Running Free

 

Oil.  Title, Running Free. 24x30. This a a painting from a photo I took while on a business trip to Colorado, combined with a photo of one of my neighbors horses except changing the lighting and the horse's color.  In the distance is Boulder, CO.  This was an incredibly beautiful area, wide open grasslands with deep rolling hills.  I actually like a couple photos progressively to the left of this one better, but this one allowed me better to integrate a horse. One feature that worked very well in the photo, a tree at the right nearly to the top of the frame, did not work inthe painting. It blocked the horse in, and shortening the tree to more like a bushed helped. Still,the title is somewhat ironic because of the presence of the fence, but I like to think it keeps us on our roads rather than the horse in.     

 Need to work on a better photo of the painting. Corners and top edge are dark.