Stable: pencil study. Graphite on paper, 10 x 8 in, 2007.
Here’s the pencil study for my new work. I picked the reference image by “karpati” from www.morguefile.com . I was completely taken in by the lighting in the photograph, but wanted to change a few details. The horse in the photo has such an intense expression of longing, I thought it would be easier to communicate that if the horse was looking out the top of a stable door. Now, I doubt any Dutch door was ever that high, but I wanted to keep as much of the shadow across the bridge of the nose as possible.
The horse in the photo doesn’t have much mane (I think it’s a rather young animal) but I wanted mine to have a mane. I also included more space in front of the subject to give a better sense that he is looking out of this space into another – making this change also moves the eye into a more compositionally pleasing spot in the picture plane.
This sketch doesn’t capture the intensity of dark and light I want in the final work, but it wasn’t really meant to do that in the first place. Although, I have been seriously thinking about ditching the graphite on white paper sketch process in favour of a drawing in white on black paper drafting process. I think it would help me – not only with layout and composition (which is what the sketch is for in the first place) but also with light and value in the final work. And let’s face it, that’s scratchboard’s biggest feature.
