Rudy

You may be wondering about the point of all these little horse paintings in my journal lately. The reason is two-fold. The first is that I am bothered by my sketches being too sketchy! I wanted to work towards a more painterly and finished approach in my sketching. 

My current sketch kit - although I have now added two more pencils to it -
Turquoise and Indian Red Cretacolor woodless watercolor pencils.

The second is that I am working with a fairly limited palette in this sketch kit and am trying to get to know it better. I actually love this little kit. It’s small and handy and yet has all the colors I need. My sketchbook in this case is a Stillman and Birn Gamma. I am finding the Gamma quite delightful to use. Although it’s mainly for dry media it can take a light wash and, although the paper will cockle when wet, the page will flatten out again when dry. It can even tolerate a moderate amount of scrubbing.

Yesterday I sketched “Rudy,” a Palomino pony at Brenda Jacroux’s farm. Rudy is currently a hairball and is going through a massive shedding cycle. Although in Summer he will be a bright golden color, right now he is a mixture of yellow, roany-pink, and muddy hair.

"Rudy" aka (affectionately) - "That Yellow Thing."

I wanted to try and capture his strange mixture of colors in this little watercolor painting. Although the scan didn’t pick it up, I laid in a light blue background behind Rudy to highlight the yellow in his coat.

"Rudy" sketch - watercolor pencils and Neocolor II
in a Stillman and Birn Gamma sketchbook.