The Horses

You know that once a painting has found its name that it has begun its journey to greatness.

Allure, acrylic on canvas (detail)

After doing some work on Beauty I put this piece on my easel. I whited out major problems. Then I picked up a brush loaded with turquoise paint, took a deep breath, and went to town.

That's when it found its name. "Allure." I wanted the mysterious illusion of what might be a horse dancing within waves of colour to have allure. Once that thought ran through my mind, I knew that was it.

And just like that, now the painting had meaning. It began to take on its sense of allure. The turquoise caused a drastic well needed change in direction. I love it. The image above is a detail of the painting, taken from my Instagram, the white balance is off. Will obviously put up a better image once progress continues.

Working on this painting inspired me to continue on the horse fix. I was working out the positioning of the head and neck in my sketchbook, and after I finished my work on the painting for the day I felt the urge to go back to a drawing I had started in 2011 of our horse, Joy. I did the majority of the drawing until I became frustrated drawing the meticulous details of the halter, bridle, etc. that she had on so I left it. So on this day I decided to finish the line drawing. Here she is.

Joy, graphite and conte on paper

I decided to leave the colour for another day. As much as I love the aspect of colour in my paintings, I'm really not a fan of using it at all in my drawings. I am not sure if i will fill this in using conte-- Joy is a bay, meaning she has brown fur and black mane-- or what..

The horses didn't stop there, either. I wasn't finished yet. I hopped onto Deviantart for inspiration, and did some quick maybe 20-30 minute drawings from photographs that I found were dynamic.

White Beauty drawing graphite on paper

I found that my fascination with drawing the musculature of humans transferred well over into horses, who are such finely built animals. I focused on movement and proportion, as well as highlighting parts some don't often draw in simple line drawings. I am extremely happy with how fluid and lifelike the drawings came out, truly like a moment frozen in time.

Golden Horse drawing graphite on paper

 *Original photographs of the horses that I based the drawings off of taken by http://mari-mi.deviantart.com/