Pegasus the Winged Horse

So happy to finish this painting today!

The glow in the dark art is super bright at night and it went ok. I'm freaking over the last stage which is the varnish, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Note to me, don't varnish on a day over 30 degrees, it starts setting before I get to cover the whole canvas! I started painting this one about two weeks ago. This is definately not the last Pegasus I'll be painting, but I wanted to paint this one against a blood red Moon alluding to his birth from the blood of the Medusa. Next time I paint a blood red Moon, I'll try with a red/orange glow, the only problem is that red is not a long lasting glow colour. 

Pegasus was a divine, winged horse born from the blood of Medusa when Perseus killed her. Pure white (I know I wanted Palomino colouring in this painting) and incredibly fast, he was untamed until Bellerophon, with Athena’s guidance, captured him using a golden bridle. Pegasus helped Bellerophon defeat the fire-breathing Chimera but later threw him off when he tried to reach Mount Olympus. Free once more, Pegasus was welcomed by Zeus, who gave him the task of carrying thunderbolts. In the end, Zeus placed him among the stars as the Pegasus constellation, where he remains.

From Australia, the Pegasus constellation is visible in spring (September to November) but appears upside-down and lower in the northern sky compared to how it's seen in the Northern Hemisphere.

• Best Time to See Pegasus: Around October, just after sunset.

• Location: Look toward the northern horizon, where it sits above Pisces and Aquarius. From my location in Geographe bay in Western Australia it will be directly over the sea. 

• Key Feature: The Great Square of Pegasus—four bright stars forming a large, nearly perfect square—is the easiest way to find it.

Since it’s a Northern Hemisphere constellation, it never rises very high in the sky from most of Australia, but in northern parts (e.g., Darwin, Cairns), it appears clearer than in the south.

...and lastly just for fun, this is how I painted Pegasus over 10 years ago for Stella Murals. It seems so simple now, it makes me slightly cringe, but at the time I was loving this, there was no glow art online way back then, it was so wild to be the first artist to paint a lot of these subjects in glowing light for the first time!

A few years later in 2018 I started painting Pegasus as a star constellation without the silhouette flying horse. In the following constellation the lines fade out after about 10 minutes leaving just the stars and nebula glowing. Both these murals sold to customers in the US. I sometimes wonder whether they are still on bedroom walls because I've been contacted by other customers who still have my art from way back then.

and post script, I know Pegasus does not have the horn of a unicorn, it's not very scientifically accurate (lol) but I've been asked many times to paint him that way and this painting was made under my own artistic license. Feel free to request a white Pegasus artwork without horn, this won't be the last time I paint him.