Love is in the air

If you live in Glasgow and are looking to get hitched there is something funny going on at Hazelden Equitation Centre! Love is in the air, as there have been 3 engagements over the last few months.  It was a beaming Sheena's turn this week, who rides with us on a Thursday night. Well, if the smell of horse doesn't put your man off, then I say he is most definitely a keeper....

Art for remembering footfall in Canter

copyright http://www.equineartportraits.com/

This is for my friend Jane. She says she can't remember the footfalls, so this is the first of three for canter, this would be going clockwise around the school....hope it helps

Drawing under the influence

I have always been quite malleable coming easily under the influence of other people  and things that I see or feel on a  day to day basis....it seems this has not changed.

Despite the fact that my intention was to work a portrait of a Clydesdale this week in a more realistic style,  instead I have found myself coming into the creative gravitational field of my creative friend Abi, as embarks on a new printmaking project

And so my creative tangent looks like this right now.





copyright EquineArtPortraits

 
Not sure where it is leading, but I have been going with the urge to work in pen and ink with just a colour wash. I am going to play around with this for a few days and I may yet get around to booking that induction at the print studio...

Drawing Plastic Ponies.

Over the years I have been looking to draw more in everyday life and found the question I often faced was 'what on earth will I draw today?

It has taken me a long time for me to reach the very obvious opportunity to merge my love of horses and art into one activity, and I can't honestly say that I got there on my own. I have a very good friend who is wise council to me. She has a few years of sound life based know-how (as only age can bring) a great passion for bringing out the best in people and as a few life coaching NLP tricks up her sleeve to throw into the mix. She is a wonderful  - and sometimes challenging - companion.

As I pondered what I should be doing to scratch my creative itch, she asked of me "What did you love to do as a child?"
 

Image by Black Country Museums on Flickr,  licenced under
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic

I didn't say at the time, but I had such a clear picture of me at the age of seven sitting at a big old brass table with my Sindy horse and a sketch pad, drawing it over and over again, trying to catch the lines and shadows of this plastic model of the animal that I loved. I distinctly recall that the legs were a challenge!

It is crazy how easy it is to miss what is under your nose.....despite the clarity of this memory in my head, it still didn't occur to me until a year later that this is what I should be drawing.

I would love to say I had some of my childhood sketches today, but our home valued clean and tidy ahead of clutter (parents of the now, take note), and with an entrepreneurial streak from a young age I sold Sindy  with her Horse, Horsebox, Tack and all in my teenage years.

Anyhow, I found this on Flickr ....what can I say, they don't make them like they used to!