There is a challenge going on called World Watercolor Month. There is a list of prompts and all that but you aren’t required to use the list. I haven’t done this challenge in previous years but since I am in the middle of working on a project that is a mix of watercolor and gouache, I figured I would post these for the Watercolor month.

I like to do self inflicted challenges. They are good for keeping me in the creative mode. The latest is going back to my roots and creating some horses. I used to draw and paint horses all of the time when I was young. I had a little handbag I would carry with me that had my “herd” in it. I can’t believe I shlepped my tiny Breyer stablemates and other horses around with me and they are still Live Show Quality to this day. The reason why I stopped drawing horses and segued into plein air and other art is because I didn’t want to be pigeon holed doing one thing. I never regretted that decision and the many, many years of painting plein air and sketching on location has made me a much more diverse and versatile artist.

I am not sure I’ll be posting horses every day. These take a while, but I will be posting something with watercolor, even if I am out “guerrilla” sketching.

Today’s horse is a Morgan. The first one I did in my sketchbook. I picked the Morgan Horse since it is the first breed of horse that was created in the United States. The Morgan Horse breed came from one stallion, “Figure,” or “Justin Morgan’s horse. From that one stallion, we have horses like the Standardbred, American Saddlebred and other American breeds. You can read a story about this horse in a book by Marguerite Henry called “Justin Morgan had a Horse.” It’s a children’s book with wonderful illustrations by Wesley Dennis. I still have my original book.