I've taken some time this morning to catch up on some of my favorite web site and blogs. My friend Gail's blog especially spoke to me. Please read her post about one of her first art projects at www.shabbycottagestudio.blogspot.com. How wonderful that as a child she took the positive out of her art experience instead of the disappointing grade. Art definitely spoke to her. She is such a graceful writer.
I began to think about some of my first art projects. One of my favorite activity as a child was coloring in my cowboy coloring books. Cowboys were so interesting because they got to ride horses! I would carefully color just the horses in the coloring books, staying in line, adding shading, and leaving hilites. Golden horses, brown with white stockings and mane, ebony black, red (burnt sienna) with black stockings and mane, so many beautiful colors for the magnificent horses.
As I matured, and began school, in the first grade I found a book, My Little Indian Pony, with a beautiful, full body, spotted pony on the last page. I traced and traced, and colored him in many color combinations. My fellow first graders wanted me to "draw them a pony" too, so I got lots of practice. Then I discovered I could draw the pony without tracing! How exciting. Now I began to collect any horse pictures I could find and draw horses standing, running, rearing, heads, and bodies. My first "painting" book was Walter Foster's How to Draw Horses. What inspiration!
So many of us little girls began their art careers by drawing horses. I'm still looking for a copy of My Little Indian Pony any time I go antiquing.
