Painting Progress

      Tuesday was laundry day and I had no doll work or painting planned in. Travis and I went and did laundry and then after supper I decided I just wanted to work on have Little Elecktra work on her micro a little bit. But then I remembered how horrible my Ballycor looked after my last session on her. I figured I would just work on her a bit and work on blending in her facial paint a bit. Just a bit. 

     Then I moved from her cheeks to the front of her face. I worked wet-on-wet again, in the same way I would do makeup (sort of). I slopped on some stripes of darker and lighter paints and blended them together. And then blended some more. 

     I then worked some on her neck and her body color. The body color was frustrating me. I don't know if I was working on too much at once or what, but things were not blending as well and it was making me a little crazy. But I am practicing no fear painting, so I just kept going. Everything is fixable. 

     I went back and forth between different parts of my horse and I was finally happy with her face. Though the pinked skin on her nose is not my favorite, I might work on that a bit more. 

        The right side of her face makes me pretty happy. Maybe because I ended up with less of the pinked skin that I am not totally happy with. But the blending seems pretty good. I need to check her over in good lighting. 

     Sinc I was not happy with the left side of her face I went in a bit more. I took out the unbleached titanium and did a thin layer of that over the pink skin. I like it a lot more now. I still am not sure I love it, but I like it more. At least in bad lighting. 

      I worked more on the lighter parts of the horse and the blending. There was so much blending. And then more blending. Next time I work on Ballycor, there will be more blending then too. All the blending!

     Palomino is an interesting color. It's fairly forgiving from what I can tell. There are not always drastically different shades of color on the horse. The color is not flat and monotone but there is not a ton of difference. I have 3 shades of palomino yellow I am working with. I have a guide of where to put things. I blend a lot. If something doesn't come out nicely I add a bit more paint and blend some more. 

     I have said many times over the years, and over the course of the current NaMoPaiMo, that I am not a good painter. I think I need to stop saying that. I am not a GREAT painter, but I am not a bad painter. I understand colors and how they work together. I pay attention to detail and I know how to blend. I spend more time blending than anything else. I am still mostly just working on basic things, but I want to practice basics. Solid colors are basic, not necessarily easy, but basic. Maybe next time I will put dapples on my horse, I have no idea how to do that! I think I sort of have an idea actually, but first I will "master" (practice) the basics. 

     As I mentioned, I have horrible lighting in my house. You can't really see a lot of the shading on the horses. At the moment my big horse and Little Elecktra's little horse are very similar in color. But the micro will be darkened up a little bit and will end up a golden chestnut. It's my absolute favorite color on an Arabian horse. And I don't have one. Ballycor will be a golden palomino. So far they're both making me happy. 

     I continue to end up with ugly parts on the horses. I add color and I screw up, or things don't blend well, or they dry too fast. I may have some parts on the horse that are not super smooth. I can fix those. Everything is fixable. When I posted these photos on the NaMoPaiMo Facebook group people asked what type of paint I was using and seemed surprised when I said acrylic. Maybe because I often work wet-on-wet. Maybe because a lot of it is actually pretty well blended (I'm surprised too!). Maybe it's because most of my paint is fairly smooth. I do use good quality acrylic paint, I started with a very smooth model and I blend a lot. Have I mentioned that I blend a lot? I even sometimes will smooth with water, which may or may not actually do anything for the horse, I have no idea. I have some other things I am going to try too if my horse looks a bit chunky. I am actually pleasantly surprised at how well I am doing. I have not done a lot of painting in my life, but I have apparently picked up a lot of painting tricks over the years. I have now done 3 different painting sessions on Ballycor. She is coming along well. I could probably call her body color finished after 1 more session. Maybe. Every time I turn her around or over I find something else that needs another layer of paint or more blending. So maybe one more session on the body and then I will let her be for a day or two to make sure she is super dry. Then I will check her over again with fresh eyes and seal her body color if I am done. And then... details. Which is a whole new adventure!