Olive standard

Yesterday, I shared a checklist of NaMoPaiMo tasks to work on while we waited for registration to open. 

Although I have completed the most important and time consuming tasks on this list - choosing, acquiring, customizing, prepping and priming - there are still a few things I need to do before painting starts in February. This includes gathering reference photos.

This year for NaMoPaiMo I will be painting a Stone Horses Pimento resin as a portrait of my much loved and dearly missed mustang mare, Olive.

I have so many pictures of pictures of Olive.

Literally thousands.

Every part of her,

the nuances of her color...

and the details of her markings...

I have it all.

Well, almost.

The one thing I do not have - the one thing no one has - is a picture of Olive as a baby.

Olive was born in Wyoming's Divide Basin. It's a remote, rugged part of the world and not a place frequented by photographers. As far as I can tell, no pictures exist from Olive's time in the wild.

So what did she look like as a baby? 

I can't know for sure, but I can make an educated guess.

This is Kenlyn Gold Standard, who was born at my barn in 2015.

Here he is again at about seven months.

That's a pretty good match for Olive's color.

This works perfectly because I have a lot of pictures of Gold Standard,

And now they're all gathered together in one folder.

Another item checked off the list!

NaMoPaiMo is just a little over ten days away. How is your prep going?