Start to finish with Lesli Kathman, part three

Here's the third installment of Lesli Kathman's "Start to Finish" series. Thank you so much, Lesli, for sharing your process with us!

Start to Finish

by Lesli Kathman

Day 7 - First layer of oils!

First, I cannot be trusted not to get oils EVERYWHERE. I am not sure how I managed to work in ceramics (where ever touching the pigment on the horse is bad) and not know how not to transfer the paint... but here I am. I went to all that trouble to mask of the white, so this is all about keeping my white areas white. 

1 - New set of saranwrap boots! He'll keep these on for a while. Even if I wasn't worried about black paint, the oils from my hands constantly holding his legs would damage it. I am also going to work on the back half of the horse and wrap the front. Like I said, I cannot be trusted. 

2 - The whole forehand is wrapped in plastic. I have reapplied the liquid masking fluid over the white areas of the hindquarters. Once the masking has dried, I place small pieces of plastic over the masking. The mask "glues" the plastic in place, and the plastic protects the mask from lifting as I handle the piece. 

3 - I have begun adding the first layer of oil paint, starting the at the tail and working my way forward. I'm being careful to paint within the outline of my brown basecoat, but once I buff the paint with the mop brush, I'm going to get a little overshoot. That's what the second mask application is for. 

4 - See, this is why I cannot be trusted. This picture was taken after the whole horse was painted, but it was there from step 3.

5 -  Here I have painted the left side patch, but as the excess on the mask shows, I got too much paint on this area. When I went to buff, I got more on the mask than was ideal. 

6 - Here is the right side. I found if I started with a small brush around the edges and scrubbed the paint inward, it stayed cleaner for the buffing stage. 

This is how he looks with the hindquarter masking removed. Notice the right side (done more carefully) is cleaner than the left, but it's still going to be very little work to finish out the pattern.

Once the hindquarters are dry to the touch, I'll repeat these same steps for the forehand.

Day 16 - Here is my guy, masked again, ready for me to add the interference colors. If you are in Heather's oil class, that means I am just now doing Week 2 work the day after our Week 3 class.

I thought this might be a good time to encourage everyone who is looking at things just past the half-way point and thinking, "I am not going to finish in time!" I am not sure I will. I like the way my guy is coming together, so I have been more than a little cautious with drying times. I also made a choice about how I want to approach his mane that will be more time-consuming. I decided to risk missing the deadline in favor of doing something I really wanted to do - and getting my horse just the way I want.

You'll see a lot of "don't give up" posts. I agree with that 100%. I also want to say that while the idea is to paint a horse, start to finish, in one month, what I needed more than anything was to participate and enjoy the process. I figure if this guy is finished in the first week of March, rather than the last day of February, I am giving myself credit for not quitting.

So if you're not sure you are going to make it at this point, or if you know you are not, please keep going. Some of us will still be here on March 1 (with completed horses or not) to cheer you on.

To be continued (or not)...