I dabbled in painting a rabbit when it was the year of the Rabbit. When it was the year of the snake, I tried to paint snakes just for the heck of it, practicing my center tip technique (see Snakes, Just for Fun , Feb 23, 2013 blog). I think the idea of me painting the animal of the year sort of took hold with the year of the horse. It is a challenge now to try to keep this going.
I started out by researching photos on the net and tried to compose poses based on them and sketched them out to see the possibilities.
I tried to paint with more details to see what works
And tried to try some gazes
The facial expression was a difficult task. I didn't want the painting to appear cartoonish, nor did I want it to be stoic and cold. I forgot how many muscles are there to control our facial expressions, suffice to say regardless of the number I was not able to replicate any of them with my brush. The things that I could try though were the relative positions of the eyes, the brow and the attitude of the head.
That's it. Body language!
At some point I thought the images were more like drawings than brush strokes, so I also tried my luck with more emphasis on brush strokes
I was really having a difficult time. I kept vacillating between the 2 different styles. A major part of the indecision was due to my very limited experience of the subject matter and either way I would be treading in new waters.
I need to extricate myself from this for a little while and see if I could find a fresh approach.
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