I'm trying to teach myself to draw in a manga style

I've been experimenting a little bit. Here's an example of one horse drawing in a slightly manga-ish style:



I think I need to work on:

- more detail, especially in the hair department.
- eyes!
- depth/3d effects.

But I'd love any other suggestions! :)

Vale Sally Swift

I just found out that Sally Swift has passed away at the age of 95. Such an inspirational woman who has taught so much to so many.

I have a copy of Centered Riding that I dip into every now and then for inspiration. I have found many useful things in it, and I shall certainly keep picking it up and reading bits for as long as I am a rider. It is the sort of book that really helps to keep you on track!

One of the things that I definitely use a lot, thanks to Sally Swift, is a long walk warm-up. The lightbulb moment for me in Centered Riding was when I read the section about a very stiff horse that took ages to warm up. The rider had been spending ages trying to loosen the horse up in trot, but then when they tried a walk warmup with lots of bending and stretching they found that the horse began to loosen up much more quickly. I began using this in my riding and found that it is an extremely effective warmup strategy! I don't just use it for stiffer horses, as I believe that every horse should be given the best warmup possible.

Sally Swift's influence in the horse world is vast, and will continue on for many, many years into the future.

It's about time I found some new horsey quotes!

Motivation has been a bit hard to come by lately. There's been a lot going on, but now I've got a bit of time so I'm going to seek out new inspiring things to help get me back on track!

First off, I love this beautiful artwork. I can't post the picture here because of copyright, etc, but I urge you to check it out!! It's beautifully painted, and just plain magical in a way that so many images that are supposed to celebrate the majesty of horses just aren't...

I wish I could buy it and hang it on my wall! But for now I have to be content with gazing at it on RedBubble. And dream of a day when I may create something like that...

Quotes are another way to kick start my brain in an easy bite-sized chunk! (Fun size?)

I've been collecting them on this little site here. I desperately need to add new ones, but it's great to read over the ones I've already collected.

February already? Better get a move on!

Well the weather has made it tricky to ride, so the ponies have mostly been on holidays and I've been playing about on internet stuff!

RedBubble mostly :)

New stuff:



This one is called Cranky Pony

It's an older drawing I did quite a few years ago. I love the expression on the horse's face :)

New Year's Resolutions...

I'm feeling inspired to do things today. I've half taken down the Christmas tree (I decided mid-way that I'm going to buy a new storage box to keep it in, so that's going to have to wait a little while), and generally started cleaning things up. I'll unpack the suitcases next I think...

Pity it's too hot now to clean the horses up. That's on the list for this afternoon. They're all very muddy right about now from the rain while we were away. It was good coming back and seeing them again, but now I have to get back into my campaign to find new homes for two of them... It sucks, but it's got to happen. I've got two perfectly good, rideable horses out there just hanging out doing nothing! If I was super-rich I'd keep them (and probably a heap of other ones too...) and pay someone to come and ride them or something, but unfortunately I have to get moving on my decision to free lease them out... or maybe even sell them if I'm feeling really brave... eep!

I've never sold a horse. I don't know how other people do it really... it has to happen one day though. There are so many good homes out there for horses, with people who will love them and take excellent care of them. I just have to stop being an anxious control freak and make myself let go :P

I bought a copy of Horse Deals to look through and see all the people who have horses. There are a lot of them! And there are definitely people out there who would make excellent homes for my two.

So it's going to be a new year's resolution. New homes for the horses!

Ooh, did I mention I'm addicted to RedBubble??

Hehe, I guess I've become so engrossed in RedBubble that I forgot to post on here about it!

I haven't uploaded much work yet due to scanner and storage issues. Namely, my scanner is being temperamental, and most of my old artwork is stored about an hour away from where I live... So I discovered a nice free program called 'GNU Image Manipulation Program' or GIMP. It's very cool, and I think I've got most of the basics understood now... So basically everything uploaded so far is something I've drawn while trying to figure out how to use GIMP!

Actually that's not 100% accurate, as the first thing I uploaded was a photo of a flower. It was the first time I've ever taken a photo of a flower in fact, which just shows how desperate I was to upload something on there so I could play around with the settings and see how it all worked!

I'm slowly getting better at working with GIMP, and my aim is to have enough work that I'm proud of on there to make a calendar for 2010. :)

Here's a slideshow of my work, and a link to my gallery.



I've ordered a few things from RedBubble and the quality really is fabulous. Well worth checking out if you're looking for a good 'print-on-demand' site that deals in t-shirts, greeting cards and wall art! :)

Well that was a nice little break now wasn't it?

Things got pretty busy there for a while! Hopefully I'll be able to get back to a more regular schedule of blog posting now that Christmas is done for another year!

How was your Christmas? Mine was pretty good! I got a new rasp for trimming my ponies' hooves, and after using it I can't believe I put off getting a new one for so long... Funny how much easier it is to trim when you're not using a blunt rasp!!

The horses are having a bit of a holiday. I had my last competition before Christmas and was very pleased with the results considering our preparation was a bit patchy due to all the rain. I rode in two tests, for two seconds with scores just over 60%. I was especially happy considering the surface was slippery so I had to ride 'safely'. We weren't exactly dribbling about or anything, but we definitely could go more forward next time under more normal conditions.

Always good to finish the year on a good note!

Hope you're all recovering well from whatever festive celebrations you may have been partaking in :-)