I was one of those horse-crazy kids. I’m not sure exactly when I started on this obsession but it was well established by 2nd grade. My teacher, the blue-lidded Mrs. Gorr, gave our class some time on Friday afternoons to draw anything we wanted. My pictures were always horses, sometimes with cowboys, sometimes with circus acrobats, sometimes with jodhpur-clad show riders.
One day, my dad gave me the book, How to Draw Horses by Walter T. Foster. It wasn’t for a birthday or Christmas or anything, just out of the blue. I was thrilled. I spent a huge amount of time thereafter drawing horses as Foster taught in that slender volume with its folio-sized pages. Start with an oval for the horse’s belly. Add circles for chest and rump. Just the right pair of curves for the neck, a near rectangle for the head. Then the complicated details. The large, thoughtful dark eye with the depression above it. Big nostrils and sculpted ears. Legs and feet; very difficult, those feet; they got lots of space in the book.I held onto Foster’s book through high school, then lost sight of it. Not too long ago, I was in an art store where I saw the book, more correctly, a later version of it, on a rack. I bought it and love having it to help me resurrect my horse-drawing hobby.
I read all the horse books of my youth: Marguerite Henry’s King of the Wind and Misty of Chincoteague, Walter Farley’s Black Stallion series, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, Dorothy Lyons’ Golden Sovereign and more. I got familiar with an oft-used illustrator, Wesley Dennis. I could tell in previewing a book whether it would be really good or merely OK by whether Dennis’ drawings were finished pieces or just outlines.
Despite my obsessive interest, I had to love horses from afar. My dad was a railroad man and we were urban folk. There were no funds for me to pursue the expensive hobby of riding. I went to livery stables a few times with my cooperative younger sister or with one friend or another, . When my daughter took an interest in horses after a summer Brownie Scout horse camp, she and I took lessons off and on for a few years. Finally, in my 50’s, I bought a horse, the culmination of a life long hope. A major thrill and a major piece of luck that I got such a sensible beastie as Scout, an appaloosa and a mellow fellow with plenty of spirit. More luck: a great barn with terrific people, including helpful riding instructors.
Scout was my mount and my equine friend until he was felled by colic 5 years after I bought him. He is now galloping around horse heaven, a trail of his appaloosa spots swirling through the air behind him. I then bought MJ, a bulky sorrel-and-white paint with huge, deep brown eyes. Advancing arthritis forced me to sell her to a lanky and flexible teen.
I’m now on another appaloosa, the smooth-gaited Mohican. I still can’t believe the good fortune that has brought me these horses. Life is good.
