Time again has been limited …but in a nice way as Rosie was back from Uni for the weekend.  However, I have been pushing a bit more paint around the sunshine portrait …still trying to get those bloody luminous shadows ( I WILL win this battle eventually J )

Also I have loosened up the back ground on the horse …was heart breaking at the time as I remembered how much time I had spent trying to get it so exact BUT when I stepped back at the end I wasn’t so horrified and once I worked on the edges of the horse the next day things started to look as though they were coming together and softening those edge seems to have made a lot of sense to my eye.

Hmmm… unfortunately though I now have a problem in that when I look at the painting at this stage my eye just keeps wanting to go to the head collar …those sharp edges again!!  will have to have a think on how I am going to soften those edges while still retaining that nice stiff/solid leather look.  Another thing that I have spent the past week mulling over is how I am going to make that eye my centre of focus.  I know once the head collar is softened it will pull the viewers eye in more but I really wanted it to pop and say “look at me” .  My ref photo is terrible and blurry and I cant see close up as to what is going on in the eye, I have also looked at some horse eyes in the ref library at WC but again while they are great eyes and have given me a clue to the whole anatomy of the eye there is nothing different there to what I have already painted.  I did chance across a post on WC explaining light reflected through an eyeball though …this information did make sense so I think if I take this into account and also the fact that the eye is almost glass like and there for the lines will be sharper it might just work.