"You must always start with something. Afterwards you can remove all traces of reality. There's no danger then, anyway, because the idea of the object will have left an indelible mark.
It is what started the artist off, excited his ideas, and stirred up his emotions. Ideas and emotions eventually end up as prisoners in his work. Whatever they do, they can't escape from the picture. They form an integral part of it, even when their presence is no longer discernible. Whether he likes it or not, man is the instrument of nature." Picasso.

Finding this quote by Picasso was a revelation to me because it's always very pleasing when someone famous and respected puts into words the very ideas, which you always knew were a universal truth! Having now to explain why I chose Picasso's painting of "Boy leading a Horse" as a starting point for this picture, I can say that the reason is that it is one of those paintings which "speaks to me" - it "grabs me" - there is an underlying harmony between the boy and the horse as they move forward together towards the front of the canvas, united in their classical posture. It is not for the first time I have used this subject. A drawing I made in felt tip pens, of "Horse Laughing," was made with no reference to photographs, but as an image, is about that same harmony between man and beast.

The photographs of Charlie Brown and his owner, Sarah, were scanned into the computer. The starting-point photograph was chosen for its similarity in pose to the Picasso. Having two area of interest - the horse and the figure - I felt it was important to work on them as one unit, so avoiding any separation emotionally between them.

Opening the photograph in "Painter 6" and using the paintbrush tool, the first step was painting the horse's head, which was then applied as a layer in Photoshop to the original photograph. The same method was then applied to start making the background. The canvas size was made vertically larger, the image flattened and elongated, by using "Select" - "Edit"> "Scale. The image was then saved as a jpeg and opened in "Painter 6" where paint was applied to the background and the horse, then back to Photoshop and applied as a layer on to the image.

The figure for the image was selected from another photo, and from yet another photo, the arm, leading the horse. Placing them on top of the image in Photoshop as layers, in blending mode "Hard Light" and flattened. The girl's arm next to the horse was selected, "Transform" > "Perspective" applied and re-scaled to fit. It was at this point that the image was flattened, saved a jpeg and opened in "Painter 6." An extremely frenzied painting session took place and I am not going into any detail! This process is similar to the "real" painting process - getting lost in the process and being completely involved both technically and emotionally. It's always the same the next morning - rushing to the computer to see, in the fresh light of morning, what the result of last night's madness looked like and being relieved that I had saved a copy of the file before the painting but knowing that it could now be safely deleted!

The horse now having newly painted legs, selections were made from my scanned photo-bank of horse's legs and hoofs, and applied as separate layers onto the painting. Blending mode "Soft Light" and "Normal". (Using blending modes enables me to create the illusion of distance and perspective.) I had not anticipated the next process, but having given the horse new legs it was logical that the girl should now have new legs! I then applied "new jeans" from yet another photograph and applied as another layer onto the image - blending in "Normal" mode. The girl's left leg was foreshortened, using re-scale and perspective, to give the illusion of space and a final tidy up in Painter 6 sees the final result.

I like to think that the happy day of photographing Sarah and Charlie Brown, choosing the final photographs for the painting, considerations and emotions about the subject itself - are still there, hidden beneath the layers but still imbuing the final picture with more than just a rendering of Picasso's "Boy Leading a Horse"