Friend and horse

Over new years Elke and I spent a couple of days with some friends down in San Luis Obispo.  They own a beautiful property just north of there in the foothills - it's fabulous.  On their ranch they have some beautiful horses, a donkey, a goat, chickens, and a bunch of very cool very relaxed dogs.  Anyhow we took a great walk in the hills on their property and I took some photos.  I really liked one photo I took of our friend Ted walking one of their new horses.  I particularly like they way they were looking in opposite directions and just the wonderful setting.  Since I've never painted a horse and I don't do many paintings of people this was even more incentive to try to render this scene.  So, I'm in the early stages of this thing and I am basically working in reverse to the way I normally attack a painting.  As you know from seeing paintings develop on this blog I usually paint the background first top to bottom then whatever is in the front.  With this painting the whole purpose is to get Ted's face and the horses head just right.  So I painted those first.  I would hate to work for two weeks on the background then mess up the faces.  So, here you go, I'll update again next week.  Thanks. mg