The Bond Between Rider And Horse

Every owner considers his horse a winner, according to a female artist from Walla Walla. The owner disregards the champion status of his horse. She lives on a ranch on Springdale Road and has established a successful career in horse art.

She is both a painter and a photographer, who can do either on commission or for shows. Majority of her customers are just people who enjoy horses, although she has painted some truly famous horses, such as a famous actor's championship endurance mount, Shur Raff Zi.

She is one of the few blessed who really love their jobs. Even as a teen, her interest in horses was sparked. At age 11, she began drawing pictures of horses, and she worked on her sketches for quite a time.

These experiences gave her a knack for shading that gives all her horse portraits depth. She tries to capture the unique characteristics of each horse on canvas.

She works with photographs of the subject. She rarely makes sketches on the scene, unless it is a special little mark peculiar to the horse like when she makes notes on the horse's color. She says she needs to satisfy the pickiest of customers.

Sometimes the owner has a preference for a particular angle, or will point out some special characteristic of the horse that they want emphasized.

To some owners, each characteristic is to be cherished, from facial expressions and wrinkles to cowlicks. Most owners are more interested in having their horses look natural than perfect. Her repertoire includes many breeds and different events, like barrel racing and cutting.

She says action pictures are so much different that she has to learn the trick to capture a horse in motion. The wrong angle of a cantering horse can make him look incredibly awkward.

Using a telephoto lens, she can catch that elusive action angle. She was called in for 15 18 shows a year when she still covered horse shows.

At the time, she did both photos and paintings of winning horses. Those photographers who take on shows full time find it easier to develop pictures on the spot with dark rooms in their vans. She feels her pictures come out the best when developed at her dark room at home.

Her experience, however, does include other types of family pets. Dogs and cats are not her expertise, and she either needs to see them in person or a good photo.

Any mental image she could conjure of these breeds would simply be inadequate.