Muster demonstration

Here are a few photos taken as I painted today's scene...a wonderful South Island muster .

 I watch a New Zealand TV show called Country Calendar and they often have shows about the annual musters on the massive south Island farms ( they call them stations). I would love to go on one and paint and take photographs...that would keep me busy for a whole year!!!! Maybe one day......

 stage 1. Block in and establish direction and the lightest areas.

 Stage 2. Block in the colour

 stage 3. more colour and some shapes

 stage 4. establish the shapes using the negative shapes...!!! I know, crazy stuff!

 Stage 5. work on the shapes and add texture to the landscape, small details to the pack horses etc

 Stage 6. Fiddle but not too much. Move the paint around to make the shapes.Do not think about what a horse looks like anatomically but think about what the train of pack horses feel like. ....and then paint that. Fine tune the colors.

Stage 6. Walk away and think about it for a few days!
20 x 25 cm
Oil on hardboard

Then I made a collage on the computer for the FB page...like this!

So much fun!
I hope you enjoyed seeing the progression and evolution of the painting as a process. Let me know if you would like to see it again.......and if you are a station manager or owner, please can I come with you next time?!