Box rest fall out

Three weeks or so on box rest seemed to have left Ali and I with a flaky Mr Merlyn last week. I went up for my Monday ride on a lovely sunny morning and was pleased to find him in a nice mood while we groomed, so well behaved apart from snatching one foot back early a couple of times.

Then came tacking up when he took a fit of the grumps with me. The sun vanished, it started raining and things started to look a little less idyllic than ten minutes earlier. It took me fully five minutes to do up his bridle and flash while he threatened to bite, and although he didn't follow through I was as narked as him by the time we were done.

I got on for our little walk up the lane - he hadn't been out a while so we were breaking him in gently - and by now the weather was dry again but very windy. He can get spooky in the wind so I wasn't entirely surprised when he got a bit nappy with me....we had both lost our sunny dispositions, though, there was no fooling yourself by now try as you might. I pushed him on with a feigned sack of potatoes 'I ain't worried by your carry on' seat.

What I didn't bank on was him spooking, bolting and bucking just ten minutes up the road.

We stayed put, it was over fast and I got him back together and made him go on a bit further past the things he was taking issue with - and there were a few - before turning back for home. A horse of his size bucking on a road is no laughing matter, even if they were little ones, I had no desire to see his more forceful versions, but I knew we had to go on further, he couldn't get away with it.

He had mellowed a bit by the time we got back down the road, and I was in half a mind to turn him back and take him out again....sometimes I have to check myself. I love riding and I know it involves pushing past fear at times, but as Mum I also have to weigh up the risks.

Ali took him out he next day and had just about concluded that I must have been a bit wound up when out of the blue he did exactly the same to her. Happens to the best of us, it seems!

So, we are 'on a break'  Merlyn and I, while he works through his little issue in the hands of his much braver owner. I have don't have the bottle to take him out on the roads while he is being quite so daft but  I am sure if she can get him back to his cross country and run off some energy, he will mellow again.

Anyhow, I am not letting up on my riding I have been at Hazelden and having some great fun lessons on Dennis, Monty and Rocky, any of whom I would quite happily keep in a moment...

Horse Riding in all Seasons in Scotland

It has been a bit of a month for me behind the scenes here, and life has thrown me an interesting 'opportunity' and with it everything that seemed part of my normal life has been temporarily sucked up into a vortex of application forms, legals and business admin. None of this has anything to do with horses of course, or art, which is quite my point. It's just not the sort of stuff that I think any of you tune in for, so I went uncharacteristically 'quiet'. Me, the out and out blether I am........not a peep. SShhhhh!So, this is my backfill with photos post....

.....hello Merlyn! My last ride on Merlyn was weeks ago, he has had a cut leg ever since, but we will see each other again tomorrow. Such a sweet face when he is in a nice mood. I only ever take a photo after we ride, he is much less grumpy then....

....and it was, your absolutely typical Scottish miserable driech day.....tell me how are you supposed to find a horse in a field that you can't even see to the other side of?

......we could hardly see 20 feet infront of ourselves, frankly a little bit daft as we had no high vis gear on at all. I have mentioned before he is so black it is like a cloak of invisibilty.....big wet black ears and a mane blowing in the wild wind. And to think Ali called me a fair weather rider....

.....here is the view from Merlyn's stable. Yes, I know, he is a lucky horse to live in bonny Scotland with a view like that. You are thinking "It even looks beautiful in the rain"....look out at it every day and your perception will start to change....

...aaah, now this is more like it, may you all have weather like this when you visit Scotland. Fantastic day.....a three hour hack at Craigengellan in glorious September sunshine the whole way....

 

....three hours is a long time....we go over the hills and far away

 

....gate locked......ah, which way now?

  



....if we could just bottle up the sunshine....is this even on the same planet as my earlier photo?

.....idyllic..... looking out over the water....

....on the road back home, all happy and tired....

 

.....last photo opportunities ...



......and home, big stretch Trio!

What a hack, but guess what, you guys are going to freak.......I never took a photo of the Minature Shetland mare and foal! Ooops. 



Interior Design Diversion

A very left of field post here, rather than drawing any horses, yesterday I switched into Interior Designer mode and sketched ideas for a friends living room instead.

Yes, there really are no bounds to my creativity (!) or the rather there is no end to the things that I will do to avoid the mundane chores or much more important things on the 'to do' list. The world can fall apart around me (believe me this week it has been) but as long as the one in my head looks nice, we can all be fine....agreed?

Evolution of a Horse Painting: Part 2

Merlyn ( in progress painting) a.m.cairns 2011
www.equineartportraits.com

I am at the easel this morning working working on my Merlyn painting, in light of some very high, gusty winds having made their way across the pond to our shores. It is a mostly puffed out version of one of the hurricanes that have been wreaking havoc in North America, but so far the only impact for me is no riding Merlyn today, as I am far too much of a fearty to get on board in wild and wet weather. We will probably have a few trees down later in the day, I would think.

So I am back at the house, listening to music and the howling wind and making good progress. It is coming together quicker than my previous paintings, so either I am getting more confident or is it just much easier when you know the horse well. You can kind of see his expression and very inch that you have groomed and groomed almost without of it without looking too hard at the photo....it frees me up a bit, very relaxing too.

I went along to the Braeface jumping yesterday, but Alison had opted out of taking part on Merlyn. She had around a million other things to do and knew too well that the round of jumping plus the prep and waiting around wipe out most of the day and leave her much too exhausted to tackle pressing non horsey matters.

