"Carriage Ride in Williamsburg" Animals, Pastel, 11 x 14

"Carriage Ride in Williamsburg"  Pastel,  11 x 14

One day I took a ton of photos of the four horses on duty that Saturday who's job it was to pull tourists in the carriages down Duke of Gloucester street in Colonial Williamsburg.  These horses are amazingly patient as people surround them to stroke their fur and pose for photos.  During their day off you can find them grazing in various pastures around the museum.

This was an especially difficult piece for me.  The straps and such on the horses was really hard to draw.  I started with a fully completed watercolor painting on 140 pound Strathmore watercolor paper, using Windsor and Newton professional grade watercolors.  I kept this  underpainting quite vibrant so that when I applied the pastels on top the painting would glow.  I did 4 passes with pastels, starting with Rembrandt, blending with Nupastels and detailing with pastel pencil.  I used Krylon workable fixative in between passes.

Here is my reference photo.  Usually I mess with my photos quite a bit on photoshop before I commit to the first layer of painting.  Here all I did was flip the photo so that the wood bar at the bottom would lead your eye into the painting.  I used my imagination for the background.