After two highly detailed projects, this one demands the opposite: paint fast, loose, and bold within a strict time limit. Choose an animal mid-motion — a horse galloping, a bird in flight, a dog running — and paint it with energy and speed. No fine detail allowed. The goal is capturing the feeling of movement, not the facts of anatomy.
Canvas board (9×12"), acrylic paint set, large flat brush, medium round brush, palette or paper plate, water jar, paper towels, photo reference of an animal in motion, a kitchen timer. Set the timer for 45 minutes.
Set a strict 45-minute painting timer. Preparation — choosing reference, mixing paint puddles, laying out tools — happens before the timer. When the timer ends, you stop. No exceptions.
Block in a background color first with a large flat brush. Don't leave it white — a warm gray, muted blue-gray, or earthy brown gives the painting a mood from the very first stroke.
Sketch the animal's silhouette loosely in dark paint using a medium round brush. Get the movement and lean of the body right first — the direction of force before any detail.
Add the dominant body color in broad, fast strokes, following the direction the animal's form is moving. Use your largest brush. Speed genuinely serves this project.
Add only a few essential accents: one lighter highlight on the back, a darker shadow under the belly, the barest suggestion of a head and eye. Stop before you feel ready to stop.
When the timer goes off, step back five feet. Ask: does this painting feel like it's moving? That question matters more than any detail you could add.
If the finished painting feels unfinished and a little uncomfortable, you have probably done it correctly. Knowing when to stop is harder than knowing when to keep going. Resist every instinct to tighten and detail what you've made — the looseness is the point.