Pushing the Limits

Alot has happened since yesterday! I had an intermediate photo, but it had some bad glare, so we'll just move ahead to this view.

Here, the color has been filled in.. First I covered the panel with the background color, as close as possible to what was there. Then I began filling in my shapes with the desired colors.

The biggest problem with this panel is the curved shape along the bottom.. it's been hard to work with. Overall, this design is pushing the boundaries of what I can do to maintain the general flow of line and color with the original shapes, but not actually use those shapes as a design in themselves. Got that? If you squint your eyes real tight - no, even tighter than that... and look at the picture, you can still see the basic shapes.. the vertical curved shape with a lighter color on the left, and the more obvious golden colored shape along the bottom. The dark place where these two meet has become two figures, I'll introduce them later. And while there is no actual line to delineate that left vertical shape, the shadows and forms of the horse and jockey clue the eye in to it's existance, and the figure is waving his hat to give just another bit of hint as to where that line is.. so, I think it works overall, and I just have to get real busy to refine it now. This one HAS been a challenge!