Selma's Appaloosa (final)

A couple years ago my wife and I took a trip to Utah, to visit family. During this time I was introduced to her grandmother on her father's side. The elderly woman is named Selma. Selma suffers from Alzheimer's and spends her days in a hospital. Worst of all is that almost none of her family ever visits her. She's in the hospital, alone, day in and day out.

When Jamie was talking to her she described how I am an artist and I promised Selma I would paint her something. Then we got home and I started doing research; asking Jamie what types of things Selma liked. I learned that Selma had a pair of Miniature Schnauzer's, a gray one and a black one. I also learned that she had a special place in her heart for Spotted Appaloosa horses.

This painting is the result of that. Below I will describe the process.

This is the rough sketch. Here all I tried to do is figure out the perspective and angle of the horizon line. I opted for a canted angle to heighten the dynamic.

I brought in 3 photos, one for the distant background, another for the tree in the midground, and a third for the grass in the foreground. Here I also introduced the second dog sketch.

I blocked in some basic value for the black Miniature Schnauzer, using photo references to understand the pattern and coloring of the coat.

Here I blocked in the value for the gray dog.

Using the smudge tool in Corel Painter, I softened the pattern on the Appaloosa and painted in more contrast of value on the horse.

What happened to the horse? I wasn't happy with the composition so I extracted the horse into a new layer and painted it out of the background.

I did the same for the gray Mini Schnauzer.

Here I bring the missing elements back and establishing a more triangular composition.

At this point I drastically changed the gesture of the Appaloosa. I also started painting in color in Photoshop, using the Color blending mode. I then created a new layer above the others and started painting in the lighting.

FINISHED. By this point I had done considerable work on the whole piece. I completely reworked the tree in the background. Painting in leaves using 2 different scattering leaf brushes with 3 different hues. After the leaves were in place I painted segments of branches that weren't obscured by the leaves and finally added sections where the sky would be visible. I also added a cast shadow under the tree. In the foreground I added a lot of flower photo textures. I think it adds a lot to the entire piece. Finally I spent some time dialing in the lighting, making sure to pay close attention to bounced light.