"A very majestic horse."

That was the brief that I set myself. To be fair, even a small sentence really sets an invaluable direction - not saying I've succeeded at meeting the claimed description, but I'm quite satisfied with the current progress.

This was an exercise I decided to take on after talking with my friend Stef, whom I abuse as a free source of tutorials for pretty much any subject you can think of.

The workflow he suggested was:

- Get a rough outline of your design.
- Put some gradient there; get your values down.
- And finally, get down to details ("It's when the real fun begins!")

And it sort of worked, I think. Although I didn't use any separate layers (ah ha! boasting?), the simplification of the work flow (i.e. just a few steps), and a bit of commitment to each step really makes you think before you start on the next stage.

Tonight's lesson? Don't get ahead of yourself, son! I will continue on this painting as I dared to start with a huge canvas - there is lots of room for more. Perhaps I will print it out and sell it somewhere like... oh.