Pop-up Horse Art on Elie Beach

Galloping Horse Art on Elie Beach - Grab the mane and go

I am a beach lover, have been from an early age. I spent a couple of years living by one as a child, which co-incided with my introduction to horses, and have always held a very special place for both since. Whenever I catch my pony I would like to think it will live beside the sea, beside the imaginary ones of my childhood.

Lovely Elie - if you have your wetsuits...brrr!

In the last few years I have become an Elie beach regular. Its a 2 hour drive from Glasgow to the east coast and the East Neuk of Fife, near St Andrews. Provided you can handle the fact that the sea is pretty much Baltic all year round and the weather is hit and miss - as anywhere in Scotland - then  you can have some lovely holidays in this area.

Elie - even when the weather is not so good, still looks amazing

The beaches are a treat and it does rain a little less than the West Coast. The whole place is full of colour in summer, rich flaxen fields with wild red poppies and a sky that is somehow bigger than the one I know at home. across the sea and rolling fields and all of a sudden you feel you can see the curve of the earth.  It is like viewing the world through a fish eye lens.

I went out on a a hack yesterday at nearby Kilconquhar, but it had been raining lately and the fields and trails very boggy. We only managed a short and very pedestrian canter, so I took to the sand this morning  to let out a little of what I felt I was missing out on



Little arty helpers gathering seaweed

My kids and nephew who searched the best rock pools for seaweed that looked like squid ink spaghetti and my galloping mare was off.

Galloping Mare on Elie Beach
Our finished (if a little temporary) artwork

There for my enjoyment and that of any passers by before the tide washed her away in the afternoon.

Some people don't like beaches unless they are sunny and warm....I think they have forgotten how to enjoy a beach.

Like watching masking fluid dry

I am indulging in a short post, pictures and minimal accopmanying wordage, while I wait for the masking fluid to dry on my painting....

I have don't have an abundance of patience for such things, so find it best to send myself away, far away, while its dries, in case I start work again while it is still tacky. I am working towards finishing a mare and foal painting this week and this one is going to be the finished piece. I paint now a little bit more slowly, a little bit more carefully than usual.

So the masking fluid drying time post is Merlyn, form our Monday catch up.

After riding, Merlyn kidding on he is tired, when the truth is my fitness failed before his.

I booked the riding school for an hour on Monday and found out exactly how unfit I am right now , I managed just short of the hour, but was reaching the point of severe deterioration in riding technique.



Riding Merlyn, finally brave enough to take the phone out of my pocket!

I literally panted my whole way back up the lane at the end of hour...


Handsome horse with hay in his hair....



On the way home I downed two cans of our national diet Irn Bru to recover and decided I am going to have to take up running to get fitter for riding.

Masking fluid is definitely dry.

Back to the art now.

Horse sketched on a lunchbreak, and inspiration at Trongate 103

A horse sketch, copyright http://www.equineatrportraits.com/

I had a little wander on yesterday morning to Trongate 103, which is a collaborative arts venue in Glasgow which houses gallery space, artists studios and the Glasgow Print Studio for a little creative distraction from life in general,which quite frankly had been more than a little confusing that morning.

While there stumbled across some things that caught my eye. They are a very random lot, some horse related and others, I don't know, just things that caught my eye which I like track of somewhere as I know they are somehow important, but don't yet know why, if that makes any sense at all.

The first item was a sketch in the Project Ability gallery, which is a visual arts organisation based at Trongate 103 which enables and encourages those with disabilites to use artistic expression and practice to achieve their creative potential. I don't know anything about the artist, other than they were clearly prolific as there was a great big folder of their loose, fluid line art for sale in the shop which raises funds to support the work they do. It was a portrait 2 horses titled 'Mother and Son' and apart from the sketch itself, I warmed to the simplicity of the title.

Mother & Son, H.W.B Davis A.B
on show in the Project Ability shop at Trongate 103
http://www.project-ability.co.uk/

On my mind while there was the fact that I think I would like to work with the people in this organisation, I like what it is about. A few years ago considered postgraduate study in Art Therapy although I wasn't sure if it might get a little too deep, I suspected that undergoing therapy yourself might be a prerequisite and I wasn't at all sure that what I wanted to do. Added to this the only institution I found in Scotland where you could do the course was in Edinburgh which with a young family living in Glasgow is more than a bit of an inconvenience, and so I parked it for the time being. It is still in me somewhere, as one of those 'what if' questions.....I might enquire with this group about volunteering to see if I can answer it. 

I had a look in the Glasgow Print Studio Gallery, where some canvases by caught my eye, a lot of intensity and depth to them, organic and quite breathtaking, artist Sam Ainsley.

Then to the Print Studio shop where I leafed through the work, pausing over a few, but today it was Rachel Duckhouse, whose work you can see here, but somehow the website images don't do these visual feasts any justice, but you light like them anyhow.

After all that browsing I returned to my desk with a 20 minutes to spare and so sketched a horse  on some tracing paper before returning to a more to returning just a little altered, to the day in hand.

Working on a New Horse Painting

As I mentioned I am all fired up having received the Society or Equestrian Artists January newsletter....I have am enjoying a little creative limbering up on a horse painting which I will be working up this month. 



Sketch Painting, Ice, Hazelden
copyright A.Cairns



I am drawn to the red for the background, not quite sure why, but its good to trust your instinct!

Catching Ponies

Since I can first recall at the age of seven I have had a love of two things; drawing and horses. I will come back to the drawing, but for now let me speak of horses.

I was fortunate as a child to have a couple of years living in the country to introduce me to how riding should be for every child who takes to these wonderful animals. At the stables in near Oban where I lived, the schooling was relaxed and the trekking was great wth the ponies well used to being hacked out. I don't recall ever seeing a horse bolt or buck, and we happily rode them bareback to the fields at the end of the day to turn them out.

Requests for a pony of my own were not successful - as a parent myself now, I have sypmathy  - and so at weekends, I would romp around the fields near to Ganavan quite literally try to catch ponies ...thinking back only a child would be so daft as to try and approach and befriend strange horses, and I did come a cropper with a bite once or twice.

Now, at the age of thirty six, I am no closer to catching or getting a pony (or horse) of my own. I ride every week, but a job, two kids and a mortgage have put my dream firmly in the 'as if' camp. No number of requests to Santa will deliver a gift with such a great financial and time burden to my family, not to mention the inherent increased risk of accident associated with riding more frequently. And yet even with the limitations of living in the city and rarely going out on hack, I still adore these animals and yearn to ride more.

In short, I still want to catch that pony! I am now changing tack, and finding new ways to catch them through my work as an artist, through Horse Portraiture.

I am discovering new outlet for my love of horses. In between riding them I now draw them and work on catching them in a different sense.....catching their essence, beauty and expression in the art. This is such is a special thing and I feel extremely lucky that I have a talent that allows me to do this.

I have started this blog to share my experiences creating Horse Portraits alongside my own personal horse experiences as I continue to grow and develop through my riding and my art. My hope my art will bring delight to owners and horse lovers, and that through doing something that I truly love well, may even inch closer dream....