A BROKEN ROPE by CHARLES M RUSSELL

For this piece, I decided on this western art painting "A Broken Rope" by Charles Russell. The loose brushwork brings a certain grittiness to his paintings and I wanted to try to capture this in the project.



Over the years of modelling, I have amassed a huge collection of discarded parts from failed or abandoned projects. As I am really using these pieces as armatures to speed up my sculpting and conversions, I don’t require pristine parts.

There are three cowboys with their mounts and a steer. I selected some leftover spares and started to knock up the poses. Horses were made from Historex parts and I had a spare resin cattle which is being converted. The cattle was interlocked with the thrown horse to get the desired pose. I then later added a piece of wire to glue the two beasts together for easier manipulation as I worked on the details.

The animals were bulked out and sculpted. As I work along, I change all the proportions to fit the painting, taking into account forced perspectives. The selection of photos shows some of this WIP. 

More details such as horns, teats and a tail were added to the cow. The hoof was made cloven.
Manes, saddles and ears were gradually added to the horses. On the second cowboy, I added a pistol (Airfix 8th Army) and worked more on the saddle pommel. 

Since most of the major sculpting has been done, I've mounted the figures on wires stuck to cork for ease of handling and also to spray an undercoat.

More details have been added. Some of these are guesstimates as the painting is vague in some areas. I used a few cowboy book references on western saddles to navigate these details.

I sprayed the pieces with matt undercoat. Markings are made to the areas which need more work. 

After yet more reworks and resculpts, I've done a second overspray. I think that most of the elements are ready to be painted now. I corrected any mistakes and added details as I progressed, including the horse bits and any fine and fragile details. 

Painting the pieces with oils, trying to follow the exact painting. 



I also added hair to the horses with white glue. 



The landscape was gradually developed with some basic shapes. It was gradually refined with the figures glued in place. I glued the 2nd and 3rd cowboy figures/horse into position on the base with epoxy resin. This is because I have to putty over their base stands. I added the base stands so that these can give more support to the horse stances. The second horse has had a slight sheen added to its coat as per the painting. 

For the actual shadow-box, I re-used a previous large shadow box for this piece. It has already been fitted out with a ballast and 8” fluorescent light tube. I've test-fitted the base into the box against the painted backdrop, with and without lights.


I glued the backdrop to the base as I intend to model the setting seamlessly. 



I placed the setting inside the shadow box and proceeded to customise it within the box. I removed the flourescent tube to gain proper access.

It is very messy, consisting of using contact cement to glue various cardboard pieces in place. 



I checked the view within the frame and could see unfinished edges. So I added more cardboard to the scene and trimmed the base to bring the whole scene right up to the frame.

I've started to paint the background with an undercoat of acrylics. Also using the colours to achieve a forced perspective transition from the foreground to the background. I also checked the scene within the frame. 

I started to paint the background in oils, using a limited palette to achieve some harmonious colour effect.
Starting to look decent, I think, but still I've got to be careful to add and subtract here and there. 



After a lot of jiggling, pasting bits of rock and cut grass and sprinkling foliage to this, I inserted the flourescent tube and adjusted the background to fit it. 

Now painted up most of the groundwork and foliage. I sanded the sky to get a smoother finish and have attached cowboy 1 with the cow in place. In this painting, I am using a loose impasto style, scumbling the semi dry paint (dry brushing) all over. I am trying to achieve a gritty look. I used a large flat bristle brush. When this is dry, I will add more details such as the reins and ropes and will switch to smaller brushes. 

I've finished this piece. Added in bits, reins and ropes. Some touchups here and there and I also added dust thrown up by the dramatic action.

The daylight photos show the final piece,

1 without light
2 with light where the camera compensates for the light by darkening the scene
3 with the frame in-place and hence the whole scene is brighter
4 mounted on the wall with the glass cover in place without light
5 mounted on the wall with the glass cover in place with light

I hope you all like it. I certainly enjoyed building this piece and am very delighted with the end result.