hindquarters study - sketchbook

Learning from other artists ... There's nothing like looking closely at the work of 'old masters'. I've learnt so much roaming museums too - places like the Metropolitan in NY, the Louvre and D'Orsay - and so many others! It's always inspiring and deeply humbling.

sketchbooks

Sketchbooks are places to let your imagination wander but also places in which to work things out. Above are some dog drawings I did after looking at Durer and some other artists. I felt myself getting a little tight and rigid, so I focused on shapes instead, and brought back the feeling of flow.

Below are some sketches by my husband, James. Here it's pretty clear what he's working out - what's going on beneath the surface?

blue and red - ink horse

Horse in Liquid Spectrum ink on Colourfix paper. Using heaps of luscious ink and creating the suggestion of detail without actually having much detail at all! Putting ink onto ink requires that you let go of the outcome to a certain degree. Great practice for perfectionists ...

interview with the equinest

Thanks to the equinest for the thoughtful interview. There are a number of interesting horse artists to look at on the site - not to mention general horsiness all round.
http://www.theequinest.com/ophelia-keys/

equine acupressure course

I just spent a wonderful weekend doing an introductory equine acupressure course, run by Tallgrass Animal Acupressure Institute. Here's a quick sketch I did to try to get some of the points down (I think it will take a while for me to get them right!). The horses' responses were really amazing. Once they worked out what we were doing, they seemed to go out of their way to sidle up to us for some acupressure. Alot of the basic theory was familiar from my Tai Chi classes, but there's so much else to learn! It also helped to have done some anatomy, although it certainly wasn't required for the introductory course. Our teacher was Robyn Grice. She did a great job of introducing us to the pretty complicated world of meridians, without overwhelming us. What a fascinating weekend!