Cottonwood Chill

Cottonwood Chill___20x16 oil on linen__for Passing America: The Great Plains__$1700 unframed
With Summer here and temperatures in the 100's every day, we can only DREAM of fall! Somehow, though, "dreaming" is a good tool for the artist! ...

I remember being young and BEGGING my parents for a horse! My friends had horses and we lived neat a stable where they were kept. Every day after school and all summer long I would hang out at the stables, brushing the horses, cleaning the stalls (YES, I LOVED doing that!...ANYTHING to be around the horses...I even loved the smells!...you tom-boys know exactly what I mean!).

...my friend Betty Sue would often let me watch her horse Ginger when she was out of town. This was the best of all worlds! I got to spend every moment with Ginger, and I would take her down to a far pasture to ride bareback, to halter her up to a tree and sketch her for hours. Her eyes told me that she loved me better than Betty Sue...(dreaming, remember?). My favorite thing was riding her into the deeper waters of Walnut Creek, and she would swim across with me holding onto her mane...Walnut Creek was cool because it was spring-fed, so this was a great summertime treat!....I never got my own horse as a kid, but DREAMING about them , I think, made me a better artist! I can draw a horse now, from memory, at ANY angle....