horse, lakota artist

drawing and inital painting on "horse, lakota artist"

a prominent lakota artist thurman horse is the subject of the next painting project. he and some friends allowed me to take their photo a while back while on a visit to pineridge reservation in south dakota. one of his friends jim was the subject of a painting back about 5 months ago or so, "pineridge jim."

i started by enlarging the photo of thurman to the size i wanted for the painting (about 8" from cap to chin) to make  drawing to proportion easier. i then drew his likeness onto a piece of 20"X16" 140# hot press fabriano artistico paper using a modified contour technique. once that was accomplished the rest of his torso and clothing was relatively easy. i started the painting at the tip of the nose by painting the shadow on the underplane. i used a #8 round faux kolinsky brush (dick blick) and the colors were brown madder, raw sienna, and cobalt blue throughout all these steps. after the paint was put down i rinsed and shook out the brush and then drew the first application up and over the top and sides of his nose. the wash was released into the upper lip with a dab of cobalt blue. in order to get some reflected light on the underplane of the nose i put in a dab of quinacridone gold and then when this whole thing dried overpainted the shadow on the upper lip. this gave quite a bit of depth  (or prominence) to the tip of the nose.

close up detail of "horse, lakota artist"

i next moved onto the *left* eye. i started with the shadow under the upperlid, the iris with burnt umber, and medial dark shadow and moved up over the brow area. i drew some of this over the upper lid to make the "fold" shadow. when the iris had dried just a bit i added the pupil wet-in-wet with an undiluted dab of ultramarine blue being careful to avoid the highlight. the iris was released into the lower lid and the folds/ bulges of the lower lid to complete this area.

following this i painted the nasolabial folds and *left* cheek losing the later into the dark hair (adding ultramarine blue/burnt sienna) and bottom fold of his cap (mineral violet). he has prominent acne scars (as do most of the lakota from a type of severe acne unique to native americans) and i experimented with some fine spatters on the cheek. i think that will work if i decide to add the scars....which i think i will...for the sake of accuracy. the same sort of treatment was given to the *right* lower cheek, hair and hat. the hair strands were scraped in with the palette knife as the wash dried a little.

next steps in "horse, lakota artist"

the *right* eye was completed the same as the *left*. i next moved onto the mouth which was brown madder with some cobalt added. the shadow over his teeth was darker at the corners and just more cobalt added. the prominent shadow under his lower lip was painted with a dab of pure cobalt blue and then drawn out with the rest of the "flesh" colors laterally and slightly inferiorly. i treated the chin sort of the same as the nose putting some reflected light under the chin using quinacridone gold and then painting the rest of the colors around it. this was carried up over the lateral cheek on the his *right* and down onto the neck. lastly, on the face/figure i defined the *right* jacket collar and neck with a dark wash of ultramarine blue/burnt sienna releasing this shape into some shadow fold on his jacket. i am going to try to put a rather flat wash on the background and am going to go for a grayed complement to the major face colors. so, i think some raw sienna/yellow ochre-based wash. i put a bit down on the upper left just to get an idea how i might look, and how the paint would handle on the hot press finish.  that's all for now. more later today.