Stormy and Avery

I started an acrylic portrait a few days ago of two of my favorite characters, our minihorse Stormy and his little fan, Avery. There were 2 reference photos, I liked the horse's position in one, and Avery's face in the other, so the painting is a combination of the two.

This is a 16x20 canvas covered board. I started by covering the white with a lot of orangy color and blocking in the main bits and pieces leaving specks of the underlying colors to show through. Not sure what to do with the background at this point.

Actually , not sure of anything much at this point so doing some details on the face. Avery is so happy and proud of himself when he is riding Stormy and I want that to come through.

I thought the tree background was boring so I broke it up with a bit of sky, altho there really is a solid mass of spruce trees there on a steep hillside. Painting is a lot like carpentry or renovating in that you are constantly solving construction problems one after the other. I guess thats why my attention span doesnt last more than an hour or so...its just hard work! The next problem before getting into finishing details is to make Stormy's belly a lot rounder and put some kind of interest in the pasture grass, but not so much that its distracting. Looks like I'll be a few more days at this.