406 Horse and rider jumping. Drawing in watercolor and ballpoint pen after photo

I stumbled across this blog about horses and horseriding in Bromont where they ask for artwork of horses! I found this a really good excuse to draw this beautiful animal, and the site owner suggested that i pick an image from the site, and so I did.

I’m neither too happy, nor too concerned about the result of this one. There’s a lot of stuff that I’m happy about and a couple of things I’d like to improve in it. I think the general anatomy turned out good, except maybe for the horse’s head being a bit too small, which gives the impression of the horse being a little over-weight and perhaps not the best jumper. It looks more agile in the photo. I do have a problem with drawing people, especially when they are far away. Most of the person turned out ok, but after getting the face wrong, there’s no going bad with black ink. Furthermore, I’ve never quite got the grip of making quick abstractions of faces.. You know very-little detailed faces, that still look like faces. They tend to muddle up, before i figure out where everything should be! Last thing is the landscape that I would have liked a little more toned down. It takes a lot of attention away from the horse and rider with it’s strong colors. Maybe next time, I’ll work much wetter and just make it a hazy gradient of green red and blues.

I’m not unsatisfied with it! This is just auto critique! I am actually really happy about it – this is just to say that I don’t need any cheering up 😉 I think I’m moving forward!