Here's the pencil version for Reins of Life
I’ve been working and reworking this drawing for a few days now. I don’t think I’ve done anything quite this intricate in several years, mainly because I tend to choose subject matter that is simpler. However, in this case the subject matter was chosen for me, and it included a whole lot of autumn leaves, each of which had to be rendered in a somewhat realistic fashion. Even the clover I did for the “Rolling in Clover” portrait earlier this year wasn’t as complicated. Mainly because I knew I could cheat…
I’ve done tons of autumn leaves in one of my landscape series, “New England/Berkshires”. The style of the leaves in the series is actually similar to what I’m going to be doing here, but the big difference in designing the New England paintings was that it didn’t really matter where exactly the leaves ended up in the painting. Here, I have to make sure I frame the horse and pony in a pleasing composition while still getting each of those shapes right and in its correct spot. I don’t know if all my erasing shows up in the photo, but I’m betting a big bag of pencils that Leonardo or Michelangelo never ever had to make so many corrections!
If you’re interested in taking a peek at the New England series, you can find it here: http://www.allifarkas.com/6373/6394.html?cc=0.46748351148711675&sort=byuploaddate&limit=9&offset=9
It starts after the water lilies…
Alli Farkas Artist Adventures 
Looks like a great start to a very touching painting! The leaves will be the perfect frame for these two friends.
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Yep, and I’m tackling those pesky leaves pronto–after I wrote this post, I put a layer of color on the leaves because it was driving me nuts not being able to see where the sky was going to be poking through them.
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