Horse Art

I just spent a gorgeous Autumn day participating in a workshop on Assateague Island.  The class was called "Gesture Sketching and Photographing Wild Horses for Studio Reference."  I guess my ADHD kicked up to high gear because I never read the "for studio reference" part of the title before I signed up.

I've often said that the reason I'm a photographer is because I can't paint.  And "sketching" sounded safe.  It's not drawing or painting, right?  And since I've barely graduated from hang-man stick men, gesture sketching couldn't be too far of a stretch, right?  This was going to be fun.

The sketching part of the class was taught by Karen McLain, a phenomenal artist who travels the country to paint wild horses.  The photography was taught by Meredith Hudes-Lowder who owns Equus Ferus - Wild Horse Photography, with a Facebook page with more than one and a quarter MILLION followers!  Of course, I didn't know any of this when I started the class by saying I didn't need any instruction in photography but I did want to learn to sketch.  Fortunately, Meredith didn't take my smugness personally.

Two other students were taking the class.  In fact, this was day three of a four day painting workshop they were taking with Karen and Meredith.  I peeked at their on-going projects and, OMG, they are artists!  MaryBeth was in from Minnesota and this was the 5th year in a row that she attended this workshop at Assateague and Judy has a degree in fine arts from a school in Toronto.  Okay, stickmen skills, don't let me down now.

We loaded up in a car and headed across the bridge to the Island.  Meredith announced we were going off-road to the south part of the island to explore for ponies.  I was thrilled.  This is on my bucket list and I didn't expect it to happen today. 

First stop was to let air out of the tires.  Not completely, of course.  But hard tires don't do well on soft sand.  The gals had a tire gauge and let out just enough air that we had traction on the beach.  As we went through the gate and hit the first big bump, Meredith yelled out, "I presume all you ladies wore good support bras today!"  That's when I knew this was going to be a very good and memorable day.  Meredith's nine to five job is performing gynecological exams on under-served ladies in New York City and as a result, she's not the least bit bashful about pretty much any subject.

When we found the first band of horses, Karen and Meredith coached us to walk a wide circle around the horses so we can photograph them from the front, back and each side.  Pay attention to their feet, the bend in their legs, the wiggle of their ear, the sway of their tail.  Study how the light hits their body and the shadows dance on the ground.  Watch how they interact with each other.  And don't forget to take in their surroundings. 

I ended up taking 760 photos that day, pretty much all of horses.  And I learned a ton. I also did a few scratches, I mean sketches but nothing I'm comfortable putting on-line.  I was awestruck watching Karen with a paint brush and little watercolor bring life to a blank sheet of paper.  I'm definitely intrigued to find the artist within me.

But the biggest outcome of the day is that I feel like I made a bunch of new friends.  As we zoomed along the beach, we told stories and laughed a lot.  We called ourselves The Five Wildly Creative Women, with the emphasis on "Wild."  The outing felt more like a retreat than workshop and we all connected spiritually and through social media. 

A special thanks to the Assateague Island Alliance for putting on this program.  It is one of many programs they put on and this is a very worthwhile organization to join and support.