FOUR BOYS

In 2020, I was asked if I could do an oil of a photo of 4 racehorses, taken by the owners at the yard. I had a quick look, and said yes, I could.

Oils and pastels are very different mediums, the biggest difference being in oils I need to wait for the latest layer to dry, so that the next layer can go on. Being corrie duked, I work from right to left. In real terms, that means that although the head on the right will be dry enough to put more on, I have to wait until the head on the left is also totally dry. I'm not very good at not slapping on big bits of colour, so that takes even longer!

Then of course, I've had long enough to keep seeing parts I want to change, so I do, and the whole process repeats.

I realised that I needed more information for the detail to work, so went up to Lucinda Russell Racing to take more photos, where everyone was incredibly helpful trying to get the light and the angle of the heads the same!  I even had a wee trip up the gallops watching horses work!

I've painted Arthur three times now, he was so unimpressed at my attempts at photography interfering with his field time that he bit my arm!

I got the photos I needed, but of course by this time of year the coats had all changed colour. So I had to go back over everything  and I pretty much redid it. It was quite disheartening, waiting for it to dry, and I felt like I was never going to come to the end.

Bits of it kept feeling wrong, and I was worried that Arthur and Humphrey were getting lost a bit, so I left it alone again, to see it with fresh eyes, which showed me I needed to lose the mane on Hugo on the far right, as it was muddying the whole effect, and I also had Arthur's eye slightly in the wrong place, so a wee shift of 5mm for that and suddenly it all came together!

I love the varnishing stage, partly because it means I'm finished, but also it pulls the whole piece together. I was happily slapping it on when suddenly the black from the background started to bleed across Hugo's (luckily properly dry) neck! The paint was so thick where I'd layered to hide the mane it still wasn't dry!

How fast did I use how many cotton buds to fix that!

So here it is, months longer than I'd anticipated, but I'm so chuffed with it! Big River has the most beautiful head, and it's the second time I've painted him, and was delighted to see him run a blinder in second yesterday at Kelso Racecourse.

The horses are listed below, racing names and stable names consecutively. Massive thanks to Debs for her patience!

 #OneForArthur #BollingerandKrug #BigRiver #DomandLouis

 #Arthur            #Humphrey            #Henry      #Hugo