I loved the photo that I have capturing the image of this father daughter duo. It appears that the father is giving his daughter some finer points in herding or cutting cattle from the herd. Elise is about 3 in this painting, and had already accumulated a year’s worth of riding - starting at the ripe old age of 2. Through the years, there has been absolutely nothing Elise wouldn’t tackle if it involved horses and cattle. By the time she was 5, she could already castrate bull calves, rope calves, and assist her father and other cowboys in whatever task they gave her to do. I do love doing this painting because it is so alive.
I wonder what is going to happen next. So far, I have brought the color of the horses up to a point where I can eventually highlight them. I need to paint the tails, refine the horses legs, feather them on the fetlocks (ankles), paint the dad’s shirt (plaid), put in a few sketches of cattle to the right of the white horse, decide on what kind of sky I want, and of course the shadow of the two horses. I’m looking forward to completing this painting, hopefully next week.