a whimsical horse illustration

This past summer, I spent a great deal of time working with watercolors. I've always kind of liked using them for projects, but it wasn't until I purchased a higher quality set of pigments that I really fell head-over-brush for their unique colors, ease of use and how well they pair with my mixed-media style.

On our farm, one our our miniature horses is Miley. Miley has always had the most wild hair. It gets even crazier in the winter, but here's a photograph of her signature 'do for reference:

Horses are a recurring theme in my artwork. They're so beautiful, and contrary to popular belief, even the miniature horses are majestic.

I created this watercolor, ink, graphite illustration inspired by Miley. I'm imagining she embraced her inner hippie, sticking flowers, butterflies, ribbons and feathers in her hair.

Whenever I begin an illustration like this, I always start with a mechanical pencil. As I tell my students, a mechanical pencil, while not appropriate for shading, is ideal for preliminary sketching as it has light-colored, hard lead that allows for marks to be easily erased.

After I had sketched this in, I began watercoloring. To my watercolor creation I added ink, and even used some of my Tombow Dual-Tip Brush Pens. The final piece then needed something else, as there was quite a bit of blank space on the page so I added some graphite flowers in the background.

When I started the graphite flowers, I was nervous at first to add such a strong mark to the picture, but I think it really ended up balancing out the piece.

I was really delighted with how this piece turned out. I cropped it down a bit so I could place it on a paper (a sort of faux-matting technique I quite like) and then frame it for display.


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