Stone Pony

Today's Pony Sketch

Today I added another Evergreen Classic sketch to my growing pile. For this one I did a little experimenting. I chose a split complementary palette of Buff Titanium, (Primatek) Hematite, (Primatek) Sicklerite Genuine, and Manganese Blue Hue. All were Daniel Smith watercolors. They represented in order: Yellow, Yellow Orange, Red Orange, and the complement – Cyan. All were cool versions of the colors. They were also all granulating colors. I wondered if the granulating colors could be used to simulate the dappling on the original pony’s coat.

To my taste the results were mixed. I liked the layout of the page very much. I also felt the colors I used looked cohesive and harmonious. However, the granulation qualities of all four colors added together ended up being a bit too much. The piece needed some more rest for the eye, which could have been gotten by substituting a least one non-granulating color. I also felt that all the granulation led the pony’s color to look more like stone than dappling. Perhaps in the future I’ll try only one or two granulating colors, not all four! I also missed a warm color in the mix. There should have been some ochre in the pony’s coat color and the Sicklerite Genuine was just too cool.

Having said all that, I was actually pleased with today’s page. I look forward to making some changes to the next sketch to see if I can get a happier color mix like I did in the two ponies page I did yesterday.