I got more outstanding horsie photos from that year or two of visiting Iowa Ranch horse shows than in my whole life.
The first year I went out with Susie and a friend of hers had just had a crop of foals. What could be more appealing? Kittens, maybe. Some puppies. But foals--- all knobby knees and ears and little, ineffective whisk-broom tails...With their mama's-- all eyes and flattened ears and nerves. Who are YOU? What are you doing near my baby? You think so, do you?
(Mares with foals are not something you mess with unless you know them or they are well socialized.)
(There is a photo that makes the rounds now and again, that I think is supposed to be funny and maybe it is unless you have seen with your own eyes what is about to happen: It is a dog, running full tilt with a horse close behind, ears flattened tight against the skull and neck snaked out low to the ground, mouth agape, hooves pounding.
As I said, I believe it is supposed to be funny unless you know how fast a dog-hating horse can move and what they do if they catch up. I knew a mare who went through a fence, down the street and up onto a porch in an effort to kill a dog that had passed through the pasture. Feral dogs had killed her foal the season before. She never forgot. Periodically, we would find trampled dogs in the pasture....Cindy always caught them.) I find the photo scary as hell.
I digress.
So last night going through some old photos I found the baby horse pictures, one in particular appealed to me: a foal investigating a tin of oats. And I decided to paint. It isn't great. Maybe not even good. I am, however happy with a painting that took a couple of hours and used one of my favorite subject matters. No lonesome houses, no leafless trees, no snow: just a baby horse...
