sketch book: Arabian foal

Arabian foal - pencil sketch

wild horses

Many years ago I was lucky enough to get a book ($2!) called Wild Horses. It was written by Hope Ryden. She'd spent a lot of time out in the field, documenting the stories and behaviour of mustangs. She took some beautiful photographs and I thought I'd share some sketches of mine - inspired by Hope's images.

horses of st mark

James and I had a beautiful time sketching the horses of St Mark in Venice. They give a remarkable feeling of serenity in person. The real horses are inside the Basilica - we had the joy of listening to the singing below at mass while we drew.

head study in carbon pencil and brush

three drawings

sketchbook: three horses

Another page from the sketchbook ... (you can just make out the dogs on the next page!)

thoroughbred in ink

In response to a question by Grey Horse Matters, I thought I should share some info on how often I sketch. While I have seen artist blogs where the artists produce a painting a day (and for those who actually do that - wow!), I find that the practicalities of a day job and fitting in horseriding, writing and friends requires me to paint in bursts.



'Works in progress' are always current works, and as soon as I do a little drawing/painting burst I will post these recent images in preference to older ones. Sometimes I look through my sketchbooks and pick out images that I want to share. This one is an older image, when I was first getting really into ink. There are things I would like to change about it, conformation-wise, but the beauty and challenge of ink is that you have to stand by what you do!

thoroughbred detail

free jump - ink

Ink drawing from my sketchbook of a warmblood 'free jumping'. The initial drawing used Wolff's carbon pencils, which are lovely to use for dark, fine lines, rough texture or softened with water. I then used artists' pigmented ink over the top. This was quite a quick sketch.

arabian horse pencil study

horses I know - juno

Juno pushes herself up after having a good, luxurious roll in the dust. After getting up she gives herself a good shake, like a wet dog, and then wanders of to graze - satisfied in having undone all my careful grooming efforts.

Drawing techniques

Here are two pages from my sketch book. Both show the shapes I have used to block out the basic form of the horse. I often begin with the oval(ish) shape around the horse's shoulder and the shape of the hindquarters, brought together by the oval of the horse's barrel (belly). Many subjects can be broken into circles and cylinders, but you need to keep track of the overall energy of your subject.

ink horse

working in ink

There is nothing like using ink to force me to work quickly and freely, thinking in terms of light and shadow.

The ink is water-based and dries rapidly (especially on hot days). I can't erase mistakes or spend time agonising over little details. Plus I have to keep painting until the ink I've decanted is all used up (it would be terrible to let it dry up in the ink well!). I just love the deep blacks that are possible with good artists' ink.

This is the first of six, done v quickly on a hot Australian day (yes, it's summer over here!).