"Cecil" ( see all proofs)
This is Cecil. I love doing horses. Cecil is no longer around and so we had only vintage snapshots to work with. In all of the photographs this guy's eyes were down and not showing much. In order to paint in some sparkle I went on-line and searched "horse eye" over at flickr to see just what a horse's eye should look like. The process was tricky as there were many wide open eyes that I could have mimicked and yet I was afraid to open the eye too much and risk it not looking like Cecil. I decided instead to paint in some eyelashes and paint in a highlight dot for sparkle. The result is subtle and effective, see image below.
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7 comments:
Beautiful work...love the colors in this one!
Nice job with that eye. Horses are hard to get to open up an eye when they are resting. I have lots of photos of my horses back in the 1960's but there are alot of them with the sleepy look! Perfect comprimise
Thanks Linda.
Hi K.T. and thanks for the praise, yes I felt I needed to find a middle ground on the eye. I think the half open eyes on horses is due in large part to the need for sun-shades, these guys are often photographed in harsh bright sunlight. All the big open eye images I found on-line were shot in shady light.
I really love that background!
Wow! This is the first horse of yours that I've seen! It's exceptional Rebecca!
Stunning! What a gift you have
Thanks Sarah, Manon and Christine.
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