Tall In the Saddle

Little Girl, Big Horse - from the warm up ring at the major Saddlebred show.   She moves in and out of the light,  the composure needed to negotiate the big competition very apparent for her young years.   Of course, the horse is gorgeous too.  
Tall In The Saddle, 20x16  oil on linen panel
entered in the American Academy of Equine Art
Fall Exhibit and show

here are the steps :

starting backwards, it seemed like an ok drawing until I realized I didn't have room for the horse head....

so it gets wiped off and I start over., fitting the horse on the surface first

here it looks clumsy.  I wiped the girl off a time or two....

more tweaking, adding and taking away

the background shapes are major eye movers, so I give them some consideration and start estimating the  color.   The variations of brown is one of the features that intrigued me.

  lost track of how many times the neck and head were redone......and back to the first photo to see the leather works ^

Ahhh... the sense of flying when riding a horse like this......