All the same she and I popped along for a look to watch the some jumping. Super cute ponies (and kids) and extremely confident little riders, some as young as six getting ditched at a jump and bravely getting back on (with a bit of parental coercion, it must be said!). The event was vary laid back and fun rather than the seriously competitive with an audience of just the riders and families mostly. I was surprised to see that 'grown up' jumping started at just forty centimetres or sixteen inches to my American friends. You know that's not very high, I have started to think I would like to give it a go sometime.

I have never jumped a course or take part in any horsey events and I had some serious doubt about my ability to remember a jump course, but Ali assured me its not so hard,  that the jumps are set up so that he next jump is usually the easiest to get to. We walked the kids course so that I could see how it worked - you know I have a lousy memory for names, sequences and the like but my sense of direction and visual memory is not so bad and I think I could cope with eight jumps, maybe a few more.  The next event is in a couple of months so if I can get a in few jumping lessons on him, I might just be up for giving it a go.

Ali says the best thing about jumping Merlyn is he is dead honest.....I think I might call my painting that.

You can see it in his face, I hope.

Evolution of Horse Painting: Merlyn

I am working on a painting of Merlyn, who anyone who follows me will know is a horse I have been lucky enough to be getting to know over the last few months.  Here he is, in acrylic on a big-ish canvass

Working back the way, starting at this evening, this is how he looks.... 

Merlyn, In Progress, copyright a.m.cairns
http://www.equineartportraits.com/


Here he is this morning, when I realised I had overloaded the black and just about vanished his features...


Merlyn, In Progress on the Mantlepiece, copyright a.m.cairns
http://www.equineartportraits.com/

And here he is on Wednesday Morning, when he was feeling a little blue....

Merlyn, In Progress on the Mantelpiece, copyright a.m.cairns
http://www.equineartportraits.com/

You saw him in the wet back on Tuesday, which I'll have vanished! I tend to stick up posts of work in progress and then balk at them a few days later when the it is starting to come together, but I really must stop photographing wet work in bad late night light.

He is jumping tomorrow a local competition, so I am going to try to get along and cheer him on....he is normally a Cross Country eventer so it will be interesting to see how he gets on in a tighter space!

Wipe that stupid grin off your face...

I can't.

You see, we went out on a two hour hack at Craigengellan Estate yesterday.

I think the wind must have changed in the middle of one of the dozen or so canters that we had across fields and through woodland tracks, and that excitement and exhilaration got smacked onto my face so firmly that it it's here for at least the whole week.

The smile will not budge. My friends and I had such stupid grins on our faces on the drive back home, we probably looked like we were a more than a little drunk.

Tearing across fields on the back of a horse is surely up there as one of the most incredible things that you can experience in a lifetime. The fact that you can book in to do it all again whenever you like - or can afford to - is just odd, kind of like buying happiness of sorts. They say money can't do that, but I suspect any horse owner knows that this is not an entirely truthful fact.

I feel incredibly lucky to be comfortably off enough to afford this pleasure, if not a horse....although I will keep on buying the lottery tickets in hope.

Favouritism?

Honest, it really isn't but a while back I asked if anyone would mind me using their horse photos for paintings. By a complete fluke that I have painted another from Red Hot Ruby.


Chestnut Mare. Copyright A Cairns
www.equineartportraits.com



This painting looks nothing at all like I thought it would when I started. Realism is not really my natural style, but the watercolours and I had an argument into the early hours of the morning (watercolours don't really like to be overworked!) and by the time I looked at it again in the morning it was either this route or get the charcoal  or acrylics out and start to really muck about.

So the former route got me something finished, I think, although I am in half a mind as to work in a background, but has also left me a more than a little confused.

If it was hanging on a wall in my house, I'm not sure I would recognise it as my own....very odd.

All part of the journey though. I expect it might well push my next painting further in the opposite direction.

10,000 Hours of Practise

I have just devoured Malcolm Caldwell's 'Outliers: The Story of Success' over a few days this week, a brilliant and insightful read into some of the hidden factors that shape success. I seem to have all but given up on fiction for the moment, but this is the sort of book I pick up and just can't put down .

It seems, based on the research outlined in this book that if you want to be really good at anything - sport, playing the piano, art, riding horses - then over and above some kind of natural ability you need to put in somewhere in the region of 10,000 hours of practise.

That's 20 hours a week for 10 years or so. I started thinking about my equine art, and I think just about squeeze that in - at times I do less, at others maybe I do more, but I am not yet 'consistent'. On that note, this book has given me a good old shunt in the right direction and you should expect a lot more Horse Art to appear on this blog as I work towards more consistent practise, starting with last night and this mornings work.


In Progress Watercolour Painting (copyright A Cairns)
www.equineartportraits.com

If I keep this up, then you can expect to be the first to see some masterpieces (?!) appearing on this blog in around 9 years and 2 months time - good things come to those who wait!

Now what does this mean for our collective quests to be better riders? Well for me, it is not good, some of you who are a little younger or have your own horse may fair better.

Let us assume I have a few hundred hours in the bank, between my childhood riding, young adulthood and  my return to riding a few years ago, say 500 hours all in. So if I keep going at my current rate of 1 lesson a week and a ride on Merlyn, plus maybe a 2 hour hack a month, then it comes to around 150 hours a year. This leads me to conclude that I should be quite good then at riding if I keep it up for another 63 years or so....I'll be a hundred then! Hilarious....start young, that's what I say.

Ah well, time does fly when you are having fun!

Carmargue Horse Painting: Ink and Watercolour



Carmargue Horses (watercolour and ink)
copyright  retained A Cairns 
http://www.equineartportraits.com/

Still no canvasses.....watercolour will be the medium of the week, I think.

Carmargue Horses



Carmargue Horses
copyright retained
http://www.equineartportraits.com/

Warming up for some art this week .....in absence of canvasses we have pen and ink sketch with digital zest.