Le Cadeau Du Cheval – Mural Mosaic

An ART post at last on my blog about art and horses! Amazing!

My time has been taken up by all the antics (and problems) of my family herd.

I was chosen to be a participant in The Horse Gift Mural Mosaic project in Canada. http://muralmosaic.com/Cadeau.htmlTwo hundred and thirty-eight panels will make up a larger painting. Pretty incredible images have arisen from these projects.

We were given a choice of panels. My first choices had already been taken, so I picked another set and received a purple background with no distinct shapes. We also had a list of potential historical horses to be considered as subjects. After receiving my panel and looking at it for a while, I went down the list of the individuals still available and tried each one on for size on the panel. I had two in particular that seemed to fit. Ruffian and Bephalus. I put Ruffian at the top of my choices and this time I got my first choice.

Here is the basic panel with the first layout of the painting sketched on. I will be doing an underpainting in some purple tints. I will be doing the panel in oil, and I will shoot another photo when the underpainting step is finished.

I found a book on Ruffian’s life to read in between painting sessions to keep me in the mood of what she was about. The background should lend itself well to a stormy sky and impending doom.