Long Overdue Update

My first ever completed pastel paint-job :o)

(with a little help from a friend)

This is the TIBBP Mare and Foal Medallion; ever since our beautiful Nellie lost her battle against sand-colic, I've been wanting to do a portrait of her and Lil' Angel (the foal she was carrying) as a gift for my good friend Beccy. Beccy moved heaven and earth to make sure Nellie found a home when The Animali Farm was asked to find funding and homes for over 90 pregnant ex-PMU draft mares.

I won't pretend this is amazing finishwork, it's not (apart from the eyes - I asked an up-and-coming finishwork artist Emily Prouse to paint those and she did a most excellent job). But it was the best I could do, and I did my very best in the same way that Beccy did her very best for Nellie. We can only do as much as we are limited to, but even if it's a little short of the miracle we were aiming for, it's worth trying.

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I slightly CM'd the model first by removing the raised ring fromthe round background part. Then I "painted" Nellie and Lil' Angel using soft pastels, ground up and painted on in layers using a matte sealer in-between coats. I painted the white markings with a water-based pigment paint ("process white") and added pinking to Nellie's nose with pastels. I wasn't sure how to deal with the base but I liked how it looked after I'd pastelled the grassy part so kept it an olive green. The round background part was painted with layers of a mix of white acrylic and a very subtle purple mica-type powder (see previous post), the flower was pastelled pink and then painted with a (different) metallic purple powder, and finally I gave the whole model a subtle sheen with several coats of the pearly powder, as Nellie and Lil' Angel aren't on boring old Earth any more. The sheen doesn't show up on any photos, but this model isn't for photographing, it's for reminding a wonderful woman about a wonderful horse.