Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Sofie Eating

I sat on a fence rail at the farm recently and sketched Sofie, the draft horse, as she had her afternoon meal alongside Abby. They shuffled around lazily the whole time, exuding contentedness. 
The only one who wasn't contented was the barn cat, Handsome. Unknown to me, he was right below me when I shook out a big brushload of water. He jumped up like a thing possessed, but he never figured out where the sudden cloudburst came from.

After a quick lay-in, I laid in large tones in watercolor with a one-inch flat brush, then worked in water-soluble colored pencil (red-brown, ochre, and black) to define the forms a bit more. Finally I touched up along the back and the mane with white gouache.

6 comments:

Dolores Quilts said...

Very nice sketch! TFS :0)

Julian Wong said...

Nice!

Anonymous said...

What brand of gouache do you use, if I may ask? My white gouache is not opaque enough to lay in over other colors that way...!

James Gurney said...

I used a tube of Winsor and Newton zinc white, just for a few white touches.

Tom Hart said...

Love it, James. I'm a sucker for draft horse images, but even considering that, this is especially nice.

Is it a little larger than your usual sketchbook size - which I think is roughly 5x7? I'm not sure why, but for some reason I get that impression. Then again, it may be the mass of the horse that's making me think big...

James Gurney said...

Thanks, everybody. Tom, I'm still working in the 5 by 8 inch Moleskine book. I have a larger one, about 11 by 14, but it's a bit unwieldy on location.