Billy Runs–Spooky Horse!

First pass at capturing my full-tilt Thoroughbred

There’s certainly some action going on here, and that background looks kinda spooky! I think I’ll keep it a bit longer until the horse portion of the painting is more developed, then see if I want to do anything about changing the feel of it. Right now I’m just glad I was successful at removing that darn halter that seemed to be flying all over Billy’s face. It casts its own shadows, and sometimes it can be difficult to tell which is a normal shadow of the animal’s own form, and which is being cast by “accessories”. If I had known when I shot this picture that someday I might be painting it, I would have removed the halter then and saved myself quite a few minutes of indecision with the paint brush. Or to look at it another way, this just gave me the opportunity to practice one more skill in my artistic toolbox.