Greeting the Rider

Greeting the Rider
Acrylic on masonite, 5x7

The photos I took during our civil war reenactment have proven a treasure trove for paintings!  Now that I am concentrating on figures, I am choosing photos with multiple subjects - giving me more to work on in each painting!  I am painting small at only 5x7 inches, so these figures are small.  I want to become so comfortable with painting them, that the strokes can be loose, yet define them clearly.  I spend about 30 minutes on the color block in, and find that I am capturing most of the painting at this point.  Finish work is just making the strokes more poetic, and marrying the colors a bit for good color harmony.  Most importantly, I want those figures to be accurate in form and gesture.  I am including quite a bit of background landscape, and it has been some time since I have painted landscapes in acrylic.  I am using the same methods as the figure and portrait work, only applying them to the landscape - which is certainly different from my former technique.  This painting makes 1162 in 1162 days.

color block in