint a bay coat instead of the buckskin color shown in the photograph.
1 Use a large filbert brush and loose brushstrokes to cover the canvas with alizarin crimson and phthalo green. Make sure to leave visible brushstrokes; some of these textural marks will show through on the final painting, creating visual interest. Let the paint dry before moving on to the next step.
2 Next draw the outline of the foal on the canvas, using a small brush and a dark mix of alizarin crimson and phthalo green. Loosely block in the largest shapes, making corrections to your sketch with the background color mixed with white.
3 Now block in the pinto’s coat, starting with grays for the white areas. For the darkest browns, use alizarin crimson mixed with phthalo green, which you should also apply underneath the foal to establish a cast shadow. For the medium browns, use burnt sienna.
4 Paint trees using phthalo green mixed with burnt umber. Then mix phthalo green with cadmium yellow medium to add the pasture and reshape the foal’s head. Paint the light grass with sap green and cadmium yellow medium. Then add the shadows using phthalo green mixed with ultramarine blue.
5 Using lighter background values, paint around and into the foal to refine its shape. For the sunlit brown patches, use cadmium orange and burnt sienna. Paint the grass at its feet with dark sap green and yellow, and paint the cast shadows with ultramarine blue and phthalo green.
6 Next use a small filbert to add white highlights to the light patches of the foal’s coat, switching to cadmium orange for the brown highlights. Then add details to the nearby grass and finish the mane, tail, and face, all using a small round brush. Switch to a 50-50 mix of white and burnt sienna for the edges of the brown patches on the foal’s coat, where they blend into the white hairs. Then, using white mixed with matte medium, add a distant fence, glazing over it with ultramarine blue. Finally, touch in some orange and white flowers to better link the colors of the foal to the background.
White Arabian
To paint an accurate likeness, the most important thing is to capture the subject’s unique qualities. Look for the basic shapes and contours of the subject; then concentrate on depicting the individual elements, such as the wide-set eyes, smooth hair, and delicate muzzle. To paint this beautiful white Arabian, pay attention to its features, including its dished profile, large eye, and small ears.
WORKING FROM A PHOTO It’s rare for an animal to stay still for a portrait, so use a photo reference to study the sizes and relationships of the features. Measure from the top of the eye to the top of the head, using this as a basis for the size and placement of everything else.
1 Set the cool tone for this portrait with an underpainting of phthalo green and burnt umber. Cover the canvas quickly, mixing the colors loosely in some places and keeping them pure in others. Then randomly press a ball of plastic wrap into the wet paint; the mottled texture will create interest in the finished painting.
2 Sketch the head with a mix of alizarin crimson and phthalo green, paying careful attention to the placement of the eye, the width of the ears, and the length of the muzzle. Add water to the black mixture to establish the darks, washing over the nostril, muzzle, eyes, and ears. Finally, adjust the sketch using the background colors mixed with white.
3 Next block in a background. Use ultramarine blue mixed with white for the sky, phthalo green mixed with sap green for the foliage, burnt sienna mixed with white for the ground, and ultramarine blue mixed with alizarin crimson and white for the mountains.
4 Now add the base colors of the horse using pure white paint. For light values, mix in cadmium orange and cadmium yellow medium. For shadows, use a grayed purple mix of alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, and yellow ochre with pure yellow ochre accents.
5 Next apply thicker coats of white, mixing in cadmium yellow medium for highlights. Then glaze a 50-50 mix of matte medium and the grayed purple to add detail to the shadows. To create form, glaze white mixed with cadmium orange over the highlights.
6 Now add white to the original background colors to produce lighter values, and work them into the sky and distant mountains. Add a little cadmium orange to warm the bushes and bring them forward. Next, finish the horse, starting with the eye. Using a medium filbert, deepen the shadows and refine the horse’s form with another glaze of grayed purple. Use the same glaze over the background. Next, pull out details on the hide using lighter glazes. Then solidify the shape of the head and neck with another, lighter glaze of white mixed with a touch of cadmium orange. To finish, lighten the sky with ultramarine blue and white.
EYE DETAIL ONE After establishing the shape of the eye, paint a flattened oval pupil using alizarin crimson mixed with phthalo green. Paint the iris under the pupil with a brown mix of burnt umber and ultramarine blue. Add lashes and a bluish glaze around the perimeter to suggest moisture.
EYE DETAIL TWO Now add warmth to the reflected light on the iris using a mix of yellow ochre, cadmium red light, and burnt sienna. Then lighten the cast shadow of the eyelashes with ultramarine blue mixed with white. To finish, highlight the cornea opposite the lightest area of the iris, and add a few lower lashes.
Stallion
Following the rules of atmospheric perspective—that air particles block light and make distant objects less distinct than near objects—artists paint objects closest to the viewer with more texture, detail, and intense color. To create depth in this scene, paint the stallion in the foreground with more detail, at a greater size, and in warmer colors. Objects farther afield will have blurred edges, smoothed forms, and cooler colors, “pushing” them into the distance.
EMPHASIZING DEPTH Use a sketch to work out the scale before you begin a painting. In this scene, make sure the sizes of the animals in the distance are in proportion to the larger stallion’s size. Then roughly indicate the detail and texture that the closest horse will feature.
1 Paint your canvas first with a mix of gesso and cadmium yellow medium. When this layer dries, add a thin application of cadmium yellow medium mixed with white and a touch of cadmium orange. Then mix phthalo green with alizarin crimson to roughly sketch the scene, first marking the horizon line along the base of the distant trees.
2 Begin by applying a dark green mix of phthalo green, ultramarine blue, and a touch of burnt umber to the distant trees and shadows on the hill, adding more burnt umber to paint the overhanging branch. For the pasture, begin with a mix of ultramarine blue, white, and sap green in the distance, gradually adding cadmium yellow medium as you move toward the foreground.
3 Next apply base colors to the horses. The nearest horse is a palomino, so use cadmium orange for the sunlit areas and yellow ochre mixed with burnt umber for the shadows. For the other two horses—a bay and a chestnut—use darker values of the umber mix, with the addition of cadmium red light for the sunlit portions.
4 Mix white, ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson, and yellow ochre for the sky, adding more blue as you move away from the light source. For the trees, stroke a warm sap green and yellow ochre glaze over sunlit areas and a cool phthalo green and ultramarine blue glaze over shadows. Then, using mixes on your palette, develop the trees, grass, and horses.
5 If the color of the distant horses appears a little too bright and pure, tone it down by glazing burnt umber over the sunlit hides. The resulting grayed dark orange visually pushes the horses into the distance. Use glazes of phthalo green mixed with burnt umber to add shadows to the middle-ground tree and under the two horses.
6 Add lighter glazes to the sky to complete the background. Next build up the palomino’s form using layers of cadmium orange mixed with cadmium yellow medium, adding white for highlights. Then paint the horse’s stockings, tail, and mane using white mixed with ultramarine blue and a little yellow ochre.
7 Mix gel medium with azo yellow and glaze it over the sky, creating more visual interest with interweaving colors. Clean up the legs of the two distant horses, and tame the palomino’s mane. Then paint a few more leafy, overhead branches. Finally, touch up the palomino using white mixed with cadmium yellow medium for highlights and burnt umber mixed with gel for more darks.