Development of a Painting: Heracles and the Mares of Diomedes

Detail of Heracles and the Mares of Diomedes

I have been working on a new painting: Heracles and the Mares of Diomedes.  It is another in a series of paintings based on the twelve labors of Heracles (Hercules) and I’ve already written about two labors I’ve painted already, Heracles and the Nemean Lion and Heracles and the Boar of Erymanthos.  The Mares of Diomedes were four man eating mares. Heracles had to steal them for King Eurystheus, to whom he had to perform the twelve tasks for.  The Mares belonged to the giant Diomedes, king of Thrace, and they feasted on men’s flesh.  In order to round up the mares,  Heracles killed their master, fed them to the mares, and in their calmed state Heracles could manage to bring them to Eurystheus.

To begin, I did a number of sketches of horses.  The book ANIMALS: 1419 Copyright-Free Illustrations of Mammals, Birds, Fish Insects, etc. A Pictorial Archive from Nineteenth-Century Sources by Jim Harter has been very helpful as it has many well rendered, expressive illustrations of animals.

Book of Animal Illustrations by Jim Harter

Here are some of the sketches I did:

Studies of Horses

I then got the idea of seeing Heracles as a some kind of cowboy, wrangling up the mares as if he was in a rodeo.  I turned to Youtube.com which is a huge resource for finding just about any kind of visual, and found some videos of bucking horses and bronco riding.  From these videos I did some more sketches:

More sketches of horses from rodeo videos

I was now ready to start the painting and I first started with the mares.  When I initially started the painting, I read an account where there were only three mares.  At first, I laid out the painting with just three mares.

Early stage of painting with no Heracles figure

Having laid out the compostion with the three horses I know had to establish where Heracles would be.  I had originally planned that Heracles would be riding one of the horses, almost as if he was riding them like a cowboy.  However, I found that I didn’t know exactly where to place the Heracles figure.  I decided to try different versions so I went to Photoshop and played with moving Heracles around in the painting:

Heracles figure riding the mare to right

Heracles chasing after the mares

Heracles trying to lift the mare to the right

Heracles in the foreground, wearing the pelt of the Nemean Lion

Even though it was a bit of a departure from the idea of Heracles riding the mares like a cowboy, I liked the last image the best as it conveyed a crouching Heracles as part man, part animal (as he is wearing the pelt of the Nemean Lion who he slayed in his first labor), ready to strike at the oncoming mares.  I decided to go with that image.

I wanted to keep the initial looseness of the painting so I didn’t add too much to the horses.  I also wanted Heracles to be brighter and have more contrast tonally.  Here is the result:

Heracles figure now painted in

Is was at this point where I realized that the myth of the Mares of Diomedes consisted of four mares and not three.  I was a little set back by this realisation because I thought it might affect the overall composition.  However after playing around with some different ways to place the fourth mare I realized I could place the last mare in where it would coodinate with the overall painting well.

Here is the final piece:

Heracles and the Mares of Diomedes, oil on canvas, 2009

Detail of Heracles and the Mares of Diomedes

Detail of Heracles and the Mares of Diomedes