Aiken Steeplechase #4

Aiken Steeplechase #4, originally uploaded by debifitz.

This is the fun part... watching the horses emerge from the painting! It is coming right along now. One thing I wanted to bring up.... believe it or not, I do not use "brown" paint! I have gotten to where I love to make my browns out of oranges, purples and pinks. Some yellows too. I just get a richer color than using good old burnt umber. I started doing this when I got frustrated with the way burnt sienna and burnt umber dried... it never looked as good as when it was wet. And I rarely use black from a tube... for the same reason... looks flat when dry. Not to mention that there isn't that much in nature that is truely black. Depending on where it is going, I use a combination of paynes gray (I use a lot of Paynes gray!), and some sort of red... usually a mars red or violet. I also love brown madder aliz with paynes gray. I had a teacher once that recommended burnt sienna and prussian blue for a rich black. I just do a variation of that. You can get some really beautiful colors when you add a little pink or white to a mixed black. Makes my high lights more realistic. Basically I go back to the color wheels/charts I made back in college art school... they have really come in handy!