When I was around 2-3 years old I had an imaginary friend. Sadly I don’t remember her that well myself. I wanted her with me at all times. Mom said it was a pain getting her into the backseat of the car in the mornings… My friend was a horse.
A real life sized, living, breathing, invisible horse. The horse filled most of my bed at night when Mom was reading bed time stories for me. And of course she had to hold the book so my horse could watch the illustrations with me.
My parents were not very cooperative in acquiring a visible horse for me at that time. But from the simple logic, that if I could not have a real horse, I could at least have one I had made up, I also started drawing horses. As time went by, I learned about lines, proportions and form. I distinctly remember the day, when I suddenly jumped to a whole other skill level in drawing.
When I was 12, I was in bed with the flu. I was bored, so I grabbed a piece of paper, my color pencils and one of my favorite illustrated horse books. I started drawing, but this time I was not focusing on my dream of a horse, but instead I focused on lines and angles, shadows and light. I was almost in a meditative state for hours.
The result was a product so far superior to anything I had ever created before, that I was stunned. I started out that day with a skill level like the pencil drawing below here, which was not terrible, but also still could develop to something better. In a matter of hours I ended up with the drawing of the colored foal below, which to me seemed light-years ahead of the first drawing.
I never forgot that sudden realization, that I really can bring to life whatever I truly desire.
A horse seems to be a fitting motif for the first new sketch in my blog.
Horses are difficult to draw. They are in some ways very boxy and showing a lot of muscle and bone ends poking against the skin. But at the same time horses are rounded and elegant, especially as they move and their tails and mane flows with them. Sketching a jumping horse from imagination today was albeit familiar, still a challenge. I like the result.
