horse in burnt sienna watercolour

step by step horse drawing in pastel

Step by step horse in pastel (Art Spectrum soft pastels on Colourfix paper)

I think there is another step ... I'll post it soon.

New sketch book

I was given a beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright sketchbook after house/horse/dog minding for friends. I'm starting to fill it ...

beautiful 'kinetic art'

for videos of these amazing moving pieces go to the following links:

pegasus automaton

dragon automaton

You can see more of Keith Newstead's beautiful creations at:

http://www.keithnewsteadautomata.com/

sketch book: Arabian foal

Arabian foal - pencil sketch

arabian head study in ink

An ink painting of an Arabian horse. Art Spectrum Ink on watercolour paper. Through my detailed drawing practice I have improved my quick and gestural paintings. I love using rich, dark ink.

horse skeleton

Here is something I drew while studying equine anatomy. It's an excellent example of what happens when you confidently draw an entire hind limb without considering the space required for the rest of the horse ...

Truth be told, I wasn't too worried, as my aim was to become more familiar with the names of various bones. It's very odd to consider that the horse's knee is equivalent to our wrist - meaning that they are actually delicately poised on one finger. No wonder they are so prone to tendon strain when we work them hard.

So here's my very creatively compressed horse

need holiday reading?

I highly recommend the fascinating late nineteenth century journal of Lady Anne Blunt (including her sweet watercolour sketches). The journal details her (often adventurous) travels amongst the Bedouin tribes and elsewhere in search of Arabian horses for the Crabbet Stud (many of whom were to become wonderfully influential dams and sires of the breed).  Among the many lovely horses she imported to England were Skowronek (Poland) and Mesaoud (Egypt). Her journal entries are always entertaining and include tales of woe relating to over-exuberant camels and some lovely descriptions of horses.

There is a lovely blog (at Clouddragon) on Lady Anne Blunt here, by the happy owner of a Crabbet descendant (note that the story also continues at the bottom of her page). 

horse poem - in progress

For my next exhibition I'm going to combine words and images. Here's a work in progress. Not sure what the final format will be. I've posted it on my fiction page:

http://opheliasfiction.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/horse-poem/

anatomical horse

Well, sometimes my gothic fiction interest creeps into my horse drawings (not so often the other way around). This was intended as a response to Stubbs, but it does come across quite ... unsettling. It was something I was considering putting in a reasonably conservative equine art competition / exhibition some time ago. Think they would have gone for it?

By the way - it's Liquid Spectrum ink (permanent) on watercolour paper.