This is the latest horse portrait I have completed of a beautiful mare Arlie. Her portrait was commissioned by her trainer. Arlie was educated by the client and she performed at the RDS in 2015 in the 6yo class. I asked Linda about Arlie’s personality before painting her portrait, as I wanted to really capture her in the painting. I knew she was very special to Linda. This is what she said: “Arlie was always bright and happy looking, like in the photo, it was like she didnt know how to be any other way, happiness was the only state of mind she knew and it was contagious to anyone working with her!”
The portrait is 40 x 60 cm in size and I worked with acrylics on stretched canvas. I worked mainly with burnt umber and burnt sienna for the portrait, creating mixes with ultramarine blue and titanium white. The background was meant to create some atmosphere in the painting. I wanted to create a feeling of Arlie’s head almost coming out of the picture, as this is what Linda said about what it meant to sell Arlie: “I will always miss her beautiful head looking over the stable door, with her happy curious expression waiting to see what´s happening next!”
