I think of most us would answer yes to that question! But when I decided to draw one for my friend as a christmas present, I wasn’t sure how it would turn out.
Growing up, rarely a day passed when I wasn’t drawing horses with swirling hair & prancing legs (although I didn’t figure out how to draw joints until adolescence, so lots of Gumby-impersonators) in school notebooks, event bulletins, margins of coloring books, anything with a blank space.
The Not-Riding Lessons
When I was 13, mom started dropping me off at evening art lessons once a week. My teacher, Anneliese, fascinated me: a German artist, perhaps in her 60s, she had exquisite murals of horses & forests painted on entire walls of her tiny house in a tiny town. A small room in the back, crammed with 3 rows of easels, her rolltop desk, & a large drawing table, was her classroom/studio – you’d never have guessed she had works hanging in the Library of Congress.
She was a whole kingdom to a kid with an already over-active imagination, complete with royal commandments. Her master brush was her sceptre as she enforced her edicts:
Anneliese passed away around my freshman year of high school. I kept drawing here & there, took a few art courses in college, but life piled up. So as I dug through boxes, unearthing the Strathmore, now old enough to vote AND drink in the US, it had been a decade since I’d done anything more than doodle on conference programs & meeting minutes at work.
Like Riding A Bike?
Art does have its own muscle memory, same as riding. My hand & eye still knew equine curves & shadows, but I’d never attempted a portrait before. Because they’re hard!
You’re not just replicating a horse, you’re trying to capture one unique horse. Pencil had always been my wheelhouse & animals the subject I understood best, but infusing a drawing with a huge equine personality was a leap I hadn’t successfully made. I did have a very helpful ingredient on my side: love for the subject & his owner.
Only one way to find out, though. And worst case scenario, I could make a pact of silence with Mr. Shredder & no one need be the wiser.
So I took a deep breath & laid down some landmarks with the 4B. Time for the moment (er, hours) of truth.
The heady mix of challenge, excitement, & even catharsis stirred up memories that smelled of graphite, turpentine, the wood-paneled studio walls, heavy archival paper. You know how you can hear your trainer’s mantras in your head in the warm-up ring? I could still hear Anneliese’s heavily accent in my pencil strokes:
Here you are then: Texas Pete, compatriot & favourite riding buddy of Solo’s, a mischievous Polish Arab whom we suspect is actually a monkey with hooves. Sorry that sucky people who steal things for money cause giant watermarks & low-res photos.
Growing up, rarely a day passed when I wasn’t drawing horses with swirling hair & prancing legs (although I didn’t figure out how to draw joints until adolescence, so lots of Gumby-impersonators) in school notebooks, event bulletins, margins of coloring books, anything with a blank space.
The Not-Riding Lessons
When I was 13, mom started dropping me off at evening art lessons once a week. My teacher, Anneliese, fascinated me: a German artist, perhaps in her 60s, she had exquisite murals of horses & forests painted on entire walls of her tiny house in a tiny town. A small room in the back, crammed with 3 rows of easels, her rolltop desk, & a large drawing table, was her classroom/studio – you’d never have guessed she had works hanging in the Library of Congress.
| First drawing from class, 1991, "Football Geese," hee |
- Thou shalt begin with the Strathmore Drawing pad, one Castell 4B pencil for base sketching (made in Germany…so also permissible for dressage), & two extra-sharp Eberhard Faber Ebony charcoal pencils.
- Thou shalt complete the following subjects:
- Landscape
- Still life with fruit
- Flowers
- Birds
- Linear perspective
- If satisfactory, you may then choose your own subjects (asking “can I do a horse now?” every week will not speed up the process).
| Yes, Hello Kitty sharpener! |
Like Riding A Bike?
Art does have its own muscle memory, same as riding. My hand & eye still knew equine curves & shadows, but I’d never attempted a portrait before. Because they’re hard!
You’re not just replicating a horse, you’re trying to capture one unique horse. Pencil had always been my wheelhouse & animals the subject I understood best, but infusing a drawing with a huge equine personality was a leap I hadn’t successfully made. I did have a very helpful ingredient on my side: love for the subject & his owner.
| Gotta start somewhere... |
So I took a deep breath & laid down some landmarks with the 4B. Time for the moment (er, hours) of truth.
The heady mix of challenge, excitement, & even catharsis stirred up memories that smelled of graphite, turpentine, the wood-paneled studio walls, heavy archival paper. You know how you can hear your trainer’s mantras in your head in the warm-up ring? I could still hear Anneliese’s heavily accent in my pencil strokes:
- “You can always make ze shadows darker, but never sacrifice your highlights, nein.”
- “Pencils, they must never be allowed to get dull! Sharpen!”
- “The eye, it is everything. You finish the eye last.”
Here you are then: Texas Pete, compatriot & favourite riding buddy of Solo’s, a mischievous Polish Arab whom we suspect is actually a monkey with hooves. Sorry that sucky people who steal things for money cause giant watermarks & low-res photos.
| Forgot to take photo before under glass |
| Le Finale |
