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Dance of the Midnight Sun

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:trophy: We placed 1st guys! So happy!!! :squee: :trophy:

:new: Well, I decided today to try taking another photo which worked a bit better, seems daylight shooting is the way to go! xD Views better now but please still zoom in and you can see the paper texture and my pencil lines which reveal things like buckles :D

Well, here I am, 2 hours before the deadline trying to submit me entry which was completed about half an hour ago. I'm currently on holiday and using dad's macbook to submit this and I used mum's camera to take the photo, and her camera was like determined that it was going to flash or make it look shiny. :saddummy: I will get a better photo for you all on the 19th July though when I get home! I hope you can appreciate the month's worth of work that went into creating this though from the crappy photo. 

This was actually my first real endeavour with coloured pencils too. I got my set of 120 polychromos and they're amazing! It was a challenge to complete this picture but a complete and utter labour of love as I love my little Rain <3


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Materials: Faber-Castell Polychromos and zest-it blending medium on dealer downey aquarelle hot pressed watercolour paper
Size: A3
Timescale: A month pretty much. Hours upon hours of love and care went into this, estimating about 15 to make the reference, then about 60 hours on colouring, whether that was testing colours or actually putting pencil to paper
Reference: Reference (All there references used to make the reference are linked in the description there on sta.sh)

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The potentially boring journey to Sweden was made a lot more bearable with the company of Turta and Tom from Akmuo stables and of course Skye. They decided to also take Kit along for the ride to give her the experience of flying to shows and their plan was to ride her out and pretend that she was showing too as she would soon be expected to be in the show ring for real as she was coming on in leaps and bounds. They had big hopes for Kit so wanted to give her every opportunity they could.

Rain was so used to all this travelling now and she pretty much slept through it all, trying to ignore Kit and her immature behaviour, nipping and pawing at Rain. She was pretty happy to get off in Sweden to stretch her legs.

Elly, Skye, Tom and Turta met up with The Falken stud gang upon arrival and had a good chat about all things irrelevant before getting the horses off the lorry and stabled for the night. Their routine pretty much fell like clockwork they did it so often, horses first, un-rugging and de-booting before taking everything else out, turning the horses out to pasture, getting sorted them selves, then bring the horses in for the night and giving them their dinner. It was a pretty unexciting regime but one that was essential. 

The next day was competition day and Rain was a bit more awake. This was a very special competition for Elly as it was the anniversary of her mother's death, ten years ago, when she was given Rain as a two year old to work with. The death was not unexpected, but slow and painful which made it more emotional for Elly, knowing what pain and suffering her mother had gone through trying to prolong her life with chemotherapy for her, because she wanted to spend more time with her daughter. 

Elly had a father, but one who couldn't cope with the stresses of her mother's illness. Only a few months after she was diagnosed, the day before her operation, he broke it off with her, and the divorce papers ensued weeks later. After that he seemed to drop off the face of the planet. He moved, changed his mobile number and seemed to stay far away from the internet. 

Elly sighed, reflecting on the matter while bridling up Rain. She really wanted to show her mother how far they'd come over the years, and hoped her mother would be watching them on this beautiful night. Rain then followed her to the warmup arena where she got on with the help of Skye, and wondered around. She was soon getting in the way of people while she flooded around and others were practicing their half passes and passages so they took to the trails to watch the summer solstice. What seemed like only a few minutes later, she turned back and headed for home. It was only fifteen minutes before her performance, which was only enough time for a basic warm up so she was glad that Rain was being responsive.

They worked in with ease, just like they did most days, before the announcer called their name.

"Next up is Falling Raindrops ridden by Eleanor Baird!" The announcer exclaimed over the tannoy, basically deafening the whole warm up ring and spooking some of the horses. 

"Good luck out there!" Turta exclaimed, and Elly looked over to see Tom, Turta and Skye all cheering for her.

"Thanks guys," she replied, her voice bearably audible. She nodded her head and picked up her reins. "Come on Rain, let's do this for mum."


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Art (c) OakBrookeStables 
Characters (c) OakBrookeStables 
Image size
4896x3672px 13.28 MB
Make
SONY
Model
DSC-WX200
Shutter Speed
1/200 second
Aperture
F/3.3
Focal Length
4 mm
ISO Speed
100
Date Taken
Jul 11, 2015, 6:50:36 PM
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Comments25
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MistyofSunrise's avatar
This is simply stunning!!
And always great to see traditional work get the recognition it deserves. :D