color – Moose Pants Studio

Photos, photos everywhere, and not a Belgian to be found…

Joanna Zeller Quentin / art, artist, Belgian, black and white, color, create, drawing, equine art, horse, horseback, horses, india ink, knife, mare, painting, Photography, scratchboard, watercolor /

It’s 1:00 in the morning, and I have been roused from my bed by a haunting vision of two Belgian mares standing in a meadow. Seriously. These two mares were the subject of a photo shoot back in the spring of 2010, and one of the bargains struck with the owner (before he allowed me to go slogging in knee high mud through his fields) was that I would send him a print of one of the paintings I would create featuring his two lovely horses. “Tempest” was actually inspired by this photo shoot – although it looks nothing like a calm, placid 15 year old Belgian mare contentedly nibbling at her hay. I hesitate to send him a print of one of his mares looking like a wild beastie from a Walter Farley novel.

(Here is the finished “Tempest”, btw. Turn it on it’s side and squint your eyes, and you can just see a quiet, elderly mare with a slight breeze ruffling her mane. Such is the magic of art.)

But, alas, the end of the year is fast approaching, and my plan of delivering a small painting to this gentlemen is in peril… because I can’t find the darn photographs. Here in my studio I have thousands of photos. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of shots – mostly horses (followed by birds and then big cats and then everything else), all sorted and catalogued by subject. Want a rodeo scene? Check. Want a picture of kids with their ponies? Got it. Want a Saddlebred just stepping into the sunlight with a glittering ribbon pinned to her bridle? Here you go! Jumpers and dressage and reining and lungeing, I’ve got them all. All reference shots, and all mine. But 23 pictures of two mares, a field, an old man who would have fit perfectly in the last century puttering around his farmyard, sweet shots of plowed earth, broken cornstalks and rich, heavy, black Illinois topsoil? I have no idea where they went. And now it will drive me crazy.

It does, however, give me an excuse to pull open my heavy filing cabinet drawers, grab a handful of pictures, and dream. Here’s a painting, and here’s a painting, and here’s an etching, a drawing, a watercolor. In my hands I hold the promise of so much great art! Magical moments where the light and shadow have come together with the action and the sentiment and the pure equine form – and somewhere buried in all of that is exactly what I’m trying to say with my paintings and drawings. Look at this creature, this thing, this miracle, this wild, four legged spirit partnered with man to do amazing and athletic things. Look at him jump and race and run. Look at him cut cattle or execute a canter pirouette. Look at him safely cart children around the field or step into the show ring before thousands of spectators in a world class competitive setting. And look at the relationship forged between man and beast. We can guide a half ton animal around with a piece of leather. We can ask him to jump over 5′ fences. We can watch him separate cattle from the herd or chase a ball around while his rider swings a large stick in the air. We can put him in a starting gate, throw the doors open, and expect him to fly down a dirt track, striving to vanquish every other horse on the field.

Painting after painting after painting. Photograph after photograph after photograph. Idea after idea after idea, until finally the idea becomes inspiration, and the inspiration translates to the art.

Name Change! part deux, or “just add purple”

Joanna Zeller Quentin / Albers, art, artist, color, drawing, equine art, George, Hanovarian, horse, horseback, horses, Josef, oil, opinions, painting, Rembrandt, Stubbs, Thoroughbred /

I didn’t exactly explain the name change yesterday. It’s freshly engraved on my drawing desk, pinned to my bulletin board, and now the new name of my blogspot. We’ve all heard of exhibitions called “The Horse in Art”. I have at least three books – lovely, full color coffee table books – celebrating our good friend the horse in art. It’s a fairly self explanatory title, an exploration of how different artists have depicted the horse in art since those Lascaux pastelists got the jump on all the rest of us. But “the ART in HORSE”?

I am at a crossroads in my art. This is nothing new – it’s been building for years. I know what I love. I know what moves me. Bold, exciting color, painterly lines, furioso brushwork, eloquent drawings and elegant etchings. Sargent, Rembrandt, Rousseau, Albers. All used their virtuosity to push the boundaries of their art. (And we won’t even talk about Picasso.) I don’t think I’m tired of the subject matter. Horses are my love, they are my passion. I know them, their musculature and lines and motion, and I enjoy showing the world what can be done with a “horse painting”, especially in a way that hasn’t been done before.

But lots of it HAS been done before. Lots of tightly rendered pencil drawings. Lots of finely detailed oil paintings. Lots of photorealism, and lots of stylization. Every brushstroke exact, every hair in place, every blade of grass gently waving – sporting art at it’s finest.

Yes, there is a place for that type of art. Yes, it has a long and distinguished history in the art world. (Stubbs, I’m looking at you. No really, I am. Bought a book the other day.) Yes, some people are amazingly good at it. Yes, it is art. But it’s not me.

(Confession: I WANTED it to be me. I drooled over Carl Brenders art when I was a kid. I tried and tried for years to render tightly detailed, extremely realistic paintings and drawings. I finally had to accept that it just isn’t me, and no matter how hard I tried, I only ended up with a disorganized mess or a pounding headache. One day I just accepted that this is the way I paint, and I apparently I can’t do anything about it. Life, and art, got much easier. And my art teachers went nuts.)

So…. art of the horse. I propose a change of direction. A shift in perspective. One where the painting ISN’T about the horse. It’s about color and brushstrokes and line… and it just happens to have a horse in it. What I want to do is embark on a systematic exploration of color… on horseback. Primaries, secondaries, tertiaries. Complements and triads. Josef Albers on horseback. From now on, it’s NOT just about the horse. It’s about the art.