Cowboy Scene Commissioned Painting

Here is a slightly different piece, for me, a commissioned horse and rider portrait that grew into a western scene kind of image.  The reference supplied featured horse and trainer, along with a couple other riders, working some steers at a training facility down in Florida.  I loved the scene but felt the background could be approved upon and we decided to swap it for a scene more typical of a west of the great divide landscape, for the background.
Back in my days as an illustrator, it was commonplace to combine a variety of sources to create a single image, and so this piece was a bit like old times.
Commissions are sort of a cross between my earlier career as a commercial artist, and my current, creating fine art paintings.  I enjoy both and find the similarities far out way the differences between the two.  
I look forward to taking on more interesting and challenging commissions in the future; whether they focused on a person, animal, home or particular landscape, or even all of the above!

Working the Cattle