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.
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| First drawing from class, 1991, "Football Geese," hee |
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:
- 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).
It may seem strict, but it was all mixed in fun with her big glass jar of
German hard candies, a ridiculous little Maltese who made everyone giggle, her
own easy laugh, & the class (
nearly all adults, I was the youngest)
who all helped each other.
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| Yes, Hello Kitty sharpener! |
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.
 |
| Gotta start somewhere... |
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:
- “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.”
I’m pretty happy with how it came together – the hardest part was keeping the
secret until I could finally pin down friend for the handoff. I wish I could
have framed it properly for her, alas, that always seems to require money! But
I at least found a mat & frame to hold it temporarily, to avoid smudging
& so I wasn’t just giving someone a piece of paper.
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 |
Belated yes, but I must share the fantastic-ness I got to meet, when Lauren of 
Holidays & I have mixed relations, but there is still no repressing my
smile at Solo’s unfailing welcome nicker as I step out the back door.
