Bay Arabian- 30 minute pen sketch

"Bay Arabian"
gel pen
small leather sketchbook

I'm trying to pull myself out of this winter funk and begin publishing a new blog post 3x a week.  Today I came across a stock photo of this exuberant Arabian.  Despite my sleepiness (c'mon, it's in the lower fifties and sunny!  So much better than the negative temperatures we suffered in February!), I managed to dredge up enough motivation to do a quick sketch.  I worked with quick, gestural strokes of the pen.  There is a certain beauty to sketching that I haven't quite managed to translate to more formal work.  This particular piece showcases that beauty in its expressiveness and use of suggestion.  The viewer is allowed to speculate more about the horse instead of being given a  representation which leaves little to the imagination.  Perhaps the loose lines and wild energy appeal to me so much because it represents the churning thoughts of my subconscious, which are often masked by my practical and precise outer personality.

Arabian stallion sketch, v2.0

"At Attention"
graphite sketch
small leather sketchbook

I was still feeling attracted to the theme of black Arabian stallions, perhaps from having looked over my bookshelves and seeing Walter Farley's The Black Stallion.  This was the result of having spent about 45 minutes sketching from an online photo.  It's been very difficult for me to muster up the same enthusiasm to draw at least every week day as when I started this blog, but that's why I set parameters for myself such as running an ideal blog post schedule of every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

The end of the holidays and the old year lead to a sort of limbo in the beginning of the new year for me; no major holidays to plan for, a relatively clean slate, but rather forbidding weather.  Despite the rain and ice-covered sidewalks, I still walked my beagle this morning for our usual thirty-five minutes; I have no wish for my dog walker to risk life and limb in this weather.  As soon as I got back home, I wanted nothing more then to put my pajamas back on and resume watching nature documentaries on Netflix.  Instead, I salted down my bit of sidewalk, got in my car, and headed off to my 9-5.  

Resisting the urge to hibernate is a real struggle, including when it conflicts with my creative impulse.  This is part of the reason that I have not created anything on a larger scale than my little sketchbook recently.  I also will reluctantly admit that I haven't yet finished matting, framing, and taking my prints off to the floral shop.  One of my New Year's resolutions is to complete this goal before the end of January.  Today, I am considering opening up a Fine Art America or SmugMug account to further spread my art and potentially sell a print or two.

First sketches of the new year

Chiaroscuro Arabian
graphite
small leather sketchbook

Leaping OTTB
graphite
small leather sketchbook