My Lovely Lady Memorial Project

Quite a while back, I talked about my crazy psycho redhead horse that eventually had to be put down. If you missed it, and have no idea what I'm talking about now - here's a link for ya. Just be sure you have time to read all 5 parts - or stop at 4 and forget number 5 ever happened. That's fine too. Bring a tissue if you're into horse operas. http://qtswede.blogspot.com/2009/08/lady-part-one.html

Anyhow, the truth is - I finished my rough sketch quite a while ago. Check out the date in the corner of the last photo, near her neck.
Yeah. It's been a little while.
I thought I should share these here, and mention that I have yet to decide if this should be watercolor or oil paint, or if I should transfer this contour/line drawing to a nicer sheet of paper and just finish it out as a drawing. If you have an opinion, chuck it at me! I am kind of stuck!

I made her eye a little softer than it was in real life. I like to imagine she's not stressed out in the hereafter/heaven/whatever you believe in.

I focused on that dang crooked blaze for all of about 15 minutes. I can't express it's weirdness in a line drawing anymore than I have. You can't tell, but the inside of that nostril is black.

I kind of left the mane out at this point, short of it's general shape - mostly because, well.... she wasn't chestnut as I was taught. Chestnut is kind of the same color mane, body & tail, and she had just about every color in the horsey rainbow in her mane & tail. That, I was told, was Sorrel. Sorrel is kind of hard to paint/draw because you want to find the definition between the different colors - but you can't, because they aren't clumped up. It's kind of irritating when you're in that super-focused-need-to-get-it-just-right mode.

Overall, I think I have a solid start, but do I go with the laid back near translucent glow that comes from watercolors, or the deep, radiating warmth that only oil paints can exude?

Or should I scrap the idea of either in favor of a black & while highly intensive contour/line drawing shaded from here to Tecumseh? I feel the need for color. Ugh. This stinks.